Tony Cochran has been drawing for as long as he can remember -- woolly mammoths in tar pits on the cardboards that came with his father's laundered shirts, a mother woodtick dressed in "a fine, purple dress with dots of blue" during his kindergarten days and makeshift sea cow tattoos on the arms of third-grade buddies during lunchtime.

Cochran's fun and games became serious fare for him in the late '70s, when he began studying at the Columbus College of Art & Design in Columbus, Ohio, and at Wright State University in his hometown of Dayton, Ohio.

Through time and diligence, Cochran's artwork started getting noticed -- at exhibitions at the Columbus Museum of Art, as well as through other one-person and group showings at local galleries and art centers in the Ohio area. Articles and reviews of his artwork and paintings have been published in The Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Columbus Dispatch and Columbus Art, among other publications.

But Cochran's artwork didn't always pay the bills. In order to help support himself and his wife, Vickie, Cochran worked as an auto body repairman -- for 15 years. "But it was always going to be temporary ... just until the hot shots in New York noticed my brilliance at contemporary art," he quips.

And then, a couple of years ago, Agnes peeped through. She had good timing, too. Cochran says he was ready to move away from painting at that point and try something new. He then turned his attentions toward developing the Agnes comic strip character. Cochran's glad she was persistent -- he believes she's the sort of underdog newspaper readers love.

"Agnes is kind of an indomitable spirit," Cochran says. She has a rough row to hoe. She is poor, but not stupid. She has big dreams. She wrestles with depression and swaggers when she triumphs. She picks her battles, sometimes winning, sometimes losing. I think a lot of people will identify with her."