People with disabilities are slowly coming more into the media spotlight — characters like Artie on Glee and Raymond from Rain Man give others a view into life with a disability, right?

Not so, according to Jeff Preston, but he's aiming to provide one.

Preston was diagnosed with congenital muscular dystrophy at three months of age, and uses an electric wheelchair. He has always been an advocate for disability rights, and recently raised over $25,000 during his "Mobilize March," when he wheeled from London to Ottawa to advocate for accessible transportation.

Cripz: A Webcomic is the brainchild of Preston and his girlfriend and creative partner, Clara Madrenas. It gives "walkies" — as they are called in the comic — some insight into what it's really like to be a high-school student in a wheelchair.

"It was about creating something that was different than you normally would see," explained Preston. "We wanted to make a story that was truer to the disabled experience, while also taking a very sarcastic — perhaps sometimes cynical — look at life with a disability. But mostly we wanted to tell something humorous — to tell a funny story to say that not only is it okay, but it's a good thing to laugh about some of these things."

Cripz tells the story of teenagers Rhett Breton and Griffin Moonlove. The setting is a high school in a fictionalized version of London, Ontario. The comic explores issues like the complexities of high school, friendship and disability.

"There are a ton of influences that go into Rhett and Griff. I think at their core, they really are extreme versions of myself," explained Preston. "I have these two elements in my life where I do have this real disability advocate side — this very serious side about pushing forward the disability rights movement — but I also like to think I have a fun, colloquial side."

Preston said he enjoys playing with the dynamic of the friendship, and taking their personalities in different directions. "If Rhett is going to be all about the disability rights movement, what if we take that to the extreme, and what if we make him a militant disability rights warrior? With Griff, if he's a social butterfly — what if we took that to the extreme? We made him this vacuous, arrogant dude — that's really the only word to describe Griff; he really is this 'dude.'"

"They really play off each other, and call each other out on the things that they do. I think that's something that I really like about the characters, is that it's not just about Rhett being the smart one and Griff being the dumb one; they're both intelligent in different ways."

In addition to its main storyline, Cripz features special comics such as Cripz Goes to the Movies, which explores the representation of people with disabilities in film and Intervention, which looks at issues in London's own community.

Cripz is only a few months old, but it has already made an impact with people around the world. Within two weeks of posting the first comic at the beginning of May, 1,000 unique visitors had visited the page. The comic's popularity has only increased since then, according to Preston: "(We) just rounded over 9,000 unique visitors — we're coming up on our 10,000th anniversary."

"We've had messages from a guy who follows us from Pittsburgh who loves it, we've had readers in Europe, Britain, Spain … quite a few in the States now. We're getting towards the point where we have more readers in the States than we do here, which is pretty exciting."

Preston and Madrenas have a good system going to be able to complete each comic in a short time. "(I) write the barebones script and Clara makes it good," explained Preston. Though Madrenas has no formal artistic training, she designs the characters and backgrounds entirely on her own. Preston said she has amassed a database of characters' facial expressions, body positions and settings so that the comic can be put together quickly.

The original idea was to create an animated series and post it on YouTube. The couple decided on creating a webcomic instead, "Largely because it allows us to talk about issues as they're happening," said Preston. "There's a lot of production time involved in doing an animation. This way, we're able to really throw a comic together in a couple of hours, so we can talk about issues as they're happening, while also telling the longer story that interests us."

Preston and Madrenas said they would love to publish a Cripz collection one day, but for now the goal is to continue their success. "Right now, it's about continuing the story, telling a good story, getting that message out there and giving people with and without disabilities some characters that they can care about, learn about and want to know more about."

Check out Cripz at www.cripz.ca. You can learn more about Jeff Preston at www.getmobilized.ca.