When Cole Goco, 17, sits down to draw his comic Billy the Pop, every line and contour is decisive. He uses pen, after all. And, after five years, hundreds and hundreds of strips published regularly to a blog, two self-published comic books, a dedicated following, and—most recently—the recognition of Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, it’s safe to say Goco knows what’s doing.

Goco, a student at H.B. Woodlawn High School in Arlington, says Billy the Pop began when he was 12. He had already taken a few cartooning and art classes at local camps and school when he realized he wanted to work on a longer comic strip to show friends and family who were impressed with his drawing skills.

And so, he grabbed a pen and sat down nearly every day to draw. So, why a talking popsicle named Billy?

“To this day, I’m not sure how it came about,” Goco says. “I just thought ‘Let’s roll with it.’”

Last Thursday, Wesleyan University announced that Goco had won an honorable mention for its 2019 Hamilton Prize for Creativity. “It’s really amazing to have Lin-Manuel Miranda mention your name in a tweet. That’s surreal to me,” Goco says.

The prize is awarded to three students whose creative works best reflect Hamilton, created by Wesleyan alum Miranda. He is also on the selection committee.

Lady Bird actress Beanie Feldstein, also on the selection committee, called Goco’s comics “incredibly clever and sparkling” with “a strong visual style and voice,” according to a release from the university. Along with recognition, Goco wins a $5,000 stipend and a spot at Wesleyan next year.

This isn’t where Goco expected he’d be when he began drawing Billy the Pop. The comic strip follows the titular talking popsicle and his friends, a talking turtle named Pete and a human named Harley, in situations Goco says are partly inspired by his real life. For example: “If I went on a hike that day, I might draw the characters going on a hike.”

Having a joke is part of the gag in the three-to-four panel comics, Goco explains, citing Calvin and Hobbes as his biggest inspiration.

“There are a lot of Calvin and Hobbes strips with the characters just ruminating on some philosophical question and it’s not so much humorous as it is thought-provoking,” Goco says. “So, I try to do that with some of my strips, but I mix that with jokes.”

In a strip from last October, Harley discusses his perception of time and memory: “We remember certain small, specific moments, and the stretches of time in between are completely lost in memory. Is our mental timeline shorter than that of reality?” Beside him, Billy the Pop quips, “All I know is I can’t wait for this moment to be lost in my memory.”

In the five years since he started the comic, Goco said he’s learned a lot about character development. “I’ve been kind of wary of adding new characters because you have to get the sense of all the sides of them,” he says. “It’s hard to suddenly add a new character and make them well-rounded.” Yet, he concedes that, “the strip has grown quite a bit. The artwork has improved.”

Over time, he said he has occasionally drawn larger strips, including one where Billy and Pete jokingly warn beachgoers of a shark in the water. “That’s the biggest in scale the comic has gotten,” he says. “I was drawing all of these people getting out of the water.”

Goco has maintained a strict posting schedule of every other day for the majority of the time he’s been drawing Billy the Pop, only becoming less frequent in the past few months as he prepares for college. Still, a dedicated base of classmates, family, and friends have kept him motivated. As an H.B. Woodlawn student, Goco says he has been encouraged by teachers and classmates to keep drawing, with some students suggesting storylines for the comic to him. And there’s another reason why Goco has kept the comic going for so long.

“When people say I’m a great artist, it’s kind of a source of a stress,” he admits. “There’s an element of not wanting to let these people down. I’m, of course, very grateful.”

It’s not surprising, then, that Goco says he’s most like Pete the Turtle out of all three of his characters. “He’s kind of shyer, more introspective,” he says.

Goco says he has about 100 subscribers to the comic’s blog, but knows he also has other friends who regularly read the site without subscribing. Beyond his day-to-day comics, Goco also adapted several years of Billy the Pop comics into two self-published books available on Amazon.

While he says he hopes to keep his passion for drawing cartoons alive in college, he also plans to study something other than art, suggesting biology or chemistry as potential majors.

“I don’t think [drawing cartoons] will ever go away,” he says. “Maybe I’ll slow down, [but]… I’ll definitely be continuing to make art in the future.”

To other budding cartoonists, he encourages them to stand out by developing their characters over time. “Make something that’s long form,” he suggests. “Or you can do just a short graphic novel. You can spend time really developing that.”