Remembering "Cartoon School"

There’s nothing like cleaning when you don’t want to write, and there’s nothing like reminiscing when you don’t want to clean. 

While attempting to de-clutter my closet, I pulled down my art portfolio and—since it was not fully zipped (naturally)—all of my old sketches and cartoons spilled out across the floor. It was not fun for cleaning, but it was fun for parking myself right on the carpet and poring over everything.

---

In the summer of 2013, I took a six-week cartooning course at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Cartoon School. It was super fun. 

I was actually trying to read Milton between classes back when I thought I was going to take the English GRE. Hard pass on that.

We practiced a variety of exercises and styles. If I remember correctly, the final project was a series of strips and four full pages about characters we had developed over the course.

I chose to write a comic about Walt Whitman as my... let's say indecorous, free-spirited housemate. My favorite part about it was that all of his lines came from his long-ass series of poems, “Song of Myself” (technically, it’s one long poem, but we can talk about that another time—actually, we can talk about "Song of Myself," 19-century America, transcendentalism, and other fun stuff another time).

Are there some things I would change about these drawings? Sure. Definitely. But for now I can remember and appreciate the excitement and enthusiasm of walking to comics class every week. 

From "Song of Myself" #14, #24, #5

From "Song of Myself" #24

So curious about what Tod and his wife are up to nowadays.

From "Song of Myself" #24

Here I am making a group cartoon-strangers tell cartoon-me that I am FUNNY.

If you want to see the rest of my Whitman comics, you can check them out in the SOWSEAR 3 Anthology (I actually got paid for tho$e!).

And if you’d like to see what my awesome comics prof is up to now, check out his blog.

P.S.

I am a hilarious genius.