"He gave up a job...": Chapter 5 The End?

I can't remember how but a letter bearing the insignia of the Center for Cartoon Studies came across my desk in '05. Something that can be described as a bug-like early-warning system began tingling in me. This is a story that had to be written! A comic book college, here in Vermont! No way! And just as I was beginning to delve into a Green Mountain comics scene that was vaster than I had expected.

Luckily the editor and a reporter in the Freep's Living department believed the same. Even luckier was they let me pitch in with the first article.

I wasn't only doing research for my part of the story. I was also checking this place out as a possible destination site.

Two years pass, (not to write the article!) I finally take the plunge. I send off an application package to CCS. Now, my rough, crudely drawn, six-page comic about robot wrestlers (yes, you read that right) has me a little anxious. I hope that my riveting, well-written essay on why I love comics and another on the meaning of "future/time" will win the review committee over.

I guess it does, because I'm accepted. After sweating over financing, housing arrangements and my family's state of mind, I enroll and start class in September, 2007. I've finally done it. The lifelong dream is finally coming to fruition. I'm going to make comic books.

Well. I made one. Any more remains to be seen. Why? Well, if this were a comic this would be the dramatic, series shifting, life-altering plot twist: I've had to put school on hold. The upheaval in the Kwanza household this summer has left me little time to deal with things directly related to my comics career (aside from buying comics as "research"). I've managed to squeak in a couple zines for my APA, comicopia. I plotted out some issues for Punk.
But as of the first day of class last week, I still didn't have a steady job, a loan for school or the certainty that all was back-to-normal at home.

How long before I return? Hopefully, just a year. What will I do in the mean? One thing is to be more consistent on the blog. It's supposed to be about my doings as a comics creator. School was just a part of that. A BIG, HUGE, GIGANTIC part -- but just a part. I need to keep writing. Keep honing my drawing skills. Stay in the mindset that I want to do this as a career; maybe a side venture, but not a hobby.

So, much like the Great Word Processor Crash of '94, my dream to make comics has taken a mortal blow. But hey, no one stays dead in comics, right? Stay tuned for more true believers. Stay tuned...