Gettin’ fat. Lickin’ snatch. . . and add some pro wrestling for good measure and you’ve pretty much got the Locas stories from Love and Rockets. I will say this ehough to any cartoonist out there – a lot can be learned from how Jaime Hernandez spots blacks.  It’s a simple, smart, straitforward appraoch.

School’s still out – bitches STAY krunk!

School’s out – bitches get krunk!

In case you didn’t know, I’m the host and producer of the SEQALAB podcast – it’s a twice-weekly podcast, put out by the school, for comic book creators and enthusiasts. The idea was that it’s a way for students to get the word out about their own projects and Web-comic sites, make industry contacts via guest interviews,  as well as share some of the knowledge and fun that we have in the department with the rest of the world.

After I came back from France certain changes had to be made. These were non-negotiable. Ol’ Brett from The Daily Odyssey had joined the ranks of podcast jockeys in my absence, and let me and the rest of the world know in no uncertain terms how he felt about those changes.

Everything worked out fine – better than fine as a matter of fact.  The show’s back on track and downloads have never been higher. Brett’s produced an AWESOME array of episode art for the show as well as stepped up in a BIG WAY when it comes to some of the editing.

But yeah, I jumpped in his shit a bit when he got on my case.

I won’t lie folks, this has been a buttfuck of a quarter at school – all the SEQA profs were slammed hard this Spring, but when stuff like this happens it makes all of the extra work put in and the time spent worthwhile.

I just saw that Scott posted the following on his blog:

Power to the Pod
— May 23rd, 2009

I wanted to take a moment to mention a wonderful podcast that I listen to every week, hosted by the students of the sequential arts department at the Savanah College of Art and Design. The podcast is called SEQALAB and it is hosted by Professor Jeremy Mullins and his sequential arts students. It is the audible treat of my week.

I had the honor of being asked to come out to SCAD last year with my buddy Dave Kellett to give a talk to the students about Webcomics and see the campus. It was my favorite trip of 2008 and I am looking forward to returning there soon. Since then I’ve gotten to know some of the students that I only met briefly while on campus, both through the podcast and their journal comics. I must admit that I am living vicariously through them as they are getting to experience something I longed for at their age: teachers who understood that cartooning was real art.

Understand that when I was in high-school, my art teacher hated me drawing comics. She reluctantly allowed me to enter a comic book into the Senior art show and despite the fact that it won the award for best of show, she still never really came around on comics until after I graduated. In college I studied advertising art and our professors threatened to fail us if we used computers, insisting that commercial design would always been drawn by hand. So to walk into SCAD and see these kids studying Sequential Art as a major. To see classrooms full of Wacom Cintiq drawing tablets attached to top of the line macs, I was blown away. I was astonished. And I was bitterly jealous.

Cartooning is my thing, and so SCAD is an institution I can get behind. Their sequential department is something I can champion and I’m happy to do so. I’m pleased to announce that your subscriptions to the PvP fan-club over the last couple of months have raised just around $700 that I’ll be donating to the Mike Wieringo Scholarship fund to benefit a SCAD student.

If you follow our shop-talk at Webcomics.com, if you enjoyed our book How To Make Webcomics, then you owe it to yourself to check out the SEQALAB podcast. And now is a great time to start listening because they just interviewed me and that show should be posted some time next week.

Power to the pod!

Links of interest:
SEQALAB homepage
SCAD homepage
Kevin Burkhalter’s journal comic
Lunarboyland, the work of Jarrett Williams
Pranas T. Naujokaitis’ journal comic
Brett Muller’s The Daily Oddesy

So, not only is the dude pimpin’ our podcast – he’s linkin’ up to my students’ Web pages, AND he’s created a whole commercial section on his page with the proceeds being donated to the ‘Ringo scholarship!

All I can say is. . . wow. I’m man enough to say I got misty.  Scott Kurtz, you are the man dude.  I look forward to kickin’ it with you in San Diego.

The very next day after drawing this comic – while putting together a manga presentation for my Survey of Sequential Art class – I came across a book called Barefoot Gen.

It’s an autobiographical story by Keiji Nakazawa about surviving the bomb drop. The comic is a super tear-jerker. It’s about a poor, hard-working Japanese family who’s against the rapid militarization of the country. The stand up for what they believe, get beat up all the time and their food taken away for it, and then get a fucking A-bomb dropped on their house.

So, needless to say, I felt like a super asshole for making light of the event.  I’m attaching a sample page that I scanned. I’d say go out and get a copy, it’s the most important manga I’ve ever read.

But, that said the service at Savannah’s newest sushi bar is for fucking shit.  The sushi rocks, but who wants to wait two-and-a-half-fucking-hours for the shit? Not me! Mu’fuckin’ chef Mike needs to get on that shit yo!

Though, the interior decor of the restaurant is very pleasing, I will say that.

Just like my regular feature here on this site – all the scenes depicted are indeed true.

Can you believe it?

This first one here is from Michael Ward – or “Chaz Michael Michael” as he was known to all the sexy ladies of Studio IV!

In this first set of pages, Michael depicts me exhibiting typical Web-comic class behavior.

These two show the influence ol’ Sweetwater had on the lad in terms of creative outlook! That’s what’s up Web-comic peoples – DON’T NEVER LET NO HATERS SHOOT YO’ DIGITAL JAM SESSION DOWN!

Uhhhhh, this last set might need some explaining.

When I asked Chaz what his comic was about first day of class and he said, “A pirate, a robin hood, and a space marine.” I promptly replied “What do they do, walk into a bar ?!?”  

The class then erupted in laughter.  

You know. . .those jokes that always start out with three oddly grouped guys walking into a bar. . .priest, a rabbi, and a yogi. . .

Eh, nevermind. You had to be there.

Somehow I let it slip once at a late-night drawing session that I had a personal fantasy of knocking the bottom outta some gal in a shitty, hand-made Galactus helmet.  It appears that the impressionable young Michael synthesized my little slip of the lip, and incorporated it into his “thank you” mini.

Still confused? So am I. Doesn’t matter though. It was a blast havin’ him in class. Enjoy the mini peoples.

David Duncan works hard for ALL of us sequentials – students and faculty alike!  

But what can I say? Paris rocked!

Sorry it’s been awhile since I posted.

In reality, I’ve been busy too. Wrappin’ up the quarter in Lacoste was INTENSE!  But, I’m glad things finished up strong here!

I felt bad about blocking people’s snapshots, at least for the first dozen times.  After that, I stopped giving a shit.