The cartooning class I was taking ended a couple weeks ago, and the feeling I have about it ending is largely one of ovarwhelming relief. You’d think a class in cartooning would be a joy for me, but I found myself experiencing some of the same problems I had when I was actually in school, like not working on my assignments until the last minute, etc.

I liked the class way more at the beginning when there was more discussion and stuff, but in the last month, we just came in once a week to sit and draw, which I didn’t need to drive half an hour to do. I guess I was looking for a stronger sense of direction. I didn’t want to complain, though, since Max, the instructor, had to put up with at least a couple combative jerks or clueless idiots the first few weeks, and I didn’t want to seem like another malcontent.

The first night, one of my fellow students seemed to grow practically enraged because he had preconceived notions about it being more of a straightforward drawing class in order to discover his artistic style, and I wondered why the hell he didn’t just take a regular art class instead. In the end, it seemed like I might have been better off in a creative writing calss. Or therapy. Because it’s extemely discouraging to stare at a blank sketch pad for three hours straight. It makes me feel like maybe I’m just no longer cut out to do anything that requires creativity and intelligence, if I ever was in the first place.

I was surprised that angry guy from the first week came back few more times after that, although he did eventually stop showing up, along with around half the other students, for one reason or another. There was one guy in particular who initially struck me as pretty intelligent and thoughtful, but he wrote a couple essays on his own initiative that he passed out to the class, which we were all a little baffled by, but I just thought it meant he was really caught up in his enthusiasm. But I guess he was actually just being a douche by essentially saying, “This is how I would teach the class,” and then he announced he wasn’t coming back.

I didn’t think there was necessarily anything wrong with the way the class was run, except in the last half, where we were basically cast adrift and told to come up with our own stories with no real guidance or anything, although I seemed to be the only one of the remaining people who really struggled with that. At least I stayed with it to the end. Iroincally, now that the class is over, I’ve thought of a couple ideas for comics that might be worth pursuing if I don’t lose interest.

Incidentally, this is what Max had to say about how the class went: [link]