I can’t sing enough praises about my recent lecture trip with Scotty to the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD).. The trip really was the highlight of my cartooning year
The faculty, staff and students could not have been kinder; the facilities could not have been cooler; and the in-class mini-lectures and Tuesday-night big-ol’ lecture could not have been more fun.
Special thanks have to go out to Jeremy Mullins, Department Chair David Allan Duncan, Emily Stockdale, Ray Goto, Dove McHargue, Dean John Paul Lowe, and Julie Collins. These professors invited us into their classrooms for one-on-ones, critiques, mini-lectures, sharing of best practices, and lots of Q&A. If the students enjoyed it, they didn’t enjoy it half as much as Scott and I did.
It is rare, impossibly rare, to have a program devoted solely to Comics and Sequential Art. Perhaps even more impossibly rare to have that program be any good. So, for us, the chance to go to SCAD and see their 400-student-strong Sequential Art department not only humming along, but offering classes *Scott and I* wished we could take — well, that was awesome. It’s an amazing program they have there. I have every intention of getting back there and teaching some day. Ray, I’m holding you to your offer.
I was so wrapped up in the excitement of my visit, that I didn’t take a whole lot of pics while I was there. But I did want to show you four:
First up, the immaculately restored three-story Victorian mansion SCAD put us up in: The university’s guest house, Magnolia Hall. Here’s a shot of Scott and I on the front-facing porch. Look at that place!
SCAD put millions into its restoration, and it shows. We had the 13-room mansion to ourselves — and the place was magnificent. My bedroom had 20-foot tall ceilings, a king bed with 10-foot-tall-posts, floor-to-crown-moulding windows, and every conceivable Victorian and modern nicety you could imagine. Magnolia Hall embodies SCAD’s place in Savannah: The school is slowly buying up classic-but-run-down building around town, and restoring them to former greatness. They’re at around 60 buildings, so far.
The second shot I wanted to share with you was of this amazing cake that Sheldonista Amber B. made for our visit. She took the shot of the lecture’s poster, and turned it into an even more beautiful cake. The watercolored-trees, the characters rendered in chocolate…it was all too perfect, and was heart-breaking to cut into and taste. Thank you, Amber!
The fourth pic I wanted to share was a gift from Samantha de G., a SCAD Sequential Art student who gave me an incredible scultpure of Flaco reclining on a rock. Samantha, I stared at it on the plane all the way home with a smile on my face. Thank you!
SCAD, thank you again for the wonderful welcome. It was the highlight of my year.