#dear students

Dear Students,

 It is getting closer. And closer. And soon we will begin our time together.

Before we meet, you’ll need to gather the following things and bring them with you on the first day of class, and you’ll also have to choose a class name for yourself.  (There is information about that at the end of this document)

 Our classroom, the Comics Room, is 6131 Humanities. If you don’t know where it is, you might want to give yourself some extra time to find it on the first day. The Humanities building can be confusing.  The Comics Room is on the 6th floor. Find the elevator and turn right when you get off on six. Go all the way down the hall find the door with sparkling silver fringe hanging over the doorway.  Dig it! You made it!

I look forward to seeing you in 3-D very soon.

Sincerely,

Professor Skeletor  (AKA Lynda Barry)

PART 1: CLASS SUPPLIES

-One three ring binder, 2 to 3 inch spine – no smaller, no larger.

-100 heavy weight plastic sheet protectors, already loaded into the binder.

Please do not get economy weight and make sure the plastic sheets are already in the binder before you walk into our classroom. This binder will be where your work will be kept throughout the semester. The binder stays in the classroom.

- A roll of scotch tape – the kind used to wrap gifts.

- 12 Black Papermate Flair pens, medium point.  Item number: PA8430152

Order a dozen of them. They are inexpensive, they have beautiful black ink, but they tend run out quickly so you’ll need a box.  Just so you know, they can be difficult to find if you wait until at the last minute.

 -12 Uniball Vision Stick Roller Ball Pens, Fine Point, Black ink  Item #60126

Order a dozen. IMPORTANT Note: Get the one with the light gray body.  That’s the Fine point.  Don’t get the ‘Micro’ point – which has darker gray body.  Don’t get the ‘Vision Elite’ which has a white body. These can also be difficult to find if you wait until the last minute.

-200 3x5 index cards, lined on one side, blank on the other

-200 4x6 index cards, lined on one side, blank on the other

-Three small glue sticks (like Elmers or UHU)

-8-pack Crayola Twistable crayons – not that hard to find and inexpensive but resist the urge to buy more than the 8 pack for now.

- BOOK:  Cartooning: Philosophy and Practice

Ivan Brunetti

Yale University Press 2011

ISBN 9780300170993

Sometimes they have it used at the bookstore but don’t wait until the last minute to find out.

 PART TWO :  CHOOSE YOUR CLASS NAME

 In our class we all go by class names of our choosing rather than our given names.  We’ll use our class names for the entire semester. You are free to tell each other your given names of course, but in class we will call you by the name you’ve chosen.

 You can pick the name of a character that exists in myth or fiction or even non-fiction, like Medusa or Shrek or Ruth Bader Ginsberg. You can choose to name yourself after an ‘entity’ of some sort, like NASA or Russian Dash Cam or Belvidere Plaza.

 You can choose a character of any gender, from any point in time.  Think of a name that you’d to hear said out loud a lot over the semester. For example, one semester I was Professor Chewbacca and I was so happy whenever anyone said my name. I’ve also been Professor Old Skull,  Professor Sluggo,  Professor Hebdo,  Professor Drogo? Professor Squirrelhead, Professor SETI, Professor Yeti, and Professor Mario Andretti.

 At the end of the semester your name will be retired. You’ll be able to use it again, but no other student will be able to use it in the future. On the attached sheet are all the names that are retired.  If the name you want to use is already on this list, you’ll have to find a new one.

 Please note: If you cannot decide on a class name, you’ll be given the name of an American president and will go by that name for the whole semester.  

(I’m assigning them in order and George Washington and John Adams have been used,  next up are Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe. )

 PS: Our classroom, the Comics Room, is 6131 Humanities. If you don’t know where it is, you might want to give yourself some extra time to find it on the first day. The Humanities building can be confusing.  The Comics Room is on the 6th floor. Find the elevator and turn right when you get off on six. Go all the way down the hall find the door with sparkling silver fringe hanging over the doorway.  Dig it! You made it!

 RETIRED NAMES of FORMER CLASS MEMBERS

(drum roll, shot of Wild Turkey)

 A

Akira

Altair Ibn La’ahad

Ambrose

Amethyst

Amygdala

Arabella

Arya Stark

Ash

Auntie Whispers

Avatar Roku

 B

Baby Porkchop

Baubo

Beatrix Kiddo

Bees?

Ben BagBag

Bender

Bezdomny

Big Boss

Bjork

Bluto

Bootsy

Brain Stem

Bulma

 C

Captain Haddock

Captain Underpants

Carmen San Diego

Cerebellum

Cerebral Cortex

Chef Boyardee

Chase Carver

Companion Cube

Count Chocula

Corpus Callosum

Charlie Hebdo

Chewbacca

 D

Daddy Radish

Danger Mouse

Daria

Dick Grayson

Director Flossy

Dolomite

Dorothy Darlying

Dr.Bronner

Dr. Girlfriend

Dr. Hibbleton

Dr. Jones

Drogo

 E

Eeyore

Eliza Thornberry

EVE(nings)

 F

Falada

Fay AtoMz

Felicity Merriman

Fenrir

Free Willy

Freida Ca$hflow

Frontal Lobe

 G

G.K.

Garlic Jr.

George Washington

Ginger

Gray

Green Puppy

Godzilla

Gorilla Grodd

Gort

Gravelord Nito

Grundy

 H

Haiku

Hal 9000

Hallelujah Jones

Harper Row

Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden

Hello Kitty

Hermione Granger

Hippo

Hippocamus

Homoerotic Subtext in Space

Honeybee

Huck Finn

Hunca Munca

Hydra

Hypatia

Hypothalamus

 I

Invader Skoodge

Inspector Gadget

Istanbul

 J

John Adams

Judee

Juju

 K

Kal El

Kali Kugelman

Kitty Foreman

Kiwi Jean

Knuckles Hemingway

 L

LMNOP

Lady Amalthea

Lapis Lazuli

Levi

Linus

Little Nemo

Little My

Lil Hot Stuff

Lireal

Live Harmless Reptiles

Lois Lane

Lore

Lord Zuko

Lucy Lou

Luna Lovegood

Lutra Lutra

Lymbic System

 M

Mafalda

Mako

Martha Stewart

Mary Poppins

Maya the Bee

Meelo

Mighty Manfred

Mighty Mouse

Monkey King

Mordechai

Mr. Bumpy

Mr. November

 N

 Nala

Neko

Nikki Minaj

Noqi

NoraEphron

Nostalgia

 O

Obelix

Octopus Carwash

Old Skull

Optimus Prime

Orange Marmelade

 P

Party Peanut

Peanut

Percy

Pegasus

Pigpen

Pigwidgeon

Pippi Longstocking

Pons

Prefrontal Cortex

Princess Bubblegum

Princess Leia

Princess Lolly

 Q

Quailman

 R

Raspberry Beret

Rattlesnake Master

Raven

Regina Phalange

Regular Sized Rudy

Robin Hood

Rose Quartz

Rosie the Riveter

Roz

 S

Santa Claus

Scott Pilgrim

Scout

SELCO

Sharkbait

Sherlock Holmes

Skeeter

Skeletor

Smaug

Smiley Bone

Snoopy

Space Dandy

Spethjasu

Spinal Cord

Spinelli

Spot

Stevie Beach

Stevanni

Stoibenator

Storm

Stritchy

Stella Luna

Squid

Squilliam Fancison

Squirrelhead

Starfire

Super One Foods

Sweet JP

 T

Taco John

Tank Girl

Temporal Lobe

Terra

Thalamus Wong

The Buffalo

The Girl

The Princess Anistasia

The Shmoo

The Spirit

Tigger

Toes

Trace Lactose

Twilight Sparkle

 U

 V

Vanth

Vicki Minaj

Vincent Brooks

Visual Cortex

 W

Waldo

Wilder

Woodstock

Wyoming

 X

Y

Z

Zef

Zenyatta

Zola

It is the end of the semester.  I know everything has gone to hell in a hand basket.  Talk to me.  I will help you.  But you have to talk to me.  Please.

Sincerely,

Dear students, thanks for bringing a glass to raise a toast to our graduating seniors and to yourselves in our last Zoom class today (an idea I had after realizing how fun Zoom scavenger hunts were in Zoom Sunday School). Our "commencement poet" today had to self-finance the publication of his poetry, struggled to find stable employment, lived through war and times when America was brutally divided along racial lines, and volunteered as a nurse when many needed medical workers. His name is... Walt Whitman! But this is not a story about becoming famous and vindicated - it's what I hope is the encouraging truth that if you want to make your writing a part of your life, you can. Our class might not cure Covid-19 or bring peace to our riots or reverse the terrible killing of George Floyd or turn around the pressure of hundreds of years of systemic injustice, but I believe there is still a real and inherent value to us being here together, and all the thinking and writing YOU have done.

These were the four 'takeaways' I hope you'll carry out of this class:

1. The power of metaphor to dramatize and transform our thinking* (*examples below) 2. The interconnectedness of setting and character, person and place (one affects and is shaped by the other) 3. The ability to hypothesize something meaningful from observing something real (a beautiful narrative is, as Marilynne Robinson wrote, "rigorous and dynamic and somehow bears a deep relationship to truth") 4. The sense that you too are part of the great river of literature as a reader and as a writer yourself – your thinking, your feeling, and your voice all matter

As we think of how to respond in these troubled times, an end goal I have in life is the same that I have with literature, to love with understanding – which begins from getting to know one another, listening to one another as we speak in our own words, and asking questions - and I think literature is one of the ways we can do that. Keep reading. Keep writing. Thanks for a great last Zoom class. <3 #dearstudents

(*Writing is mining vs. writing is gardening, from Barbara Sarnecka. Fracking vs. gentle cultivating!

From John Donne to Martin Luther King Jr.: "John Donne was right. No man is an island and the tide that fills every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. And he goes on toward the end to say, "any man's death diminishes me because I'm involved in mankind. Therefore, it's not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee." Somehow we must come to see that in this pluralistic, interrelated society we are all tied together in a single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And by working with determination and realizing that power must be shared, I think we can solve this problem, and may I say in conclusion that our goal is freedom and I believe that we're going to get there."