See.... it's like this.

The

Emerald City Comic-con is bearing down on us like a runaway freight train, the same as it does every year, and I am up to my hips in trying to get my students' convention books ready to go to press, and figure out how many exhibitor badges we'll need, and work out a sketches-and-signing schedule for our grads who are coming to do a shift in our booth selling the alumni book, and clear the van request with the YMCA, and get the new students briefed on what to expect, and the parental permission slips out and signed, and.... aaaaaaaagh.

It's been crazy busy, is what I'm saying here. But I hate to miss a week.

So this week, I'm going to punt.

As luck would have it, Rebekah Denn, a reporter for Seattle's Child magazine, had been asking ECCC honcho Jim Demonakos if kids were welcome at his con and if comics even really were still kid-friendly, and he promptly pointed her at us. (Probably with a certain quiet smugness, though I'm only guessing about that part.)

Thus it transpired that a couple of weeks ago Rebekah asked if she could come out and spend an afternoon with us in class, and would it be okay if she brought a photographer. Of course I agreed, and we had a lovely afternoon. She was genuinely interested and the kids really responded to that, they loved the attention. In fact, Rebekah got so interested in our student comics and what the class does that the Cartooning class kind of took over the original angle for her article, and the upshot was that now the Madison kids and their comics are going to be the magazine's cover story this month.

I think the kids really enjoyed having someone objective -- that is, not a parent, or Katrina, or me-- take an interest. It was a real validation for them. (I give them all the support I can, but I know that they still feel a bit marginalized. Even today, in these enlightened times, wanting to make comics is still a hard sell to adults.)

Rebekah certainly did right by us; in fact, she was so impressed with work the class was doing, as well as the advance page proofs for

the Cartooning grads' benefit book, that she had a word with her editor-- and as a result, my talented TA Katrina was commissioned to do a new illustration for the cover of the print edition going to press on Tuesday.

Which makes her, I believe, the fifth of the Cartooning grads to turn pro in some capacity.

I love my job.

The print edition of Rebekah's article (complete with Katrina's new cover) comes out next week but

the online version is up now, and that's what you get from me this week instead of a full-on column. Enjoy.

See you next week. (One hopes I'll be riding the job by then, instead of the other way around.)