Thursday March 8, 2012
Morning came and we went to see gators. And gators we saw.
Afterwards, we headed back to SAW. Some people worked on comics about the gators, others finished up their stories from the previous days. We talked a bit about the logistics of putting a zine together: page counts, margins, covers, indicia. Tomorrow was the big day: we’d be assembling and photocopying all the zines in preparation for the big commencement party Friday night.
The students worked through the afternoon, and when closing time came around, many of them decided to stay late and keep working. It was cool to see the camaraderie developing between them. It was a great group.
That night, on the way out, I locked the SAW doors behind me and was confronted by a beautiful scene of the moon rising behind the power plant. I grabbed my camera and snapped some pictures before heading back to Tom and Leela’s for the night. I felt great. The workshop had gone so well, I was riding a kind of endorphin high! That’s when I discovered I’d lost the school keys somewhere between the school and home.
In a moment, my euphoria turned to anguish. What a jackass! I drove back to the school, figuring I must’ve dropped the keys when I pulled the camera out of my pocket. I searched everywhere around the school doors, the driveway where I took the pictures, even hunted inch by inch in the parking lot across the street with a flashlight. But to no avail. I’d lost the keys to SAW--the only set we had!
In dismay I went back home and told Tom. His landlord had a spare set, and hopefully we could get a hold of him before the doors were to open in the morning. I felt awful.
John Porcellino was born in Chicago, in 1968, and has been writing, drawing, and publishing minicomics, comics, and graphic novels for over twenty-five years. His celebrated self-published series King-Cat Comics, begun in 1989, has inspired a generation of cartoonists.
