Seattle Central College is trying to close the only public wood tech college in the state of Washington, which is one of if not the only avenue into woodworking trades for people who usually aren’t hired to be trained on-site: queer, trans, neurodivergent and disabled students, and women. Which is exactly what most of the students in the program are.
The reason according to the college is that they want to sell the building to fix the school’s budget; they also claim the wood tech college has a severe budget deficit, but they’ve failed to follow through on any promises to try to fix that (including hiring a permanent dean, so the school has someone to advocate for them… which they haven’t had in at least a decade).
The reason according to some students & staff is that Seattle College’s VP has a grudge against the lead carpentry instructor & has been trying to get her program shut down for years to get rid of her.
Students are trying to make some noise about it, in hopes that the college backs down and they can work towards the long-term fixes Seattle College keeps failing to follow through on.
There are less than 200 students at the wood tech college, so makes a really big impact when anyone else signs and shows that people outside of just students really care about this.
There were like 230 signatures when I first posted this- I’m really grateful to everyone who’s already helped out. It means a lot!
In general, things here are good, but lately I'm feeling more waves of "stressed and drained" or "lonely and sad" amid the normal "productive and high-energy" states. Work is intense, although at least they love and appreciate me and make it worth my while! Passover is coming, which is never my favorite, but it's good to feel that sort of renewal and spring-cleaning process.
If anyone else is still on Finch (self-care app) and would like to friend me, my code is BHRPQNLDPZ. I downloaded it last week because it seems a lot more fun to have a little round birb chirping "go do some things! you are great!" at me than it is to just sit there doomscrolling for an extra hour every morning while I tell myself "get out of bed, dumbass". I'm not sure it's actually gotten me out of bed any faster, but it is somewhat satisfying, and on the plus side, here I am writing a 5-minute journal entry for the first time in some years.
I'm also about to get out of my chair and go to the gym, but that's more a function of spring break, in the sense that it's the first Sunday in months I don't have to get up and/or roust child out of bed to be somewhere. I started up this gym membership in July of 2024 and I actually went faithfully 6 days a week for about 2 months that summer, but that fell off as soon as school started up. My therapist says "you have to make time for yourself" but my sleep has been so broken for most of that time, I didn't want to do anything to jeopardize it. It's been better in recent months, sleeping through til 6:30 instead of waking up 3:30 - so I really could get myself out of bed and use that time, but see previous paragraph about doomscrolling.
Also, the world is going to hell and it's terrifying. I am trying to plan out another visit to Boston exactly when airport security and jet fuel prices are both going insane, and I don't trust that either of these factors will blow over lightly. I am looking at bringing Ms A the first weekend of October for Simchat Torah at Tremont St., but if I could have my way, I would also come out by myself in June for a certain Beginning-of-Summer party. To say nothing of a bat mitzvah in late April and a friend's wedding over Labor Day, but those are looking less likely.
This past week was the 2026 JoCo Cruise; several people I know were on it, and I think it's fair to say that I was experiencing JoCo FOMO. I actually find that I fantasize a lot lately about traveling, not just to Boston but to other places - and that's making the above factors feel even more wistful.
I did get to Arisia this past January, for the first time since 2014, this time with 10yo Ms A in tow. It was a delight for both of us, but I'm going to punt that to (hopefully) a separate post as my timer is up.
after 4 years of drawing webcomics, this is my wisdom:
start now. now. now now now. or else you’ll never draw this damn thing
it’s fine if you don’t have the entire story figured out yet, it’ll happen naturally
draw what you want to draw!! webcomics often run for years, so you better work with something you like
don’t overcomplicate things. a simple, efficient work flow is your top priority in order to stay consistent
bullshit some things. trace background refs. reuse poses. draw your character’s face from different angles and just copy paste it in to save time. be smart about your work baby
take breaks if needed. webcomic burnout is real
sometimes, a panel or a page looks bad. shit happens. move on
lettering is actually really important and super hard to pull off
it’s your comic. do what you want forever!!!
I’m begging you again to work smart, not hard. reuse backgrounds. use brush sets for webcomic artists. trace 3D objects. use 3D models to pose your characters
you may need hours or days to draw one panel, but people will look at it for 5-8 seconds. keep that in mind
a simple background is better than no background at all (avoiding the white void increases the quality of your work by a ton!)
sometimes the anatomy needs to be a little off to make an interesting shot/panel. that’s fine, don’t worry about it too much
at least 2000px canvas and 300 dpi for good quality results
it’s okay to stop by the way. it’s okay to move on from a project if you no longer find joy in it
What with bucket hats, bare midriffs, and flared jeans having been resurrected by some irresponsible necromancer with frosted tips, I figure there’s no better time to resurrect some of my favorite Y2K fonts. I typically only see the same three or four pop up in discussions on the subject, so maybe this will be helpful to nostalgic designers. Click though for links.
Honorable mention to Yeoman Jack, an excellent free modern face by Iconian that looks more like it’s from the early 2000s than many of their actually 20 year old fonts. I tried to stick to fonts that I was pretty sure were not based on an existing typeface. I only left out Typodermic because Ray Larabie’s work is already so popular and well known, but Neuropol is obviously a classic. Check out his stuff if you’re nor familiar.
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