I’ll probably do a live stream of my progress on this if I work on it tomorrow. <3
It’s been fun stretching the fashion side of my brain. I feel a lot more comfortable designing costumes and clothes now than I did a year ago. Although even then I remember my teacher giving me an A- on my notebook in which I was designing Sister Claire characters, complaining that I needed “More normal clothes!”
….SCREW NORMAL CLOTHES. I’LL BE FABULOUS IF I WANT TO! >8O
Jeremy “Sweetwater” Mullins was my webcomics professor at SCAD. Exactly one year ago, he fell off a cliff while hiking in New York, and died at the very young age of 31. Today marks the first anniversary of the death of the best teacher that ever was.
I was in a 2 hour long car drive with my mom yesterday, and I spent a good chunk of it talking about Sweetwater. You know some some people ask themselves “What would Jesus do?” Whenever I make any decisions regarding my webcomic, marketing, etc, I always think “What would Sweetwater do?”
Sometimes I wish I could have been at his funeral to get proper closure like all his other students. It really threw me a curveball, everything happened while I was so far away, I just couldn’t connect with it. Hiking? My pudgy, nerdy Sweetwater, HIKING!? It didn’t even sound like anything he would ever do! When people started posting about it on Facebook (which is how I found out) I was convinced they had it all wrong. It had to be another Jeremy Mullins from Savannah.
Even a year later I still get the feeling he’s still there at SCAD, waiting for me to take his Master’s class like I’d promised. Days after his death, I had dreams where he would visit me and crack up over what a huge prank he’d pulled on you guys, and how he was going to make a huge comic about it on his site, Sweetwaterisanasshole.com.
Instead of returning to SCAD, I’ll be doing a somewhat related Master’s in the UK this fall. I doubt a single day will go by when I don’t think about him and strive to make him proud. In many ways, he has completely changed my life.
I first started work on Sister Claire in his class, and I also discussed the early ideas for Nightingale with him. We created my portfolio site sitting together in a cramped library one afternoon. His enthusiasm and encouragement helped me get the courage to self-publish online after every editor I had spoken to told me to “forget about” working on the comics I had planned.
I can honestly say I would not be the same person without his teaching, humor, and friendship. And for that, I will be forever grateful.
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