The Simple Things was a comic I made at the encouragement of Professor Ishita Sinha Roy my first year at college. It was a very random comic, more like a playground for me to test comic making and storytelling. The first seven strips were so bad I removed them from existence. But it was a valuable learning experience. I might have to talk more about it later. It was published in The Campus Newspaper from the beginning of my first year up to senior year, when I stopped to focus on my COMP. As of writing this post it’s most current story arc is incomplete but you can read all of it here!
What many people might not know is that it had a successor. A separate strip that began after I graduated. This is what we’ll be talking about here. This strip was perhaps what would’ve been a more appropriate and more interesting subject for Allegheny College’s newspaper comic: Gators going to college. I tentatively named it Gatorz. With a Z because it looked cooler.
I made most of these while working retail for the first time and that is a sobering experience that definitely makes you miss college, so a lot of these strips aren’t as messy as the Actual College Experience. It’s me looking fondly at them. I never put them online so this is my gift to my Gators, spread across multiple posts. We'll start with the first one here:
Move-in day! For first year students it’s definitely an event. Some parents/guardians are more attached to their kids than others, but not these ones. I remember my own move-in day and wish it had been a more light-hearted event but I suppose it’s one of those dramatic events for parents/guardians and kids alike.
You might notice that the art for this series still retained an “economic” look despite the character designs and backgrounds being more involved than The Simple Things. When you have a weekly deadline and you’re not getting paid, you tend to find shortcuts that just work for you. Whatever you end up doing, you gotta own your process. “Finished, not perfect”, is a motto a lot of starving artists have, and for good reason.
Allegheny College taught me to own my passion and not just get scared and jump on the career path. That's lesson #1. Find my other posts for other Gatorz wisdom.
~~ Jonathan Yee (Class of '17, Art Major, Computer Science Minor)
ALUMNI LIKE JONATHAN YEE GIVE IN A MILLION DIFFERENT WAYS. YOU CAN SUBMIT YOUR GATOR STORY TOO, AND HOPEFULLY CONTRIBUTE TOWARDS SUPPORTING GATOR TALENT LIKE HIS.
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