Summer 2009 Pt 1
So I’m back at Hampshire. Today was the first day of working the help desk with Semple, our second year in that role. The biggest part of the job is calming down all the worried parents who can hardly stand the fact that they’re about to leave their babies forever.
It’s both familiar and unfamiliar, to be back here after so long. I’m very comfortable and used to the space, but I also feel like I know the student body a lot less. Many people I considered fixtures in the Hampshire community have graduated. I guess I’m one of the fixtures now. For a year.
Our mod is cute, though currently pretty empty and bare. My room is tiny, and I haven’t yet figured out how to set it up in a way that satisfies me. I guess that is just the general feeling right now: everything is okay, and pretty familiar, but there’s a lot more fussing and fidgeting to be done before I’ll really feel like I’m settled in.
Or maybe I won’t ever feel settled. Maybe that’s the point of Div III: to exhaust you of all interest and appreciation for this place, until you’re unquestionably ready to move on to the next step.
However. I went down into the media basement an hour ago, to scan this comic, and ended up running into both of the Johns who work there. I’ve known (and received lots of help from) both of them since my very first week here, when my film tutorial class toured the media basement. As a second year, I started monitoring there as a workstudy job. The basement is always happy and calm, with different people attached to their different equipment, all working contentedly on their different projects. It felt good to go down into the basement today, even though I haven’t become the video Div III I once imagined. John Gunther (whose favorite webcomic is Cat and Girl) helped me install the scanner so I could get this comic updated in time. So here it is.
I’ve got a lot of inking to do this weekend! I should really get to Northampton and buy myself a better dip pen.
Oh! And in case you haven’t been reading Action Athena very long, the summer comics from my two previous summers begin here.
September 4th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
HEY, I don’t want to move to Brooklyn that badly. Even one of my professors yesterday joked that there must be a direct train from Vassar campus to Williamsburg. I can’t bear the thought of living that cliche—faaaaaaaa!!!! Find somewhere else and we’ll talk.
Weeeiiiird that you’re back, eh? We have things to discuss my lady.
Kugs and Hisses.
September 4th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Was great to see you at one of the jams this summer! Hope you get to join us again next summer!
September 4th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
If there is justice in the Universe, I will be the old man in panel 4 someday. My God can you draw a grimace, Athena. I am looking forward to the rest of this.
secretly hoping the old man returns,
David
September 4th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
visit. me.
September 5th, 2009 at 10:46 am
We prefer the terms “without mental sophistication” and “beautifully challenged”
September 5th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
[...] nicest dads. Speaking of the CONSPIRACY…Visiting MPLS CELL Conspirator Ameritus ATHENA CURRIER has left Minneapolis after summering again with this fine institution to lecture sequentially [...]
September 6th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Hello Athena,
I just saw you’d left a link with your comment on my Glastonbury comic about offering girls wine out of a bag, so I came to check it out. I wanted to say thanks for mentioning that you liked my comic on one of your previous posts and also to say that I enjoy yours. I like that you’re doing stand alone strips but not keeping to a strict size or panel count and that you sometimes group them into a larger narrative, like Minnipeg. I think it works well.
I also checked out your YouTube videos and I thought your songs were great, wry and funny (nice voice you got there too), and I was struck by the contrast between real you and comic you. So I wanted to ask why your draw yourself so… scraggly? As someone who perhaps thinks about perceptions of self in auto-bio comics way too much, it intrigued me enough to ask.
I look forward to your Summer arc,
Adam.
September 7th, 2009 at 11:28 am
[...] what’s this? Well hey, it looks like Webcartoonist Athena Currier has finally concluded her 16-page minicomic about the Winnipeg Folk Festival, and is moving on to her annual four-page “How I Spent My Summer [...]
September 9th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Goldfeather: GOOD. Then we’re NOT moving to Brooklyn. (Remember this, internet, when she changes her mind come spring.)
Jon: I intend to come to as many jams as I can! Maybe even one or two over winter break!
David: I think a serious grimace takes years of dedication and practice. Perhaps Div III will offer opportunity? One cane only hope.
Becca: I WANT to visit you! Okay, my grand plan of the moment is to drive from Massachusetts to Portland after graduation (perhaps with a stop in ol’ Minnesota), visit you there, and then drive down the coast to San Diego, in time for COMIC-CON! It’s brilliant. Now I just have to make it actually HAPPEN.
Axel: “Beautifully challenged.” That’s fuckin poetic.
September 9th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Adam,
Wow! I’m so flattered you looked at my comic. Yours rocks.
Omigosh, I too LOVE comparing people to their portraits. I have a whole folder in my computer of exactly that–cartoonists and their caricatures.
I remember reading something by Aline Kominsky, where she mentioned an awkward situation she had while working on an anthology of work by female cartoonists. Someone interviewing the group about the book mistook Aline and another woman for one another, because Aline draws herself to be kinda unattractive, and the other woman drew herself…rather flatteringly.
I think about that from time to time in regard to self-portraiture. I guess I’d rather fall on the side of drawing myself scruffier than reality, instead of looking like I think I’m totally hot. Which, in some ways, makes me even MORE conceited, because it’s very self-righteous.
But I guess, ultimately, ugly characters just seem funnier to me than attractive ones.
PS Don’t get the swine flu!
September 9th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Hey Athena,
Thanks for answering my question. I thought it might come down to the fact that it is more fun to draw ugly exaggerated characters. I do try and draw myself quite realistically (as honestly as that is possible) because I am, in fact, “totally hot” and feel compelled to share it with the world (of webcomics). I am therefore the most conceitedest! The King of Conceitedlyness.
I like the Aline Kominsky anecdote. I would totally be the interviewer in that situation. I recall meeting one autobio artist once and thinking “Hmmm, come on now.”
I did not and will not get the swiney flu because I am made of sterner stuff and am friend to all the animals (except jellyfish, they can fuck right off).
Keep up the great comics, you scraggly little woman,
Adam
September 23rd, 2009 at 12:55 pm
I like your comic. Again. You’re good at simplifying things in funny ways.
Very good.
September 23rd, 2009 at 6:36 pm
Madelyn: Woo, thanks! I am still oh-so-secretly reading your blog, you know. It is also Very Good.
September 26th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
I *really* don’t wanna move to Brooklyn.