Dakota McFadzean

After spending much time agonizing over my decision to apply to the Center for Cartoon Studies, I finally sent off my application in September.

Yesterday I received an acceptance letter (along with the great CCS How-To Guide, filled with the sort of anxieties and self-doubts that seem to drift through the mind while inking). By Fall 2010, I’ll be in Vermont beginning work on the two-year course of study to get my MFA.

Naturally, I was ecstatic, I’ve found it impossible to get White River Junction out of my mind since I attended the CCS Portfolio Day in November 2009.

I’ve been working full-time since March, as well as taking every commission that comes my way, just in the off-chance that I would decide to apply. Now that I’ve been accepted, the weight of it all hit me today. Debt! Distance! Visas! In short, this shit just got real. It’s a good thing they sent that guide.

So it looks like I’ll be continuing my office work for the next eight or nine months, which will hopefully help take a chunk out of the debt I’ll soon incur. My wife mentioned that we could have a baby in that time, but I think she was joking (though I seem to remember reading about a CCS student who had a baby with his wife during his studies … well, not literally during his studies, but the point is it can be done, especially if said baby craps cash).

Anyway, I’ll complain about the inflexibility of working full-time coupled with the finicky nature of creative inspiration another day.

For now, I’d like to post the comic I made for my application. Each prospective student must create a minimum two-page comic featuring themselves, a robot, a snowman, and a piece of fruit (the current application form also requests the inclusion of the ocean). For the printed version, I colored the falling hair silver in the last couple of panels … the effect was much more underwhelming than I would have liked.