Hey friends!

October has arrived in all its sunny glory here in Gainesville. With the close of September I thought I’d take a chance to do a quick recap of the last month here at SAW and give a little insight into what’s been happening behind the scenes.

In person programs

September 6 marked the start of our year long certificate program. After suspending all in person classes in March 2020, we made the decision to return to in person programs with COVID-safety measures in place.

Andi Santagata joined us from Vermont for our first six-week session, offering a comics fundamentals course for our in-person students Mondays and Wednesdays. Tuesdays and Fridays we’ve been tackling drawing for comics and exploring the SAW library with me.

While some of the content overlaps with the online offerings, its largely original resources and exercises with live interactions everyday. There’s been lots of great laughter and sharing, which has been a real high after 18 months of locked doors.

Students in afterschool teen program working with instructor, Elli Rhodes.

October 25 we’ll be welcoming our second resident artist, Casey Nowak, to teach Storytelling here in Gainesville. Keep an eye out for the online pro call in November. I’ll be teaching Professional Practices on Tuesdays and Derek Ballard will be leading his Comics and Storyboarding class in person on Fridays.

If you’re based in Gainesville and want to join any of these classes please feel free to reach out. Capacity is limited as part of our COVID precautions but we’d love to see some extra faces in the room.

After printing mishaps, delivery delays and months of general chaos, we shipped out certificates for our 2020-21 Online Certificate students. We were thrilled by the work produced and ideas shared during a year that would have otherwise been spent in complete isolation.

Publishing at SAW

This September we sent two new anthologies to print:

Today we received an update that they’re on their way to us. Preorder now! We hope to have them out to you mid October.

Front covers of upcoming anthology projects.

Our next publishing project will be an anthology of work from our graphic novel students and another open call to SAW members before the year is out.

As you already know, we’re Florida-based and part of our mission is to champion Florida cartoonists. This month we’ll be launching the minizine Junk World USA by Gainesville local, Kiana Stewart, and an anthology of in-person SAW alum alongside a gallery exhibition, October 26 to November 20 at GFAA. Support us on Patreon to get an end-of-year zine bundle sent your way!

Team updates

Behind the scenes we’re starting to plan for our end-of-year fundraiser and look towards 2022.

If anyone is interested in being apart of the planning and implementation of our end-of-year fundraiser, feel free to fill out this volunteer expression of interest form - https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeJr0ccsfJ6Gc_sjZkZLwLHySeBBuxZWUk5-yY9qWsacjW62w/viewform?usp=sf_link – or you can reach out to me directly.

Team spotlight

As well as regular updates about what we’re doing here at SAW, I wanted to take a chance to spotlight some of the people that make everything work behind the scenes.

Karlo Antunes is an essential part of the SAW team and this week, on top of making his own comics and keeping the SAW boat afloat, he’s been finessing the details on the second issue of his passion project, Bird Brained Zine, to send to print.

Follow Bird Brained Zine on social media and keep an eye out in the network for updates on how you can get a copy in your hands.

Upcoming programs

Sign up for our upcoming classes today! And don’t forget we have a host of free events to bring together our Mighty Network community.

Shout out to our September Patreon supporters for helping us make all this happen: Jules Jackson, CB Hart, Janice Dees, Michael, Joshua Ney, Barry Sawicki, Kevin Almanzar, Neil Brideau, John Frigo, Karen Knighton, Deborah Rubin, Warren Craghead, Lisa Hosakawa, Joan Reilly, Maria Sputnik, Lisa Klug, Sally Cantirino, and Scott McCloud!

Until next time… Happy comics making!

- Emma @ SAW