For those wondering what may have happened in the Randy Queen/Escher Girls dustup from yesterday, there have been a few occurrences that are noteworthy:

• Ami Angelwings, proprietor of the Escher Girls blog, put up a timeline of events¹ last night.
• Some time after that, Tumblr restored the text of the posts that Queen had DMCAed, but not the images.
• Some time after that, Randy Queen apologized, sort of. Turthfully, it was not really an apology in the sense of saying I wronged you and I’m sorry and I won’t do it again, it was more in the vein of a statement that yeah, something happened but we cool now, but that walkback was probably the best that could be expected. In case the text isn’t visible to you (I don’t know how Facebook works, sometimes I can see links there and sometimes I can’t), here it is as an image.

Much as I would have been thrilled to cover a prolonged story, the stress and headache for Angelwings would not be a fair tradeoff for easy posts on my part, so let’s just be glad that this one wrapped up without too much unpleasantness. If Queen revokes his DMCA takedown on the original images, then we can call it a 100% satisfactory outcome and respect him as a stand-up guy. I’d add Tumblr restoring the rebloggings that they removed to that list, but I don’t think any of us think that’s going to happen.

Want to read something that’s unambiguously happier? How about the first portion(s) of a lengthy discussion between Becky Dreistadt and Phil McAndrew, both contributors to the Benign Kingdom series of art books. The conversation presently has two parts up, here and here (I missed the first part when it came out, just before SDCC, but when the second part came out yesterday I went back to read it), and future installments will be found here.

Dreistadt and McAndrew have both spent considerable time in the art mines, leading them to have a great deal to say about topics ranging from digital vs traditional media to the value of art school. In fact, let me pull out a choice quote on that latter topic: Asked about her time at SCAD, Dreistadt said:

I enjoyed my time there and met a lot of incredibly talented artists that helped me to push my work. I think for me I needed to go to art school, it helped to discipline myself and to find my style. Before I had attended art school I was into gothy anime and thought that the only way to tell if someone was a good artist was if they drew really detailed. So I’d do these terribly cross hatched to hell dark moody pictures. And school helped to teach me how to tell stories that had a point and that you didn’t have to make serious work to be taken seriously.

Now recommending art school or SCAD is tricky to me. Some people need it, I know many people who never went and have careers as cartoonists. But I also know people who have gone to art school and never made a living doing art and are in debt. Art schools are not good at teaching you how to get a job or how to get your art seen. I really wish that my school had said that you need to go to conventions and you need to post your work online. That is how I have gotten all of my jobs and how I’ve made a living. And the artists that aren’t making a living seem to not do either of those things. [emphasis added]

Here’s why I bolded that chunk: it occurred to me while I was in San Diego that the faculty in the sequential art and/or animation departments of fancy art schools ought to find the time to buy one Mr Bradley J Guigar a whiskey sour or two and pick his brains about how he’s teaching his arts entrepreneurship class. I’ve had that conversation with him (over the phone, so I don’t know if he had a whiskey sour close to hand or not, but I’d wager he probably did), and what he’s teaching is revolutionary — how to make a living as a working artist.

A lot of faculty probably don’t want to have that conversation, as the romantic image of making art in poverty until your genius is recognized is still rather prevalent, webcomickers are probably not opposed to the idea of burying that poisonous ideal once and for all². Some of them have in the past, presently are, or at some point in the future will be teaching in some of those art schools, and would be benefiting their {past | present | theoretical future} students an immense amount. Plus, you’d see Brad on whiskey sours, which is always fun times.

Spam of the day:

I Finlandesi dunque vogliono riformarla in questo senso; in caso contrario – è la conclusione – ?uscire dalla Ue è un’opzione, se la Finlandia si convincerà che comporta più svantaggi che benefici?

I’m pretty sure that with very low trade barriers and possibly the most efficient agriculture in Europe, Finland is better off in the EU than they could ever be out of it.

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¹ Wisely, she put it up on Blogspot, seeing as how Tumblr have proven remarkably amenable to pulling down posts in response to DMCA requests that range from iffy to utterly baseless.

² Paging C Spike Trotman, message for Spike Trotman on the topic of paying artists.