Emsony Seton spent a summer working as a professional dominatrix in a BDSM dungeon. She was kind enough to tell me (Dan Copulsky) all about it. We talked by email in June 2010.

How did you decide you wanted to work in a dungeon, and how did you get a job doing it?

I‘ve been interested in BDSM for a long time (I was playing around with tying myself and friends up in elementary school), but had only managed to incorporate light elements into my personal relationships. Stuff like fooling around with handcuffs, riding crops, ball gags, and light bondage. I’ve generally been more of a submissive with partners, and I was interested in trying domination. I worked at the dungeon for a summer and left, reluctantly, when offered a position that I could put on my resume.

I found the dungeon through a Craigslist ad. After I sent an inquiry and a picture they called me back and we set up an interview. As a security measure, the manager wouldn’t give me the address of the dungeon until she could see me on the street with the security camera, so she gave me a time and a corner near a subway stop. I called her from there, and she told me the address once she saw me and figured out that I probably wasn’t a cop.

How did working at the dungeon work? What were your hours, how did you get sessions, and how much did you get paid?

There were usually anywhere from 7 to 12 girls on a given shift. When we weren’t in session there were three rooms we could hang out in, two common rooms and a kitchen/ laundry room. While on shift we weren’t allowed to leave the building, and there was no guarantee of booking a session. When clients came they would meet with the manager and describe the kinds of activities they were interested in and what kind of mistress they were looking for (i.e., skinny girl for sensual domination, solid girl for heavy spanking, etc). Once the manager figured out what the client wanted there would be a “meet” in which whoever was interested in the session would meet with the client one-on-one for five minutes to introduce themselves and figure out what he wanted.

Once he chose one of us and negotiated the activities of the session the client would pay the manager $160 for an hour long session, of which we were paid $80. I worked three days a week, twice on the night shift (5:30pm-1:30am), and one day on the day early shift (10:30am-6:30pm). The amount of money I made in a week varied quite a bit, but I usually averaged about $460 plus tips.

What was the scope of activities included in the job, and how much room did you have to choose which clients to work with or negotiate what you’d do with them?

There was a pretty broad range of activities that went on. Intercourse and oral sex were quite decidedly not permitted—hand jobs were more of a gray area. Some clients expected a “happy ending,” particularly during a sensual domination session, and others would offer to tip extra. Sensual domination was popular, and usually involved humiliation, cock and ball torture, maybe some bondage, and light spanking, caning, or whipping. There was role play (think babysitter, nurse, therapist, schoolgirl, horse or puppy trainer), medical play (enemas, catheters, rectal exams, general sexually inappropriate nurse shenanigans), watersports, scat, sub sessions, electric play, latex, wrestling, face sitting. We also had some more eccentric fetish sessions. My first session was with “Smoking Charlie.” He was interested in being forced to smoke, and came regularly with a special tube that he fitted over his mouth. In his session I would inhale from the cigarette, then expel the smoke down his throat.

Some managers would pressure us to take on a session if a client seemed to be considering leaving the dungeon without booking a session. But we could always refuse to meet with a client, or make it clear in the meet that we weren’t interested. We had a lot of freedom to establish our own limits—some mistresses wouldn’t do any sub sessions. One of the veteran mistresses who gave training sessions to new girls said that when she started she carved out a niche for herself by focusing on enemas. Reading up on different fluids to use, perfecting her technique, and just generally expressing a whole lot of enema enthusiasm.

Who was your favorite client?

Man, it’s hard to choose just one. I had three regulars who were a lot of fun. One guy, “Walter,” was into skinny girls with prominent hipbones and ribs. He would bring his own mini spotlights to illuminate my body, along with a skimpy shirt for me to wear and black fabric to drape in for a slow unveiling. He also brought other mistresses into session. We would lick each other’s bodies, suck on nipples, and caress each other with ice cubes. Incidentally, these sessions were my first sexual experiences with women. Walter came every week, and he even brought me a card and a dozen roses on my birthday.

“Bill” was also great. He was into face sitting, golden showers, wearing nipple clamps, and body worship. The best thing about him was that he was just terribly earnest and excited. He seemed genuinely happy to be there, not ashamed of his interests. He would huff Rush throughout the session and say things like “Oh, this is so kinky! You turn me so on” in his thick German accent. Often he would book a half hour session and come within 10 minutes.

But my absolute favorites were wrestling sessions. I had one client, “Trent,” who wanted to wrestle until one of us tapped out. He ultimately wanted to lose (sessions would end with him lying on the floor jerking off while I stood with a foot on his chest or spit in his mouth) but he fought hard during the hour. There were rumors that he had broken people’s ribs and injured shoulders in past sessions, but the most damage I experienced with him was having the wind knocked out of me.

What about your least favorite?

In general, the most unpleasant clients were the ones who were struggling with guilt about their kinks or about visiting a sex worker. Those sessions always left me feeling sad and uncomfortable, and those clients were usually disrespectful and poor tippers.

My least favorite session was with “Pussy George.” My impression is that he was a kind of initiation for new girls, and most mistresses wouldn’t session with him more than once. He wasn’t entirely clear about what he wanted from the session when we met. I knew he wanted pseudo-medical plus pussy worship, but what he really wanted was a hand job and to go down on the mistress. I wasn’t comfortable with oral-genital contact with clients, and when I refused to let him perform oral sex on me he got crabby and compared the session to being promised a steak supper and receiving only a hamburger (hamburger being, I assume, looking at me rather than sticking his tongue in me).

Could you describe the physical space of the dungeon? How was it laid out and what sort of equipment was there?

The entrance to the dungeon was a really innocuous looking unmarked doorway in the fashion district. Clients and mistresses had to be buzzed in at the main entrance, then again at the door upstairs. There were three main dungeon rooms; the blue, red, and black dungeons. The black room, my favorite, had an attached bathroom, a king sized leather bed with attached suspension straps, a St. Andrew’s cross, and a suspension cage. All the rooms had pain-inflicting instruments along the walls, but a lot of that was more for show. We had drawers and racks of whips, riding crops, canes, dildos, and other equipment in the office.

There was a sound system that was controlled in the office. We could plug mp3 players in and play it throughout the dungeon and common areas. After Michael Jackson died there was a lot of punishment inflicted to the beat of “Thriller” and “Billie Jean,” but my personal favorite session music was The Velvet Underground, Nick Cave, and World/Inferno Friendship Society.

What were your coworkers and bosses like, and what was the social atmosphere of the dungeon? Were your coworkers doing the job for different reasons than you?

Some of the clients seemed to think that only the truly desperate would choose to work at a dungeon, but I don’t think that was the case. For most of us working there it was our first foray into sex work. A lot of us were college students or recent college graduates, although there was a core group of women who had been there for years and practiced power play and BDSM more as a lifestyle than a job or recreation. They mostly kept to themselves and were dismissive of new girls.

Some of my coworkers had a history of addiction or used prescription medication and alcohol to self-medicate, but it wasn’t as though we were all uneducated or incapable of any other sort of work. One of the managers went to Harvard. Another girl was leaving to attend Yale on scholarship. One girl came in only on Sundays and worked as an accountant during the week. For some it was an income supplement, for some it was a career, for others it was mostly for pleasure. Like me, a lot of the girls had played with submission in their personal lives and wanted to explore domination.

There was some workplace drama and cattiness, but no more than what I’ve experienced in more traditional work environments. In between sessions we spent a lot of time talking, reading, smoking, eating take-out food, and dabbling around on the internet.

We had four different managers, two of whom were former mistresses, and “the Man” who they answered to. He would stop by on occasion, and had a habit of assigning somewhat arbitrary fines for things like lateness, eating outside of the kitchen, or leaving locker doors open. His English was passable but not quite proficient, and he would post signs in our common rooms saying things like: “NO CLICKS (sic) IN THE DUNGEON,” “I KNOW SOME GIRLS WILL THINK IF YOU WANT VACATIONS THIS IS GOOD IDEA TO EAT IN THE ROOMS,” and “FREE DRUGS FREE GOSSIP” (meaning, presumably, that the space was to be drug and gossip free).

Do you think your experiences working in a dungeon will affect your future relationships?

I think that my experience in the dungeon made me more sensitive to power dynamics in everyday life, as well as more sexually assertive and open to trying new things. I realized that before working in the dungeon my definition of “sex” had been quite narrow—mostly just penetration or oral-genital contact. Before working as a dominatrix I thought that I was pretty exclusively heterosexual. While I think that’s still my primary orientation, there’s more ambiguity now—there are plenty of sexual activities that don’t require an erect penis that can also be a turn on for me.

I was afraid that having worked sexually with so many men in a professional context would mess with my own experience of sex, that maybe I would end up jaded or desensitized, or would always feel like a service provider with romantic partners. So far that hasn’t been the case.

I imagine that my having been a sex worker, however briefly, will scare off some potential partners. I think that’s probably a good thing. It’s a litmus test of sorts—anyone who can’t accept my interest in sex and kink, or demands a clean past, would likely not be a good match for me.

Are there things you’d only do if you were getting paid for them? Are there things you’d only do with a partner you weren’t working with professionally?

It’s hard for me to imagine engaging in infantilism role play without being paid for it. I had some sessions in which I diapered, powdered, spanked, and verbally humiliated clients who acted like infants for the hour. It just really isn’t a turn on for me, and everyone I did infantilism role play with seemed ashamed and unhappy about it. So I think that’s something I would pretty much only do if I were getting paid for it.

During my first weeks I had a lot of sessions in which I was the submissive. They seemed easier because I could jump right in without constructing a mistress persona or mastering technical skills. But they were also more dangerous, and it felt a bit disingenuous—I can’t sub to someone I don’t respect or trust, and I think that clients could sense my resistance. Once I gained a bit of experience I tried to avoid sub sessions and stick to domination.

I won’t exchange fluids in session (or, okay, I won’t receive fluids in session—I’ve done golden showers and spat in people’s mouth). I also wouldn’t have intercourse or oral sex with a client, cuddle with them, or fall asleep next to them. And, although some sessions were definitely an adrenaline rush, I actually tried to prevent myself from becoming sexually aroused in session. Because desire and arousal involve a loss of control that I’m not willing to mess around with in session.

Alana Joli Abbott is a writer and editor. Her work includes fiction, nonfiction, comics, role playing games, and contributions to shared worlds, among other things. She’ll say a bit more about all that. She answered my questions (I’m Dan Copulsky) in June 2010.

In terms of both profession and personal identity, what do you do?

How I self-identify is constantly changing, but mostly I think of myself as a writer and a mom. Professionally, I’m a freelance writer and editor who works a couple of days a week at the local library reference desk.

For your creative process, how does the writing fiction compare to writing nonfiction, or contributing to games or comics?

Each of those areas works differently, and even different styles of nonfiction require different types of thought! I work on a lot of reference series, writing short, concise articles that have to be synthesized from various other articles. The way I work on those is pretty straight forward: read the material, analyze the important parts, then put it back together in my own words.

Writing a history article is similar, but has a lot more fluidity, because the style isn’t as rigid. My article “Cruising the Thimble Islands” had a lot of the same analysis and synthesis, but I used a lot more of my own style, and invested myself more deeply in the research, doing interviews alongside reading books.

How does that compare to working on comics and games?

I write comics panel by panel. I took half of an online screenwriting class when one was offered through Barnes and Noble University, and even just the first few sessions helped me learn how to think about movement in writing. In prose, you write out what people are thinking and feeling—everything appears in your head and can be transferred directly to the reader. In screenwriting, according to what I learned, you can’t transmit any of the character’s thoughts; your audience sees everything through action. Comics are somewhere in between, since you reveal what’s going on with the characters through both short prose (if you reveal it at all) and images. Working with an artist also means, to me, leaving some gaps and details for my partner to fill in—describe too much and I’ve basically taken away all of the artist’s ability to move, but describe too little and we may end up creating different stories. So comics are a great balance in describing what I want a page to look like without taking control of the narrative.

Writing for games means leaving even more holes in the narrative, especially with adventure writing. The key there is to provide a framework inside of which the players and game master can tell the story and make it their own. Even writing about the world in descriptive text means leaving holes for the players to fill in—I try to hint at potential adventures or story ideas, but the settings only ever really come to life in the minds of the players, or in novels based in the same setting, which is what I’ve tried to do with my fiction writing set in shared worlds. (Both of my published novels, Into the Reach and Departure, are tie-ins to a game world.)

How do you approach writing fiction?

With my own fiction, I start without an outline, usually with just a scene or a feeling. I do research when I feel the story needs it, but it’s not the same kind of synthesis writing; instead, it’s taking the ideas presented in the research and running with them, working little details into the bigger story, and making sure that the details and the plot serve the characters. I’m very character driven as a writer, and I’m definitely a “pantser,” as they say in the blogosphere. I don’t like to work from an outline, because I feel like it spoils the surprise at where the story is going, and I have less motivation to write more of the story when I know how it all turns out.

You were a fan of Joss Whedon’s Firefly since you saw a preview trailer the winter before it came out. You then got a chance to contribute to the licensed role playing game based on the TV show, Serenity RPG. Is adding to a famous universe you’ve been a fan of as totally awesome as it sounds?

It was really incredible. Not only did I get to play in Joss’s ‘Verse, but I got to work with Margaret Weis as my editor for part of the project. (She’s just as amazing an editor as she is a writer.) Firefly really impacted the way I use language and the way I think about language, so having free reign to write in the linguistic style of the show was incredibly enjoyable. I’d do it again in a second if I had the opportunity.

How do you make the connections to work for different companies and on different projects? Is it something you have to consciously focus on it does it come naturally through doing the work you’re already doing?

Right now, I have enough clients to keep me busy, especially with my new “mom” role, so I’m not making a lot of effort to seek out new gigs. Much of my reference work comes through networking with people I used to work for, or who used to do work for me, when I was an in-house editor at Gale, now Gale Cengage, in the Detroit area. I did a lot of networking a few years running in the gaming industry by going to conventions and handing out my business card. The contacts I made there, and through ENWorld’s forums, made connections to other gigs, and I’ve been lucky to have my work show up in fiction anthologies and games based on hearing about opportunities from people I met. Most of that networking is still working for me, and more comes out of blogs I read and comment on. The self-perpetuating networking is nice, and as long as I’m busy, I don’t worry too much about stepping up and focusing more on that aspect.

How much do you think of projects as steps towards some greater success, and how much do you just relish the work you’re currently involved in?

As of now, I’ve stopped taking work that isn’t worth doing just for itself, whether that means for the payment at the end or for my own fulfillment. Earlier in my career, I did a lot of work for free, or for product credit, in order to establish myself. Volunteering like that is a great way to start making contacts and have writing samples to show around. These days, however, if it’s not work that I enjoy doing, it had either better pay very well or mean working with editors or project managers I really respect and enjoy working with. Of course, the best scenario would be doing work that I love for editors who are amazing and are paying me plenty of money! That’s a dream I’ve yet to realize.

Alana’s Website – virgilandbeatrice.com
Alana’s Livejournal – alanajoli.livejournal.com

I could mention her relevant undergraduate study, work and volunteer experience, and publication credit, but what’s really important is that Keely O’Connell is a very good friend of mine and that I think she has some really interesting things to say about food. I’m Dan Copulsky, and Keely answered my questions in June 2010.

What restrictions on the food you eat do you follow or try to follow?

Restrictions is a word that I wouldn’t choose to use: I think it perpetuates this idea that something must necessarily be lost in the process of changing the way that you eat. I like to think of what I’m doing to my food experience as amplifying or enhancing or any word that means making it BIGGER. Originally, when my manfriend Sean and I set out to change our eating habits, we wanted to eat primarily food from local sources that use practices that we feel are environmentally and socially responsible. This works well during the summer and fall, when a fantastic variety of foods are available at farmers markets, and less well in the winter and early spring. We did some canning, dehydrating and freezing during the growing season, but it wasn’t enough to get us through this winter. We had to turn to other sources for most of our food as we’d been doing all along for exotic but indispensable things like sugar, olive oil, and ginger. We sought sources that had qualities other than local-ness to recommend them. Most of the time this meant buying more expensive organic foods, but when you end up with a grocery and a good feeling about it, it’s okay. The good feeling about it is what we really shop for when we buy food.

What concerns shape these choices?

1. Personal and interpersonal well-being:

Last spring I made the decision to change my foodyhabits. I’d been stressing my sweetheart out with my exhaustion and moodiness, I’d had the flu twice, and I’d been unhappy and strung out for months because I didn’t enjoy the food served in my college’s dining hall and didn’t eat it. I didn’t have time to cook for myself much. When I did have time I was usually too worn out to bother. It sucked. Things change and now I eat the way I do in part because my health is on the line. I’m pretty much a nutritional philistine, but I know that eating less meat puts me at a lower risk of heart disease and other crap. There are health benefits to eating fresh food, seasonal food, organic food, and home-cooked food, and I’m going to be tactful and shut up because I’m not very well informed about this and I want to talk about other things. My health is a factor in my choices, but it isn’t as important to me as the others.

Sean and I have a blast cooking together. We usually end up talking about our dinner at the table: the origin of our vegetables, the recipes we’ve tried, what to do differently next time. I hope we have a garden to play in together someday. This food thing is responsible for a lot of our closeness. It’s a passion that we’ve discovered and enacted together. Most romantic. I’ve also found that with a partner it’s easier to take responsibility for things like nutrition. I have to take care of him too, see?

2. Environmental stewardship:

Eat local, save gas: eat organic, save the planet. Less packaging, fewer harmful algal blooms, better fats in your meat, reduced danger from spinach, soil enhancement instead of degradation… I could elaborate. Lots of people could. Ask around if you’re interested in details. Ask me! I realize that my answers don’t all fit neatly under their headings, by the way, but hey, this thing is all about integrating systems anyway. Buzz word: sustainability.

3. Social responsibility:

Capitalism runs on choice: If I pay for a product, I am responsible for the consequences of that product’s production, human and environmental. Civic duty is something I’ve been turning over in my head a lot lately. For me, it plays in right about here, though for others it may not. That’s a different conversation. Others may feel that it’s their job to buy things at Wal-mart to stimulate the economy or some crap. I feel that it’s my job to choose my purchases carefully, since by doing so I can help to keep money in my community (maybe the farmer I pay will buy her daughter a prom corsage at the flower shop that forks over my paycheck) or in the hands of people who will put it to sound uses instead of in the distant pockets of people who don’t give a damn about me or my community or my planet and its future. That crap baffles me: I think evil tycoons must all be sterile or something.

I want to mention that I really dislike hearing people talking about how they’d like to buy local or organic food and citing the “prohibitive” cost as the reason that they don’t. This food costs so much because its sale is supporting an individual or a family or a business that uses practices that you say that you want to see flourish. If you truly find the cost prohibitive, you shouldn’t be whining, you should be finding a way to eat that sits right with your morals and your wallet (and your belly).

How do you explain your diet to others, particularly when they are offering you food?

I try to eat little meat that doesn’t meet my standards, though I have a weakness for pepperoni. Sometimes it’s easiest to tell people that I’m a vegetarian. I used to lie and say I was a vegan because I don’t like cheese, but for some reason I adore pizza. I couldn’t live without pizza and butter, so I stopped that.

I don’t like to antagonize people about food. It’s sensitive. If they want to talk, I’ll explain my choices, but I don’t volunteer the information most of the time. It’s not really a restrictive diet: it centers around the notion of choice, and if it seems most prudent to accept an offer of food, I choose not to turn it down for my political agenda. It’s just that: MY political agenda. I don’t need to go foisting it off on the generous.

There’s a stigma attached to high quality food, meat in particular. You can’t ask someone to serve you organic vegetables and grass-finished beef because they’re expensive. You get this tolerant “oh you’re privileged” thing. It’s true I’ve been lucky this year to have a job and a free place to live, but I eat much less meat than most people do. Personally, I think the cost works out. Trying to explain that you eat only these high quality (and yes, expensive) foods looks snobby and critical. Detaching these foods from this stigma would go a long way toward making communication about eating habits much easier.

There’s a good word for people who don’t eat meat. There’s a good word for people who eat seafood but not other kinds of meat, though not enough people know it. Do you think it would be good if we had some more words to describe dietary choices like yours?

Since not enough people know the word pescatarian I don’t think having more labels would help. If people did learn them, they might create expectations and collect associations that don’t fit what individual eaters are trying to do with their choices. The way we eat can be influenced by things ranging from religion to politics to personal taste. The degree to which we adhere to strict dietary rules varies similarly. A few umbrella words can’t begin to cover that sort of variety.

It would be phenomenal if people were more interested in having conversations about food and eating-related choices, but we’re not. We like the stereotype, the quick-and-easy box with packaged implications (lunchables).

I’m all about adjectives because they link up together in descriptive, short-version-of-a-long-story-type strings. I don’t try to be a vegetarian, a vegan, a locavore or a raw foodist; instead, I try to be a discerning, well-informed, well-nourished, food-eater who might sometimes be vegetarian or vegan or local-voracious. I guess I just like the wiggle-room that adjectives allow. This is a hard question to answer. It goes so closely together with the question about explaining my foodychoices to others: for me, the choice is more political than nutritional, more choice-based than strict. I’m still working on the language I want to use to talk about this thing. Others have to find their own words.

If someone wants to eat better but doesn’t know where to start, do you have any suggestions for a good first step?

1. Find a buddy.

2. Go to the farmers market.

3. Try a food you’ve never tried before. At market this fall we came across a southern Appalachian heirloom squash called a candy-roaster. The vendor told us that it was uncommonly sweet and delicious and gave us instructions for preparing it to best effect. We tried it, it tasted like candy, and we wished we’d bought more.

4. Try cooking at home more often. Homemade food is usually better tasting and better for you. And the more you do this, the more you’ll appreciate quality ingredients.

Be clear with yourself about the reasons you want to eat better (and what “better” means for you). Remember that food is one of the most basic elements of life. A dramatic change in the way you eat could necessitate a dramatic change in the way you live. Take it slow, make it fun and don’t get discouraged by costs in time or money: remember why you want to make the investment. Be creative.

How do you hope to continue changing what you eat as time goes on?

I have just started my own food garden and my radishes are already beyond the wee-little-cotyledon stage. Next year I’m thinking of rounding up some friends to rent a place with a little more room (right now I live in a town) so that I can have chickens and maybe a pig. I’m learning to make more and more of my own food at home from ingredients of my choosing. Pasta is my favorite example of something that’s about as easy to make at home as it is to buy. I hope to discover more foods like that, put more food by in the summer and fall, eat more seasonally, and learn skills (I recently learned to gut and fillet fish!) that will help me to become less dependent on the grocery store.

Self-righteousness is unappealing, but if a person sincerely believes they’re doing something good, then it’s no surprise they think it would be good if other people did likewise. Is there a good way to try to influence others’ choices about what they eat?

Feed them really excellent food and let them exclaim. Invite them back for more. If they ask you to talk, talk. If you’re really passionate about this stuff, let it show in how well informed you are, not in how aggressive you can be (I’m bad at this).

I went to see a movie called FRESH with my father a few days ago. It’s all about food sources. Off the top of my head, I’d recommend that, King Corn, and Food Inc. to anyone who likes documentaries. There are also excellent books about food: for starters there’s Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma or Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

This stuff is happening now and it’s happening fast. When I saw FRESH with my dad the other day, he told me that he thinks political apathy is one of the biggest characteristics of my generation. I think so much of that has to do with our sense of impotence. Every change seems to be in the hands of the card sharks, so it’s easy to just stop playing. This, though, isn’t voting in an election that occurs every four years; this happens three times a day.

Keely’s Email – keely.m.oconnell@gmail.com

I set out to interview someone behind the scenes at The Center for Cartoon Studies, a graduate school for comic artists. Robyn Chapman, a comic artist and an educator at the school, was kind enough to help me out. She answered my questions (I’m Dan Copulsky) in June 2010, by email.

How did you get involved in the Center for Cartoon Studies and what do you do at the school?

I am CCS’s Program Coordinator, and a faculty member.

As the Program Coordinator, I do a lot of tasks, but primarily I work with the faculty, students and staff to keep our programming running smoothly.

I also co-teach contemporary comics history with Steve Bissette, and guest instruct on a variety of topics.

I first became acquainted with James Sturm at the Savannah College of Art and Design, when he was a teacher and I was a student. I considered him a mentor, because he was publishing his own comics and telling his own stories. That set him apart among the SCAD faculty at that time. Years later, when I heard he was starting a cartooning school, I knew I wanted to be involved. I offered to move to Vermont and work for CCS, and he and Michelle hired me.

What’s an average week for a student look like, as far as classes, lectures, guest speakers, assignments, and anything else going on?

It really depends on whether you are a first year student, or a second year student. The first year is a our “boot camp” year, it’s very intense with a lot of classes and a lot of course work. In the second year, the students work more independently.

I’ll describe the week in the life of a first-year student. Classes are held Monday through Thursday and include: Life Drawing, Publication Workshop, Drawing Workshop, Reading and Writing Workshop, Survey of the Drawn Story, Cartooning Studio, and Visiting Artist Seminar. In Visiting Artist Seminar, students attend a lecture by a professional cartoonist (guests have included Chris Ware, Alison Bechdel, Charles Burns, Lynda Barry, and many, many more).

Our students learn a lot, and draw a lot. They have 24-hour access to our production lab, so many work there late into the night. Some students get together for late-night movie marathons in our classroom, while inking their homework.

If they’re not swamped with homework, a student might enjoy “25 Cent Wing Night” or karaoke night at our local pub. Or they might enjoy board game night or the weekly poker games. If they’re a fan of film, they’ll be sure to attend Steve Bissette’s Film Club, which screens obscure and unusual films weekly. If they want to exercise, they can join our weekly soccer games or aerobic classes. And there are plenty of parties—some of them are your typical college parties, some more creative in nature (like a chili cook-off, or super hero costume party). This is all to say, there are a lot of student activities that happen each week.

How competitive is getting admitted to CCS? Do you think being a unique program brings more attention to the school, or could it mean people don’t even realize a school for making comics is something they could consider?

It’s a competitive application process, since we only accept 24 students each year. We carefully review each student, to make sure they are a good fit for CCS (and vice versa).

We are a highly specialized school, so we tend to attract only students who are strongly compelled to create comics. If you’re not willing to put comics at the center of your life for a year or two, then CCS is not the program for you.

What does college education offer a contemporary cartoonist? Is it about the art skills? The connections? Learning the business?

I’d say all of the above, though our focus is on comics as medium, rather than an industry. We give our students the support they need to make great stories. That’s the most important thing they will do here—they will make stories.

Having said that, we also teach the professional aspects of cartooning. We have a whole class dedicated to that topic, called Professional Practices. We also have professional cartoonists visit every week, who lecture on how they built careers in comics. We have an annual Industry Day, when we bring publishers and editors into the classroom. And yes, there are great opportunities to make connections. Connections are important, but the learning experience is more important.

How helpful is the credential?

You mean, how helpful is graduating from CCS with a MFA or certificate?

There are few careers that require an MFA in cartooning. For those who want to teach cartooning, especially in higher education, it’s pretty essential. And because today’s job market is so competitive, having a masters will give you a leg-up. But having an MFA in cartooning does not automatically open the door to a successful career.

CCS gains prestige every year. People who aware of comics as an artform in this country are usually aware of CCS. The quality of our program, our faculty, and the work our students produce is getting noticed. I think this is is a more valuable credential than the diploma our students get when they graduate.

Like a studio art program for visual artists or a creative writing program for writers, CCS is a school for comic artists. Like an art history programs for art scholars or an literature program for literary scholars, do you think there could ever be a school devoted to the study—but not the practice—of comics?

I could see departments devoted to comics scholarship popping up in larger universities—that may be happening as we speak. I’d be surprised if a whole school devoted to comics scholarship opened in the near future. But I’d like to be proven wrong.

What do you learn from teaching comics?

I primarily teach comics history and graphic novel study. To teach, I have to do a lot of research and a lot of reading. It’s a big, never-ending history lesson for me.

But, looking at the bigger picture—teaching has shown me how comics communicate to my students. I’m learning which comics really engage my student, light a fire in them. And I’m learning how those comics work.

Robyn’s Website – un-pop.com
The Center For Cartoon Studies – cartoonstudies.org

Alex Wrekk is a zinester. She’s responsible for Brainscan, an ongoing zine, and Stolen Sharpie Revolution, a how-to book about making zines, and she’s involved in the Portland Zine Symposium and the Independent Publishing Resource Center. Alex also sells customs buttons and craft roast coffee. She answered Dan Copulsky’s questions by email in May 2010.

How do you organize and schedule your work, life, and hobbies? Are there things you do every day? Deadlines you set for yourself?

The problem might be that I don’t schedule. I’m pretty bad at setting deadlines but I do set priorities. One of those priorities is other peoples’ money. If someone has already paid me for buttons/coffee/zines then they are at the top of the list to get done. I may get sidetracked by drinking coffee, reading facebook, or working in my garden, but at the end of the day that priority to do the job someone has paid their hard earned cash for is important. It’s sort of a weird intuitive thing of knowing just how long I can work in the yard and still get buttons made before the postal carrier shows to pick up the mail. As for as making zines and fun stuff, I sort of wait until The Muse strikes me upside the head. Often I see the cover and layout of a zine before the words.

When I’m home I usually wake up between 8 and 9:30am. I sit in bed with my laptop, my housemate’s cat that has claimed me for its own, and my partner, Paul, sound asleep next to me. I check my e-mails, make mental priorities of what needs to be done that day, and maybe answer a few of those e-mails. I’ll relist sold items in my Etsy shop, check facebook, and whatnot. Then I head downstairs to make some coffee and get something to eat, then start to pack orders or make buttons while watching TV on the internet. I usually quit working between 4 and 6. After that I might have a zine symposium organizing meeting to go to, Paul and I may walk or bike ride to the store to get food to make or craft beer to drink, or we may be brewing beer, I may work in the yard, or my wine steward friend may show up with a few bottles she insists we share in our ongoing vegan food and wine pairings.

How many zines do you read, and how do you find new ones and pick which you’re going to read?

I honestly don’t read as many zines and I used to. I have stacks of them in a basket by my bed and another in my office. When it comes down to it, I read my friends’ zines first.

I understand the value of putting something in print and the unique experience of holding paper between your fingers. But what’s the value of not also putting some version of that work online, where those ideas might reach people that the print version doesn’t?

I do put some things on the internet. I have a blog at alexwrekk.wordpress.com. The difference is the intention of the medium. If I want to share something with you in a print format with cut and paste layout I’ll put it in a zine. If I wanna tell a story about how my housemate’s cat tried to take on a raccoon and I care about the immediacy of the documentation then I’ll write it in my blog. If I wanna complain about personal stuff I’ll call my sister or my friends. The things that I put in zines belong in that format. That’s where they were intended to be and that where I’d like them to stay.

How useful do you think being involved in zines has been for drawing in customers for your custom buttons and roast coffee?

I don’t think most zine folks really think of doing a lot of promo for their zine with buttons, but a few have. I think the crossover is a lot smaller than you would imagine. Most of my custom button and magnet customers are people who found me through my Etsy shop and I do a lot of local custom button orders in Portland.

What are you working on now?

Well, I just rearranged and decluttered my office so that feels nice. I’m working on the Portland Zine Symposium a lot, we have meeting every other week. I’m also about to take a few days off around my birthday to head to our family cabin to work on my next zine. It’s about my trip and mini zine tour of the UK and France last year. I’m also planning an autumnal zine tour with five friends coming over from the UK. It will sort of be a cavalcade whimsy with stories of zines, food, and activism in the UK including my American experience last year. We are calling it Zines On Toast Tour!

Alex’s Etsy Store – brainscan.etsy.com
Alex’s Button Store – smallworldbuttons.com
Stolen Sharpie Revolution: stolensharpierevolution.com
Alex’s Blog – alexwrekk.wordpress.com