By Cailean McLeod
Whatcom Community College’s writing center’s first-ever comic contest is accepting submissions from artsy and literature savvy students.
“I think it’s a good way for students to think about their writing differently, we think it’s healthy to write and create for pleasure, and not just academically” says Alyssa Harper, writing center peer reader and tutor.
“It’s an opportunity for artists on campus to show us their work” said Sherri Winanes, writing center’s coordinator.
“I think it definitely shows the talent of Whatcom and also expresses the viewpoints of students” said Anderson Dang, Writing Center tutor who also submitted to the contest.
“The idea started last fall quarter when Sherri, our supervisor, brought us a pad of comic book sheet, and we had a little thing up on the board that said ‘Hey, write us a comic’, just casually. So a lot of us in the writing center wrote comics but about three students wrote comics for us and they were posted up on the white board and so at the end of that we wanted to basically say ‘Hey thanks for participating’ so we went out and bought them each a Cruizin Coffee gift card for participating,” said Harper. “This is a creative space, so we gave students the option to draw or write us a comic.”
After that, said Harper, the writing center staff was inspired to host an official comic contest among the students.
Winanes said that this is the first time the writing center has done something like this.
“We are actually setting up a staff panel of judges, and a comic is a really subjective thing to judge, so they are just going to judge the one they think is best” said Harper.
For the winner of the contest, Winanes said, “we have a gift certificate available for Dakota Art Store.”
“It’s a way for artists to get the supplies they need, because that is always a challenge” said Dang.
Harper said that the people occupying the panel has not been decided yet, but it is desired that people from the art and writing faculty make it up.
Harper said the theme for the contest is “campus funnies”, but they purposefully left the meaning behind that open-ended.
“We are actually keeping the theme broad so that people do not feel limited by the theme, so we decided to keep it very broad but tie it in with the idea with interesting funny things that happen around campus” said Harper.
“I thought it was a fun, playful experience, and it was also a way to get involved too” said Dang.
Harper said that the deadline for comic submissions is May 23.
