 Hi, I'm Meggie Ram, I'm currently a student at California College of the Arts graduate in Master's program in comics, which I highly recommend if you want to be a better cartoonist or become more in debt as I'm doing. This comic is about the first month of grad school with a bunch of other cartoonists and is called Anxiety, a grad school edition, and the tiny ghost is saying, ugh, this is the cover you picked, gross. Before grad school started, I was experiencing a maelstrom of mixed emotions. You can't do this, you're terrible at drawing. How did you get in, check your portfolio again? You have no idea what you're doing. All you draw is stick figures, you are so fucked. I'm so excited I'm going to hurl, and what if they don't like you, you're weird. I'll keep you company. Really, who are you? You're crushing self-doubt. Peachy. The first day started with meeting the other students and feeling intimidated as hell. So the first one is Eli, and he's got plus 50 natural talent. Lauren, who's actually in the back right now, who's got plus 20 web comic skills. Yael, who's got mad illustration skills, Steph, who gets plus 25 peer Australian sass. Craig, who's got the style-intellect power combo. Patrick, plus 50 articulateness. Triss, who's a magic artist and possibly a fairy. Garrett, who's basically Jack Kirby. Amber, who's master of all styles. Tyler, who's got plus 50 desert dry sarcasm, and me, who is in desperate need of therapy. And the day ended with me crying on the walk home. My ghost is saying, wow, you suck. Shut up. You're like, the worst one there, hands down. Shut up. You should get an award for sucking. Every day was a battle between my aesthetic joy of living my dream and my soul-crushing self-doubt. From comic theory, and the people are saying, wow, nice job, that's so cool. And my self-doubt is saying, wow, you're sucks in comparison to history class. And I'm reading A Drifting Life by Yoshiro Tatsumi. And I say, this guy worked 12 hours a day. My ghost is saying, way more than you're, lazy ass, to inking techniques. My ghost is saying, ooh, I'm going to like it here. And I said, shut up. I'm drawing dicks to comic memoir. How are you feeling today? Say, you feel like shit, like an untalented swine. You feel like you don't belong here. I say, I feel OK. That isn't to say that I wasn't also having the time of my life, because I totally was. We attended an awesome lecture by Mike Magnola, where he said, no one can see what you're trying to draw, thank God, which is like the best advice I've ever gotten. We discovered early era Wonder Woman. My ghost is saying, you look ridiculous. And I say, I look awesome. We hung out with other students. We were seeing Ant-Man, so that's Antony, no. See it, it's funny. And devoured the comic library. I'm reading Cursed Pirate Girl, and my ghost is reading Onious Ghost. But any time I had to draw something, seriously though, you're terrible. I didn't really get my sea legs of confidence until walking out of a particularly rough session in inking class. God, that was terrible, even for you. Ugh, class was rough. Huh? I mean, yeah. I'm not used to these tools, and I feel like I'm just producing crap. Oh my god, me too. This can't be good. Agreed. I feel like I suck so hard. It's OK. I feel that too. You're not alone. Class got a lot easier after that. The big test was when we gave our thesis presentations to all the comic faculty and students. Don't fuck it up, don't fuck it up, don't fuck it up. You're going to fuck it up, you're going to fuck it up, you're going to fuck it up. Hi, my name is Maggie, and my favorite thing to do is draw stick figures. Fuck it up, shut up. I know they're super simple, but I love drawing them more than anything. So my thesis, dot, dot, dot. Several convoluted explanations later. So yep, that's my thesis. Internal screams of terror. Stick-eyes rule. Sounds cool. I like it. Really? My ghost goes, ah, shucks. With that small confidence boost, I was able to muster the courage for one last act with my comic cohort. Are you sure you're ready for this? I mean, I was born ready for this. Also, I'm three beers in. Let's do this. Oh jeez. Tonight, gonna have myself a real good time. I feel a lot higher in the world. I'll turn it inside out, yeah, floating around in ecstasy. So don't stop me now. Don't stop me, because I'm having a good time, having a good time. I fucking love that song. OK, so I still have self-deprecation issues, enough to play the entirety of a therapist for a 1K. But wouldn't you rather end a comic with a queen karaoke? I would, and I don't think I'm allowed to use queen lyrics and sing them alone, probably not, but don't tattle. Regardless, I'm going to leave you with my final thoughts on grad school, which is I'm having a good time, and I don't want to stop at all. So that's my comic, and thank you.