I don't have anything specific to report; I just wanted to check in. Life has been chock-full of activity; lots of interesting and fun things. My comics class has been getting more interesting, though I don't have a huge amount of faith in my teacher's ability to teach. It's more a case of being given tasks to complete and having the necessary resources to do the job. I don't remember now how much I had said about this class, but I'm too lazy to go back and check right now. The teacher's name is Ryan Kelly, and he's a comics penciller and inker as well as a painter. The only regular publication I'm aware of that he works on is DC/Vertigo's "Lucifer" series, a spin-off of the "Sandman" series that's all about the Biggest Jerk in the Universe, Lucifer Morningstar. I don't know if he's depicted that way - I remember Gaiman presenting him as the "misunderstood rebel" type. Anyway, the good part about that is that he knows the job, and his advice and critique are professional-level. It's a great opportunity. I guess I could find some kind of irony in the fact that I'm learning my trade with the desire to glorify God, being taught by a guy who makes a living drawing comics about Satan...but I think I've been in art school long enough to be unfazed by such things.

Speaking of which, I saw an ad in the hallway today that there's going to be an Illustration show on the topic of religion in the first week of March. As I was reminded this week, seeing such things are a good way to gauge what non-Christians think of Christianity; more importantly, what they think it's about. A fair amount of the time, they have a lot of odd impressions, a jumble of religious jargon, and no real understanding whatsoever of who Jesus is, and the meaning of what He did. Now, I know that the ad said it was on the topic of "religion," so we will probably see some works on Islam, but let's face it: in most circles in the U.S., when the art world talks about "religion," they mean "Christianity." It's exactly what happened with the last exhibit they had on campus with this topic, called "Sacred Texts."

People are just fascinated with spirituality. We're just wired that way.

Similarly, I ran my regular D&D session at the school last night, and afterward, one of the players, a fellow named Chris, said that his character was an atheist. He declared that his character didn't believe in the gods at all, and suggested that perhaps didn't even believe in magic. In the real world, I see this happening. In a medieval fantasy setting - especially a D&D setting like the one we're using (Greyhawk, for those of you who care about these things) - it's lunacy. I said that his character would definitely be in the minority, which was perfectly all right, since his character was kind of an outcast, anyway. But he kept on about it, to the degree that I began to wonder if he was trying to get me or Peter (from Branches) to ask him about his real world beliefs. Chris knows I'm a Christian - he's participated in a conversation that I had with my Interactive Multilinear Narrative teacher (Lane), in which I mentioned as much - and I'm still not sure if he was trying to get me to talk about it or debate with him. Perhaps he was simply probing to see how I would react, if my own convictions regarding God would extend into the fantasy world I was running... Well, I didn't bite, for better or worse. The game world's cosmology is not Biblical, it's polytheistic, populated with finite deities who have specific spheres of interest and human failings, like the Greek gods. Still, I think I'll ask Peter about it and see if he got the same impression I did. In either case, I think we should be praying for Chris. Perhaps there's something going on with him that he hasn't let on about?

Okay, I've spent enough time jabbering. I've finished burning the disc I put in, I've printed out the sketches I needed...time to go home and get some work done, so I can reward myself later with a Neverwinter Nights session. Mmmm, fantasy goodness.