Sometimes the most universal truths can be found in the smallest slices of life. That’s what makes independent documentaries so powerful, engaging, and entertaining. Not only do they show you little worlds to which you’ve never had access, but they oftentimes also tell the larger story of what it means to be human. Armed with this intellectual conceit, a bag of Funyuns, and a couple of Miller beers, Daniel Elkin curls up in front of the TV and delves deep into the bowels of Netflix Streaming Documentaries to find out a little bit more about all of us.
Today he and his friend Jason Sacks found 2012's Cartoon College directed by Josh Melrod and Tara Wray.
Sacks: I don't know about you, Elkin, but if I were an aspiring cartoonist, I'd be very tempted to make the journey to White River Junction, Vermont, and enroll in the Center for Cartoon Studies – if they'd have me, of course. The story presented in Cartoon College portrays CCS as an extremely intensive, extremely stimulating opportunity to earn an MFA in comic art.
This documentary is basically a portrait of the school and several of its students, profiling them as they work through their creative and occasional emotional struggles as they complete their theses and learn the craft of being a professional cartoonist. As usual with documentaries, those portraits are the most interesting aspects of the movie.
A few students really stand out in the film. One is Blair Sterrett, a nice kid from Utah who desperately wants to create his graduating thesis on his missionary travels as a member of the Church of Latter Day Saints. But Blair is just not able to complete that project, continually running into problems with his material that cause him to deliver a mediocre, half-assed thesis presentation. We're allowed to be in the room with Blair as he presents his thesis. Maybe the most powerful moments in this film happen when we watch his obvious pain as he receives the bad news that his project has been rejected. His story has a redemptive second act, though, and that is part of the real heart of this movie.
Another intriguing student, Al Wesolowski, is a much older man, with a long white beard and enormous belly who enters CCS as an improbable student of the program. Wesolowski worked a long career in the field of archaeology before entering CCS, and it's clear that while he loves White River Junction and its bucolic atmosphere, Wesolowski is also overwhelmed by the experience of attending school with all of these excited young people and by the relentless deadlines he faces. Al's story has a redemptive second act as well.
Then there's Jen Vaughn, a young woman from Texas, who's one of those people who seldom seems to stop moving. She has two jobs in addition to her studies; we view a few scenes of Jen hard at work at a bakery at the same time that she also creates a stack of minicomics about her favorite topic: menstruation. It helps that I know and like Jen, but I thought she came across as fun, charming, and somehow very normal and self-actualized in this movie.
We watch these three students, and many others, navigate through their academic and professional education, going to conventions, receiving advice from their professors and guest lecturers (the main takeaway seems to be that you'll never become rich doing comics – heck, the great Lynda Barry makes her living selling things on eBay) and generally living a frantic student lifestyle.
Elkin, I really enjoyed this very low-key look at a school that I wish had been around when I was ready for college. Do you daydream of enrolling in the Cartoon College, too?
