What qualifies me to do this, what authority do I have, why should you care what I think or say? The only answer is, of course, "None." Though I do have an art degree (a B.F.A. in painting from San Francisco Art Institute-- the 100 odd year old fancy nancy prestigious FINE art school, not to be confused with the crass commercial diploma mill, the Art Academy of San Francisco), the last thing a contemporary art student these days are expected to have are actual drawing skills, the ferocious "-ISM" wars of the 20th century having laid waste to any cohesive standards of "Art." I can draw... draw, paint fairly well, but really I don't have a style per say, something to mark me from the thousands of other would be professionals. My cartoons are just what they are, lazy drawings cribbed from the comic books of my youth overlaid with a thin veneer, a shallow patina of academic technique, barely enough to make them palatable. Honestly, the only qualifications I have are a cheap PC, an internet connection, and a willingness to make these tutorial thingies. (Which by going by my previous schedule, I 'll do about ten of 'em and disappear for another month or two.)

  I assume, for the most part, that the inquires will focus on basic drawing skills based around the anime/manga milieu, the online community of fan artists and web comics... that and use of illustration software like Adobe Photoshop. So unless stated otherwise, I'm going with the intention that ya'll wanna be jus' like 'em slick Asian fellahs' and make commercially acceptable work, rather then your own interesting personal inner crap that no one'll give a shit about. This saves me the trouble of qualifying everything with a silly,"if you were intending so and so..."

  The critiques work on a sliding scale, baby mitts for beginners, with positive encouragements and such. For the advanced, for those who should know better, the crits will nitpick even the tiniest details, poking at all the fraying bits, each strokes of unattended lines... and... and if the drawings are too good, then the last ditch resort to mean, ad homium attacks, continuing up to and including casting dispersions upon their mothers' virtue.

  Oh, and it's meant to be funny, mostly. So don't take anything too seriously, especially anything that comes out of my gabled flap trap.