CCA Comics students draw stories from the housing crisis. A 48 Hills exclusive series.
ART LOOKS The Engage: Comics class at the California College of the Arts is comprised of a diverse collection of students from various majors passionate about making comics that engage the world around them.
This year, they teamed with 48Hills.org and housing activists from the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project and the Housing Rights Committee to create comics from first person accounts of San Francisco’s housing crisis.
The students met with and interviewed people who are struggling or have struggled to remain in their homes, and then turned these stories into compelling visual narratives. Justin Hall was the professor of the Engage: Comics class, and Peter Glanting was the Teaching Assistant.
The following comic is by CCA student Tony Cha and Liam Lee. Click on each image to enlarge! (You might have to click twice). See the whole series here.
Liam Lee is from Seoul, South Korea. His major is Interaction Design. He tries to express emotion through art, but it is still hard. He is interested in all kinds of art and believes it has the power to change people and the world. When people express sympathy with Liam’s artwork, he is as happy as if his child is being praised (he doesn’t have a child). He wants to understand people well and make things that help and encourage weak people; this would make him a better person too.
Tommy Cha was born in Fresno, a small town in the middle of California. After studying graphic communication and drawing personal comics, his love for telling stories stretched him towards animation, specifically cinematic visual story-telling. Tommy is currently an animation student at California College of the Arts in Oakland focusing on storyboarding and character animation. Current info on Tommy Cha can be found at www.linkedin.com/in/tommycha and his work at www.tommychastory.weebly.com
You’re not a loser because you can’t afford something, you’re a loser because you demand it anyway and want to be seen as the victim. Look other people want to use that property exclusively and you can’t both get what you want. So you can’t afford to buy exclusive rights to a property in SF? Cry me a river. If you wanted security BUY THE PROPERTY.
So what? He’s an artist who’s never made a living from his “art” and she’s a curator at an institution that would never acknowledge his lame wineglass photos in a million years. He’s still a jackass who fumbled a three-decade-plus headstart on securing his financial future. Your point is?
Now we find out this guy used to live with 7 roommates, then down to 1 and wasn’t originally on the lease?
Either the guy took advantage of rent control by cramming in that many people, or he’s got a huge place for him and taking in a student.
We have a very real housing crises out there, and I find it sad these types of stories are the ones getting so much play in the press. The cartoons only magnify how this trivializes the situation.
What we really need to do is start protesting the Tenant’s Union.
So?
Funny you didn’t mention that the tenant being evicted is an artist and ‘the buyer’s wife’ is a curator at the de Young.
This is pathetic. Brenkus’ building was bought by a family that wanted to move in family members into his unit. He’d been in his unit 34 years and multiple opportunities to buy a home if security was that important to him. Why no mention of the thousands of dollars he was offered to move out? The harassment of the buyer’s wife at the de Young museum even though she wasn’t even on title?
Liam and Tommy: Good job and keep up the good work! Don’t worry about negative comments posted here later. There are a lot of trolls who call people who can no longer afford San Francisco “losers” and worse, and they have no empathy for people in difficult circumstances. But they are on the wrong side of the housing issues in San Francisco.