Just like last time, Bored Panda reached out to Mojo Rose, the artist behind Summers Off Comics, who creates funny and relatable webcomics about the life of a teacher.
When asked about what inspired her to start creating comics about her experiences as a teacher, Mojo Rose explained, "I started making comics about being a teacher as I was learning to become one. My credentialing program was no joke, and to be honest, I had never worked with kids before (it turns out I like them. Thank God that worked out), so to process everything that was going on, I drew little one-panel comics about my time as a student teacher. As I spent more and more time in the classroom, I really saw the joy, chaos, and frustration of being a teacher, and I wanted to distill it into a comic that could relate to other teachers. At the time, it didn't seem like there was much of a conversation about what classrooms were actually like."
Discussing how she comes up with ideas for her comics and whether they are based on real-life situations encountered in the classroom, she shared, "Some of the comics are 100% real-life events. I found it's actually rather hard to base all the jokes on what actually happens in the classroom. Even though there are plenty of moments worth laughing at, most of them have a 'you had to be there' quality to them. I would say that a good portion of the comics are really just whatever anxieties or frustrations I have, and it does help to point out the ridiculousness of it."
When asked about the most surprising or rewarding feedback she has received from her followers, the artist revealed, "I have gotten so much support over the years! Some of the best feedback I've gotten has been teachers telling me that they post my comics in the break room at their school or that my comics are very 'real.' I did get a comment once on a comic about burnout. I think this was during Covid, and someone had said thanks because they were beating themselves up for the mistakes they were making, and seeing my comic about the same thing gave them relief. Those kinds of comments mean the most."
Balancing her time between teaching and creating new content for Summers Off Comics was another topic of interest. Mojo Rose admitted, "It was difficult, for sure, to balance teaching and making a comic. At least twice a week was dedicated to actually making the final comic, but I would need to carve out time to sketch, refine ideas, restructure pacing, or just blurt everything out into my notebook. Somehow, each comic takes between 3-6 hours to create (depending on how complex it is), so it was like doing two jobs at once. Some nights I was up past midnight to make sure that a comic was ready to be posted the next day so Daddy Algorithm would be kind to me. It was really tough, but I'm proud of the world that's been developed."
Finally, we asked the artist what advice she would give to other teachers who are looking to express their creativity or share their experiences online. She thoughtfully advised, "Oh man, this is a hard one. I've typed out and erased so many possible answers, but ultimately I would say to trust yourself. Isn't that cheesy? You could have googled a quote better than that. But this is what I mean: time is precious, and we lose it in the blackhole of school work, so you need to trust yourself to reinvest that time into you and your art. Set a schedule and stick to it, no matter how much you really just don't feel like it, knowing that you are building something that's important to you. Trust yourself that it's worthwhile. Trust yourself that you deserve it."
