Oh crap, I´m sorry. I hate political cartoons, as I love funny cartoons and despise anything that tarnish that fun, from nasty network executives to politics.
But this is a big deal. At least in my country.
In Chile most people have to take a loan if they want to study. That's because college here is really expensive when you relate it to our salaries-- around 300-600 USD monthly in a country were the minimum wage is like 250 USD and most complete families make around 1200 USD.
I mean, what if you have two kids going to college? What if your family is too poor to support you, but not poor enough to get you a good scholarship? You go to the bank. And if you take a loan for college, you can forget about buying a house in the next +15 years.
So now both highschool and college students are in the middle of a nationwide strike. They're asking for free, quality education -- promises that every single president seems to make and no one has fulfilled yet. Kinda sad considering we're the only nation in Latin America that has to pay in order to get into a State University.
I go to a private university? I don't know if that term exists in english. It's not as prestigious as regular college (by a long shot, we used to be a Professional Institute but officialy became a univesity just a few years ago), but at least I don't get ripped off, I get a Professional Title and the facilities are great. So we didn't join the strike, which was cool for me, but it sucked big time for the kids that waned to study other career in some University, like our future doctors and lawyers. This drawing is sort of a tribute to those guys, as they really showed some serious guts risking their school year for their convictions.
Luckily the pressure forced the goverment to lower the... lending rate? (stupid hard to translate phrases!) for student loans, so now things are a little bit easier. But meh, that's just one measure IMHO-- I'm happy for it but we all know that's not why you go into strike!
(And also-- I learned how to use halftone dots on my digital art! That's a handy tool)
Sorry for the boring rant! By the way, I'm thinking about doing commisions, as I would like to buy a domain name (face it, sketches-and-other-stuff.blogspot.com doesn't really roll of your tongue!). Those are about 10 USD a year-- do you know anyone who would be interested in getting a drawing? And how much do you think I could charge for my kind of drawings? I'm open to suggestions!
