Comic Book Resources

Interesting stuff.

Makes me think of something I always hear Bendis saying in interviews–that he tailors his writing to the strengths of each of his artists.

That seems like a feat it would take a fellow artist to accomplish.

And one that I think both Morrison and Moore do with great skill.

I have to run before I’ll get a chance to read your post, Joe, but I just had to remark on how nerdcrazy Waid gets.

Wow. Three rebuttals, huh? Someone didn’t get to be Kid Flash last night, maybe?

Mark Waid? Getting angry ON THE INTERNET?

I’m shocked, I tell you, I am SHOCKED!!!

Why do people still pay money for his comics?

Some people enjoy them, Dans. I did not mean this to be a “pile on Mark Waid” thing . . .the dude got mad on the internet. We’ve all done that. Yeah, I’ll giggle at it, but how about we focus on the actual content and not just bashing a creator you don’t like?

Speaking as somebody who’s tried to draw his own scripts, I totally agree with the way Hamm described the differences in the thought processes of writer and artist. I’ve written scripts that I’ve later had to totally retool when I tried to lay them out on the page.

Grant Morrison and Alan Moore aside, I think the best scripts are simple and economic. Describe character actions, setting, dialogue, and all that, but leave the angles and layouts to the artist.

I like the Keith Giffen “I’ll draw it for you” approach. I was looking through the Annihilation HC and the Keith Giffen layouts looked so much better then the final Scott Kolins pencils.

Bendis did draw a lot of his own earlier stuff. Pretty sure Ed Brubaker is, and always has been, a writer, though. Neil Gaiman is another writer who doesn’t draw (at least judging by his skills in the 24-hour comic he did).

I think it’s less about drawing per se, and more about knowing how comics pages work. It takes a certain kind of visual thinking to lay out a good comics page — if you have that, you can be drawing stick figures and still make a good comic, IMO. There are artists who also don’t seem to understand how to make a page flow, who can easily derail the most amazing scripts in the world because you can’t follow what’s happening on the page.

And as much as Bendis retools his stories, his style of dialogue imposes a rhythm on the panel-to-panel structure. It’s a fairly stylized, and specifically filmic rhythm, but a distinctive one all the same. Mighty Avengers is the first Bendis project I’ve seen that really does seem different in its beats than other Bendis work, and it does that mainly because Bendis has used thought balloons to compress his usual narration and parenthetical asides into single rather than multiple panels.

The thing that surprised me with Hamm’s post was that neither he nor Waid nor any of their interlocutors so much as gestured at using the comics page for anything other than unilinear, representationalist sequential art. There’s no talk of more complex artist-writer operations like depicting simultaneous actions at different locations, using limited abstraction and symbolism, or playing up the power of comics to split the written word from the depicted scene in time or perspective or space. All of the problems Hamm has with writers or Waid has with artists seem to be at the level of very staid, simple, panel-to-panel narrative storytelling.

I’d say that the best comics generally do more than that, whether its Eisnerian formal play, Kirbyesque hyperexpressionism, or even the kinds of visual metaphorics that a hyperrealist artist like Neal Adams regularly brought into the mix. In contrast, today’s dominant American comics aesthetics seem to be “widescreen” work for the majors and “quirky cartooning” with nonetheless linear and cinematic staging for the higher profile indies. You don’t see Bryan Hitch doing anything more than sequential storytelling with high detail and big-budget scale; you don’t see your typical — note the limited provenance of that adjective — indie autobio comic doing more than stylized realist representation with a voiceover track supplied by narration.

It’s The Way Comics Stories Are Told, apparently.

Pretty sure Ed Brubaker is, and always has been, a writer, though.:

Nope. Google it. Started doin’ autobiographical comics.

Neil Gaiman is another writer who doesn’t draw (at least judging by his skills in the 24-hour comic he did).

Geez, tough room. I thought Gaiman’s 24 hour comic was damned good given the time limitations and the fact that he’s not a professional artist.

Anyway, agree with Joe’s thesis.

In fact, I’ll go one better: The best comics are both written and drawn by the same guy. At least when I’m doing my BEST OF ALL TIME COUNTDOWN comics list, we’re gonna be around # 37 before any factory style colaborations come up.

Side Note: Interestin’ how much better Grant Morriso n’s got at writing for his artists. He used to be absolute ass at this. (See: Arkham Asylum, the Filth, JLA Classified) but just ’bout the time of Seven Soldiers he improved couple’o thousand percent.

You don’t see your typical indie autobio comic doing more than stylized realist representation with a voiceover track supplied by narration.

I think this is why something like Craig Thompson’s Blankets shines so brightly. It’s pretty much autobio, but linear, static story-telling is not one of its shackles - as Thompson is all over the place using visual literary themes and abstraction and visual metaphor.

I think in any medium, straight-ahead linear storytelling is going to be the vast majority of the material. Sure, it’s great to see the rest, but that’s not really what Hamm was addressing. He was addressing that vast majority.

I don’t expect many professional writers who have read this will want to work with Jesse Hamm.

Um… what’s he done again?

“Why do people still pay money for his comics?”

Most times I can take him or leave him, but I still love his run on ‘Fantastic Four’.

This may be because, around the time I got into comics, they were just embarking upon the lengthy and extremely mediocre DeFalco run.

No Darwyn Cooke mentions? wow.

And Waid has done some great work in the past. His Captain America run is reason enough to give anything he does at least a shot.

You know, Waid may sabotage all his points by blowing up like that, but… he’s kinda right.

If you’re a comic book writer who can’t draw, it doesn’t mean you’re less of a writer, and it doesn’t mean that you can’t think visually and know how a page is constructed and how the eye will flow from panel to panel.

Being a bad comic book writer who can’t draw would mean that.

A good writer doesn’t have to draw–he has to know what the artist should draw. And of course the artist brings his own skills to the table, and as with anything, collaboration is vital and will improve the final product, but the on-page direction is as much part of the writing as it is of the drawing.

Gimme: Uh, what’s your point?

Billy F: I liked Waid’s first Cap A run, too. I think what I haven’t enjoyed outweighs what I have, but he’s certainly not a BAD writer most of the time.

Niels: I never said a good writer had to draw. I do say that it certainly helps, but it isn’t necessarily, uh, necessary. I think it’s pretty hard to argue that the best writers are folks who can’t draw though.

I don’t know if it’s that they can draw, so much as that they can think visually, and see the page composition in their heads. (Or, like Gaiman, doodle out little thumbnails pre-script. I’ve done that.) But yes, obviously, having some drawing talent and skill is going to help you in a medium where information is conveyed primarily by visuals.

My point: How many comic books has this Hamm guy himself written? And… are they any good?

I’m not trying to be smug, just pointing out that if he hasn’t produced any work to back up his post, why presume to teach others the “correct” way of writing comic books?

If this guy can write rings around the likes of Mark Waid, then I’d certainly take his advice — attitude and all.

He’s writing from the perspective of an artist. Don’t let Waid’s titty-fit skew what his post is about. He’s giving basic standards that are good for writers to know when writing for an artist.

Yeah, right. Everybody knows that you have to have won several awards in writing before you can give valid advice on writing. It’s not like we could just judge his points on their own merits.

I’d be interested to know what Frank Miller told Bill Sienkiewicz to draw in Elektra.

The only really good long-serving writer I can think of who (as far as I know) as absolutely no artistic pretensions is John Wagner and - interstingly - his scripts are famously lacking in almost any direction to the artist.

And Paul Pope.

I think this is problably one of the main advantages mangakas have on the western comic book professionals: 99% write and draw they own stories, and are trained to do so since they start their careers (most begin as assistants to other manga creators drawing backgrounds or doing shading). It gives them a vision of the entire thing.

“I’d be interested to know what Frank Miller told Bill Sienkiewicz to draw in Elektra.”

I think the rumour was Frank gave Bill a loose plot and he rearranged the pages in an order that made sense to him and scripted it.

Frank Miller is pretty laid back about how he scripts stuff for other artists. He gives pretty broad directions and lets the artist do their thing.

Matt Wagner is apparently the same way.

I heard that Frank Miller at first had fairly straight-forward scripts, but Sienkiewicz just did crazy stuff on the pages. Eventually, they just started trying to one-up the other to see who could do the craziest stuff. That’s how I always heard it, and is how I wish all collaborations went; one creator constantly playing off of the energy of the other until it’s something niether could have created on their own.

Miller said that he wrote Hard Boiled as a straight forward Sc-Fi story, but got the pages back from Darrow and was floored. He said he had no choice but to re-write it as a twisted comedy.

He also said that working with Sienkiewicz and Darrow was like riding a bucking bronco, they’d keep to the basic narrative, but he never knew what he’d get.
I read that in that great CBJ interview book

I think both Elektra:Assassin and Hard Boiled are criminally underrated( As is Elektra Lives Again, talk about a great Writer /Artist)

Brubaker wrote and drew a complete lowlife, I’m sure he could of been the next Adrian Tomine if he kept on going. He got pretty good.

“Yeah, right. Everybody knows that you have to have won several awards in writing before you can give valid advice on writing. It’s not like we could just judge his points on their own merits.”

I’m not saying that at all.

But I think someone giving advice ought to at least have *some* experience in the area they’re giving advice on.

So I was just asking what comics writing experience this guy has. And, as it’s hard to tell online, I’m not being smarmy.

I can’t find much through Google aside from a book he drew with Derek Kirk Kim for DC’s Minx line. I see some mention of webcomics and mini-comics. What else has he done?

(He’s not complaining about working with Derek Kirk Kim is he????)

Outside of citing a couple off-hand examples, you don’t really make any kind of argument. You claim that artists think visually and create stories from a visual perspective, but there are many writers (in every medium, including prose) who do the same thing. Gaiman hasn’t drawn so much as a single panel as far as I know, but his writing, both in comics and in prose, conjures more visual imagery than a guy who doodles his own stories. Just because you can draw doesn’t mean you have an imagination and just because you have an imagination doesn’t give you the ability to draw. Look at what a mediocre story-smith Frank Miller is. With a couple notable exceptions, most of his work is extremely derivative.

“I think this is all indicitave of how cartooning is really a art of synthesis and that comic writing is unlike writing in other media. Visual storytelling in comics is as important (if not more so) than the dialogue, the pacing, and the characters.”
- Joe Rice

What about movies? Television? In both cases, images convey story based on a script: a process very similar to comics. In fact, writing for TV and movies is a lot like writing for comics, although not exactly the same.

I know you said this isn’t a hard and fast rule, just a concept you’re putting out there, but I don’t think there’s any veracity to it.

In TV and movies, you’ve got your cinematographer who kind of plays the “comic artist” role and the director who either knows cinematography or lets his guy do his thing or he screws up.

I think there’s a lot of veracity to it. Writers without artistic backgrounds can still write well and some of their comics come out fine (and some writers without artistic backgrounds, as I said, totally are exemptions from this and just kick ass anyway), but in general the absolute best comic book writers are people with art backgrounds. It just seems to help them write FOR COMICS.

I think you’ll be really hard pressed to find a non-artist writer of the quality of Moore, Morrison, Clowes, Eisner, or Schulz.

” ‘I’d be interested to know what Frank Miller told Bill Sienkiewicz to draw in Elektra.’

I think the rumour was Frank gave Bill a loose plot and he rearranged the pages in an order that made sense to him and scripted it.”

The story I heard was that rearranging the pages was what Neil Gaiman did with the Endless Nights story that Sienkiewicz drew, and when Gaiman told Miller about it, Miller said, “I never even thought of doing that!”

“Gaiman hasn’t drawn so much as a single panel as far as I know, ”

Gaiman lays out every story he writes in small chapbooks.

An example is in the back of one of the Sandman trades.

So while he isn’t an illustrator by any means, he certainly draws every book he writes.

Gaiman doesn’t lay out every story he writes in small chapbooks; at times he’ll write a full script (with no illustrations) with panel-by-panel descriptions. It all depends on who he’s writing for/with.

Some of what bugs about this discussion is there’s sort of an assumption that dialogue can be handled by an artist who knows how to lay out a story, and that’s clearly not true. or that it’s not as significant or important a story element in comic books. Which is unfortunate, because hackneyed slap-dash dialogue can drag a book down just as fast as a stupid-ass layout or idiotic plotting.

Josh: I don’t think anyone ever said that about dialogue. Nobody said you could be a bad writer and a good artist and write good comics. So settle down there, hoss.

Doesn’t (or didn’t) Harvey Pekar write his comics via thumbnails? My only impression of this is from the movie American Splendor, so this could be way off. You could (or mayhaps should?) add Osamu Tezuka to that list of brilliant writer-artists. Now I’m curious about Koize Koike. What’s his process, as a mostly (to our knowledge) pure writer?

I was wondering about Koike myself, actually. Good call, f.

GimmeBackMyEisner! sez: “So I was just asking what comics writing experience this guy has… He’s not complaining about working with Derek Kirk Kim is he????”

For the record, Derek’s a great visual storyteller (but anyone who’s read his comics doesn’t need me to tell them that). In the book we did, if he wanted something specific, he’d thumbnail it in detail and thereby avoid the pitfalls I described on my blog.

But that project wasn’t the only experience I’m drawing from. I share a studio with over 15 other artists and writers, the majority of whom are working for Marvel or DC, and our collaborative activity is plainly visible to each other on a daily basis. I’ve also collaborated with writers and artists on various small press projects, I’ve written and drawn hundreds of pages of my own comics, and I’ve done ‘ghost’ work on numerous books, including various mainstream titles.

I haven’t been in the game nearly as long as Mark Waid, but I gather what he objected to in my post wasn’t the technical advice, anyway. That much, he seemed to like.

Joe said: “what seemed to me to be a pretty obviously innocuous post livened up with ranty humor.”

Glad to see you’re on my wavelength!

Hey Joe;

Nice to see a thread about this sticking to the topic as opposed to the personality clashes.

Personally, I’ve hung out with both Jesse and Mark, and they’re both swell guys.

Any way, I wrote an intro for a recent 100 Bullets trade that discusses this…thought I’d dump it here. If it gets cut off…oh well. I’m kinda bad with the internets.

Regards,
Darwyn

Decayed TPB Intro

This whole thing started, as many things do, in a bar in New York City. Present were Bullets editor Will Dennis, fellow artist Cliff Chiang and myself. Amidst all the usual conversational gas that passes between friends, Will threw something out there that got me thinking.

“Who do you consider the key creator; the writer or the artist?”

It’s the kind of bait I can’t resist. I took a drink and settled in for a good time.
“The artist. No question.”

This led to a rather lively discussion that we finally had to back up. We had to define the arena of discussion. It was put forward that comics are inherently linked to literature, because they are a form of book with a written narrative. Therefore the writer was prime.

Literature is generally a singular achievement relying on prose alone to make its connection. I suggested the comparison to literature was erroneous; a blind installed by creators who were eager for literary recognition and credibility. It also ignores the collaborative nature of comics. I find the comparison to film far more apt, as both comics and movies are collaborative mediums that use words and images to tell a story.

There was much good-natured back and forth over this assertion, and as a new round arrived, I played my trump card. Y’see, I’m a cartoonist. I do both and I have no natural bias to either side. It is a dispassionate observation based on the experience of writing and drawing comics.

In literature, the writer is prime, and his words are at the mercy of the imaginations of the individual readers.

In comics, as in film, the writer’s words are “translated” through a series of visuals created by an artist or director.

If we buy the film analogy, then let’s take it a step further.
The writer has constructed a plot that is used to explore a story idea, character, and hopefully a theme or themes, which help the work, resonate past pure entertainment.
The writer gives voice to the people within the drama, and describes the basic locations and physical action of the narrative. He presents a rhythm and pace and perhaps a compositional approach to the panels. In comics, as in film, this job is handled by a single person (excluding the clusterfuck of notes and rewrites that may lay in wait for you on a film).

Once the artist has read the script, he must assume the role of an entire film crew. Locations have to be scouted, casting has to occur, props are sourced and/or created, sets have to be dressed–and this is all before production actually starts. Then comes the real work– cinematography, lighting, staging, blocking, acting all the parts, wardrobe, sound design and editing.
If we’re really going for it, the artist is also concerned with lacing the work with visual symbols and motifs that reflect the work’s themes, as well as striving to present them in a fresh way. In film, a Director leads an army of people to accomplish these goals. Dozens of key creative people work with him to achieve this living breathing translation of the script. In comics, it all comes down to the artist, with art direction and lighting assists from the color artist.

Now, ‘cause this is a hard-boiled kinda book, let’s stare unflinchingly at what’s just been described.

In film, a picture’s overall success or failure is attributed primarily to the director.
Don’t take my word for it: check the opening titles to any film made in the last twenty years. Now, despite the fact that he was supplied the script, and had dozens to hundreds of people assisting him, it is still understood that it is “his” film.

In comics the artist handles all of the responsibilities of an entire film crew, including the Director, with perhaps postproduction work by an inker and a colorist.
Good script, bad script, the overall success or failure of the comic is in the hands of the visual storyteller. It is up to him to either realize the potential of a great script, or find an engaging way to visualize a mundane one.

Now before all the writers in the room start calling me a low-down motherfucker, let me explain. This screed isn’t meant to knock the writer down, as much as clarify the process and recognize the importance of the artist.

Flash forward to last year. Another bar, this one in my hometown. Present were Bullets cover artist Dave Johnson, artist David Lloyd, cartoonist Jill Thompson and her husband, Brian Azzarello. I decided to float my theory to Brian, in an effort to spark a little lively debate.
Brian reminded me of many things regarding the process of creating comics. Without the writer’s script, there is no book. He gives voice to the players. A good writer provides substantial description and reference with his script that guides the artist. Most importantly, and I know Brian was speaking from his experience with Eduardo, the writer collaborates with the artist to create the final product.
I agreed wholeheartedly, because what Brian said was true. Speaking directly of this book’s writer, I would add that he also provides the most compelling array of characters and twists of fate that crime comics have ever seen. His dialogue is second to absolutely none, including personal faves like Jim Thompson, James M. Cain and James Ellroy. Brian Azzarello is one of the best crime fiction writers today. Period. But it doesn’t change the fact that it is the artist that translates the script into a story. If a film director works closely with the screenwriter, that doesn’t lead to shared directorial credit. It’s still his picture.

Now your honor, I may not be some fancy, big-city lawyer, but even I can see where I’m going with this. As prime as the writer is, it is the visual storyteller, or artist, or director that actually brings the story into the form in which it is viewed.

Which brings us to Eduardo Risso, one hell of a director. Bullets was my first exposure to Eduardo’s work, and it made an instant impression. I remember being suitably wowed with his skills, but even more astounded by the overall sense of reality he wrapped the stories in. I’m not speaking about photo reality, or real real, I’m talking about cartoon reality.

Risso has achieved something here that many attempt, but few achieve. I see it in Gould’s Dick Tracy, I see it writ crude and large by Howard Sherman on the early Doctor Fate, Ditko’s Spider-Man and Mignola’s Hellboy. It is what I often refer to as a fully realized vision. A stylized manifestation of the work’s themes that is so total, it becomes it’s own reality. It’s as if Brian’s zeitgeist is somehow hardwired into Eduardo’s creative self-conscious. Every pose, every composition, every lighting choice feeding the dark paranoia of the narrative.

As the story has gained muscle and history it has begun to seem more like
An endless stage strung across some tragic cosmos where spotlights snap on to reveal the passage of its troupe of doomed players. Eduardo uses these lights with virtuoso skill to select the moments that define the narrative and its hapless cast, first-billed or walk on alike.

Eduardo uses black so strongly, his design sense is so immutable and graphic, it allows color artist Trish Mulvhill a far wider range on her palette than you’d expect in a crime comic. Whether the team sees it or not, Trish’s note-perfect and inventive color is what balances the book and keeps it from becoming too harrowing. Honestly, these things would simply be too much for me in black and white.

As is often the case in crime drama, Eduardo’s reality is as much defined by what is unseen as what is. Whether it’s a back alley, a Chinese restaurant or a high-rise penthouse one always has the sense that unknown horrors lay just outside the graphic pools and slats of light that frame our players. Speaking of which, we’re one Dave Johnson cover away from dropping back into the sea of black ink that circles Brian and Eduardo’s dark, dirty world. Join me now, as the curtain rises on the fall of the house of Axel. And keep it down. I can’t stand talking when the picture is this good.

Darwyn Cooke
East of Croatoa
2006

I think Darwyn is essentially right. In comics where the writer and artist are two different people, the story that the writer produces has to be mediated by the artist, before it gets to the reader. So the artist is the medium or the mediator between the script and the reader. I don’t know if this makes the artist more “important,” whatever that means. But it does mean that the role of the writer in comics is fundamentally different from the role of the writer in unillustrated prose.

Omar says:

“In contrast, today’s dominant American comics aesthetics seem to be “widescreen” work for the majors and “quirky cartooning” with nonetheless linear and cinematic staging for the higher profile indies.”

I don’t agree with that last part. Chris Ware and Kevin Huizenga, for example, are not what I’d call linear or cinematic. They both employ a wide range of layouts and panel shapes, and they often tell stories in nonlinear sequences.

Honestly, I think it’s a huge waste of time to even bother trying to decide who’s a more “primary” creator. The artist wouldn’t have a story to draw without the writer, and the writer wouldn’t have a tangible comic book of his story, without the artist.

The fact is that comic books, like films, are a visual media. Whether that relates to reading words or looking at pictures is irrelevant. The point is to present a story in a cohesive, interesting manner.

And I’ll be darned if the definition of cohesive isn’t “working together”.

So, yeah, ultimately, I’m with Joe. My favorite comic book-makers tend to be folks that write AND draw, because there’s no disconnect between the two. Scenes are written the way they can or will be drawn, and drawn the way they were written. It is inherently more unified.

It’s like trying to decide whether and actor or a writer is more integral to a play. Or whether a writer or director is more integral to a movie. Or whether hydrogen or oxygen is more integral to the air we breathe.

On some of the others, the points are arguable, but on whether hydrogen or oxygen is more integral to the air humans breathe, oxygen wins over hydrogen by a huge, Galactus-sized margin without doubt. If hydrogen disappeared from the air, everyone is okay. Not so much with oxygen.

My understanding is that a lot of the formal structure of screenplays/teleplays disappears in other scripts. Plays don’t have a universal script structure. Neither do comic books (from my understanding). It seems like writers have many different approaches to laying out a script for artists. So the questions are really how well does a script writer conceive a story visually AND communicate that vision to an artist?

The limits on a writer/artist are the same for anyone else. They are limited by imagination and skill. The one limitation that cannot be overcome is imagination. Still, if that’s your only limit, it’s a pretty unlikely to effect what an artist does too much. The neat thing about collaboration is the chance to get outside of your own imagination, which has advantages and disadvantages. Tezuka didn’t seem to find many limits to his imagination, although his drawings retained their Disney influence up to the end of his life.