Easy versus hard
I think every artist has a baseline of what "finished" is in their head, and it's different for everyone. What looks effortless or tossed-off is often the result of a lot of prior visual exploration that we, the consumer, never see. You know in your head, when it's done. But throughout a career, those goalposts are always moving - in my experience, usually away from you. Sometimes this manifests as projects that are refinements (and often, sterile, airless ones) of an earlier, completed project that in some way failed to satisfy the author. I enjoyed the earlier novels of John Irving, but at a certain point, he seemed to cannibalise himself. It's very easy to start to repeat yourself when you reach the end of your personality.
Then there are artists who seem to peak, then disappear. I recently went down a real rabbit hole with David Mazzucchelli. I'd bought his big "late career" doorstop graphic novel Asterios Polyp when it came out in 2009, and I don't think I finished it. I'd not been a follower of his earlier work at the time (his Daredevil and Batman comics had been off my radar, and I'd never read his later indie anthology Rubber Blanket). Of course, when I read it now, I felt silly - it was and is a masterpiece, an exploration of both middle age and a peerless examination of the comics form in its construction.
But David was my age when it came out, just shy of 50, and he's never published anything else. I read (anecdotally, from his students, so who knows) that he's sitting on a lot of work but hasn't put it out. Which reminds me of the musicians I love who are apparently sitting on thousands of unrecorded or unfinished songs, but can't find it within themselves to complete them or to trust others to help them do it. I know there's a little of that inside me too, though the need to pay the bills means I have to finish things. Fear is a man's best friend, right?
But recently I have begun to find producing the comics I do exhausting. I work sensible hours and take time off, but as soon as I crank up the weapons of war, I start to look slightly ashen and grey. I still really enjoy drawing and coming up with story ideas, so it's a bit disconcerting to feel this way as I go about it. So I decided to examine what I was doing day to day, on my writing weeks (1 in 7) and drawing weeks (6 out of 7 - on week 8 I have a week off both). And the answer is (I think): complexity.
The complexity of my comics has risen significantly over the last decade. Word counts have increased per page. Plots are compressed into 22 and now 24-page "issues" featuring ceaseless miniature turnarounds working towards a satisfying resolution AND the continuation into the next issue. The art has become significantly more complex, with interactions and activity sometimes taking place across in three separate planes in one panel. A panel that might only constitute 1/6 of a page.
I know a lot more about anatomy from all my life drawing, but this makes it harder to knock out an easy panel. No panel is easy. The hardest pages are the ones with people standing around talking, because every figure is open to scrutiny. That leg's wrong that's foot's wrong. That eye's too far to the left. That head looks like I've drawn it a hundred times before. Draw it differently. You can do it better than that.
My work on American comics taught me to work very densely and now, with the expectation from my audience (and myself) of that as the norm, I don't know how to simplify back to a comfortable level. I've spent the last couple of weeks trying to work out how I would do that in the context of the comics I'm working on, and I can't. Volume 2 of Solver is nearly finished, and it's the acme of this intense approach. Volume 3 can't look like I did my homework on the bus. I don't know how other artists in the back half of their careers deal with something like this in a constructive way. No one talks about it. That's why I'm talking about it here.
But while I was trying to work all this out, trying to think out my next storylines and how I would do them without wiping myself out again, I thought back to the 12 pages of stupid comics I made in November 2024, A Holiday Harlequinade. Stuck on the sofa under a blanket while all my windows were replaced, with none of the usual refinements I make possible, with a loose plot and no script, working with a piece of software (Procreate) I never use to draw comics, somehow I drew all those pages in three days.
The short video at the top of the page shows you all the decisions I made, and exactly when I made them for one of the pages. With no possibility of a "perfect" finish, no expectation that they would be examined to death by a handful of well-meaning but vocal enthusiasts, I was immune from self-criticism. It's like a photograph of myself on holiday, free of care. Seeing it again gives me hope that I can work my way through this tricky period. I'm not going to start writing and drawing like that all the time (I wouldn't want to) but it reminds me of the adaptations even I, inflexible old Johnny A, can make with a few enforced limitations.
Please do not mistake this for a cry for help. If I wanted to take six months off, I'm pretty sure the enterprise would survive. But making comics has been part of my life for nearly 30 years and I enjoy it as much now as I ever did. This is more an acknowledgement of having backed myself into something of a corner creatively with my practice. I have written it down (let's be fair) mostly for myself, but also for anyone else who feels the same way.
Comments (19)
I see your struggle. As a middle-aged man grumpily assigned the role of party raconteur I also need you to know I'm stealing this line: "It's very easy to start to repeat yourself when you reach the end of your personality."
It's a Quentin Crisp quote, I cannot take credit!
I've just started reading Steeples on Webtoon, and it's definitely a lot further along in complexity (characters, plot, art) since the scary go round days (hi, I remember webrings 😬). Anyway this reflection makes a lot of sense, about why it saps you. I am thinking of writing myself, but coming to it in this internet age and my own standards makes the scrutiny terrifying to bear. Your thoughts help. Maybe I'll fart this thing out one way or another. (It's not my day job, less of that sort of pressure then.) Thanks John - till then, on with our labours eh.
I would never have shown my work to anyone more than a handful of baffled friends if I hadn't had the eccentric notion to make a living of it in my very early 20s. And it was a long time after that that such a thing was possible. If you like making things, make them. Everyone's a critic but most of them can't make anything. If you can, you've already won.
I feel like you start to sense a similar exhaustion in a lot of artists as they get older--the novels get thinner, the paintings increasingly abstract--but in some cases, it seems like they're getting closer to the essence of who they are as an artist. No time/energy left to be "clever," just get the lines that matter onto the page/canvas. I'd be surprised if you're in the "J.M.W. Turner paintings that look increasingly like ill smoke" stage of your career, though, so I will suggest getting a brutally inflexible editor to excise the worst 20% of your words and characters from each issue between scripting and drafting. Surely this is how narrative art is done.
Alas, you could compile all the words that were cut by my editors from the 80 or so issues of US comics I wrote onto just over half a side of A4 paper. You couldn't get that sheet of paper between two lines of most of my scripts. I script and draft at the same time!
Thanks for this, Johnny A. ❤️
The detail in just those sketches is amazing. I can imagine that'd take more effort than the good old Scary Go Rounds, no matter how much more skilled you are.
Logged in to say even as an artist who only draws casually - I still resonate with this a lot. I used to be very prolific with producing new art because it would only take me 2-3 hours if I willed it so. However, as I've grown as an artist, raised my standards, and added more to my process - it feels more daunting to accomplish anything because it simply takes longer to complete something up to my standard. But I also don't know how I would go about lowering the standard - at least not in a way that wouldn't make everything feel like a rough sketch.
In terms of dialing down complexity, I wonder what will happen to another artist I follow, Hollering Elk, as her career goes on. She's working on a 12 panel shitpost, and while it's going to be wonderful when it hits Reddit, the script, sketch, linework and coloring are taking her WEEKS to put it together. To say nothing of the months it takes her to do a part of her serious story, which then (discouragingly) fails to do the numbers on Reddit because Reddit really just wants the shitposts. And she's very young and relatively early in her career. I wonder how sustainable this will be?
I always find it fascinating when you talk about your methods and process. I can't imagine having to both write *and* draw a story, and have both things work. Something like Claire and Lottie's Ferry Buffet seems impossibly complex to me but is, of course, an absolute treat to look at. I would definitely never expect that for every page though - and in fact, as a reader, I'm happy with whatever direction the story or art goes in. A lot of the things that get in one's head as a creator are so invisible to the people on the other end of it.
Fascinating insight to your process here. I really enjoyed reading it. I too have a major appreciation for Mazzucchelli (as I’m sure many do) and I found Asterios Polyp to be amazing the first time I read it. I’ve been hoping and waiting for more Mazzucchelli in the years since, but no such luck. There was even a time in my wildest dreams when I thought about how cool it would be to quit my job and move to Rhode Island and take his class and become a comic book artist. All things considered I’d still love to take his class.
It's the burden that many carry in one form or another in their area of expertise or their passion as they age. The transition between the energy of youth and the wisdom of experience can be difficult to keep in balance.
Love the Harlequinade video! I'm along for the ride when you choose to post "easy" comics too. As far as I can tell at this point, John Allison is not capable of writing anything that's not funny and enjoyable.
I have been reading Oliver Burkeman lately and wondering about the struggle with perfectionism in my own work and this is helpful input to that, so thanks!
I thought of it in terms of density while I was reading the last installment of Solver, but from a creator’s perspective that’s complexity :) I’ve experienced it with books turned into movies: the latter typically feel denser and more constructed than the written work, if only because we now some transformation has to take place.
Thank you for this discussion! I've never heard this described/discussed, but it makes so much sense. When drawing comics I've been assuming that the ever greater complexity I'm reaching for will be backed by my (hopefully) growing experience and skills. But if the goalposts keep moving the complexity will probably hit untenable levels eventually. That's really helpful to think about. Thanks!
If dialling down the complexity isn't an option for you, in the midst of this project at least (maybe you can start a new one with a fresher, looser style in future?), but taking a longer break also wouldn't kill the enterprise, could you instead of either of these maintain the complexity but just work more slowly and publish more slowly for a while so as not to completely drain yourself? I'm sure us daily readers would get by on Tuesday and Thursday pages if need be!
Yah, allowing yourself a 2-week break might help. Or a (n extra) day off each week?