Blight sketch party
I did a lot of preparatory work for Blight. My enforced break through June and July was tedious but necessary, and restored my enthusiasm for the process. A lot of sketching in front of the TV. A lot of failed covers too, that was the hardest part of my brain to get to switch back on.
A big part of my crash was that I'd been tying myself up in visual knots for years, trying to be inventive with my layouts, which had made it very hard to call a page "finished". It started with Steeple, where I suddenly had the pressure of drawing a monthly direct market market book in an industry built on insane visual splash. I felt very exposed. And I only lasted five months! But I never quite shook the feeling.
After 7 years in this headspace, I'd put huge pressure on myself. I'd delete and redraw already-coloured panels, sometimes recreating 75% of the page having essentially finished it. Part of getting back to making comics was putting a strict time limit on drawing pages, and accepting that my normal basic late-1990s web-cartoonist thoughts were not only good enough, but perhaps a better mode of expression than trying to endlessly draw panels with three or even four "planes of action" in order to stack information in 1/6 of a page.
Preparing Murder She Writes for its re-run/reprint, I realised that I preferred the old comics I made, and I suspected that readers liked them better too. So I looked some of my very favourite artists and rediscovered the joy of concentrating on character acting over design choices. I started to enjoy making pages again. Hopefully that shows through in Blight.
Part 2 will be up here tomorrow.
Comments (21)
I remember reading that 2000ad artist Ron Smith would divide the monetary amount he'd receive for a job by what he thought he should earn per hour and set a timer for how long he'd spend on each page. Wild!
While I will immediately imagine downsides to this, this seems a pretty healthy approach for a work-for-artist?
It made me a little sad to read that you were struggling with your art, but really glad you took the break you need and are feeling better and more creative again. :)
It's a long road, there are tough patches along the way but I get there
I love Blight
Obsessive revisions are the death of creativity. Anton Bruckner was a renowned 19th century composer of massive symphonies, and would have been able to not only finish his 9th but probably write another 3 or 4 had he not listened to friends and constantly revised his already published works. The French composer Maurice Duruflé, over a span of 60 years, only managed to publish 13 works and withdrew one of them.
"Obsessive" would be a strong word
Number 10 is faaaaaan-tastic!
Wow! A lot of great and fun to look at drawings, a real treat. but I want to highlight the one Esther of being propelled by an explosion
Good grief... Ms. De Groot really does leave few options for men who behold her not to be instantly smitten.
She's just very very confident!
I don't want to create the impression I don't like your Steeple-and-beyond work, because I do think it's been some of your best, but I fell in love with old stuff—SGR & especially Bad Machinery—first, so dialing back the complication meter is absolutely fine if it allows you a sustainable lifestyle.
Ultimately pretending I have any control over these things is lunacy
here to emphatically agree with "better mode of expression" —it's been my firm belief for decades now (I dare you to ask me how I felt about Garry Trudeau's revised art style following his ’80s sabbatical) that relatively restrained, stable camera positioning is nearly always best for comics that are funny
Your "normal basic late-1990s web-cartoonist thoughts" are more than good enough John. I really love them. Please let your inner magic flow out to us.
Love the googly eyes logo!
I was really pleased with that too, but when I put it on my final cover it was a bit overwhelming. I'll try to apply the googly eyes method to a future comic!
"accepting that my normal basic late-1990s web-cartoonist thoughts were not only good enough, but perhaps a better mode of expression" is a big mood.
I've embraced my most basic self Jodie. I'm allowed to be clever but not if it hurts my mind to do so.
That last cover is spectacular!!
Seconded!