Annotated 32-19
Pitch #6 of 10: I’ve already dropped a reference to him earlier in these pitches, so it should be no surprise that I’m tremendously influenced by Scott McCloud, particularly his -ing Comics trilogy. Understanding Comics, Making Comics, and even the more controversial Reinventing Comics have a lot to offer the aspiring comic-maker, exploring comics themselves and the wider world through a holistic yet comics-based “lens.” Even when his observations were limited or wrong or ahead of their time, they were partly redeemed because of the language they gave us. In many cases, no one else was even having the same conversation until Scott started it up.
My only real complaint about them? They’re not still being done! The process of making comics is changing rapidly, and while other books have come out about it, the sort of demonstration by action that a comic about comics can offer is hard to find. Scott did try an online continuation of Reinventing Comics for about six weeks, but I think he wasn’t prepared for the, er, coarse discourse that some corners of the internet had to offer even in 2001.
Comics Now… assuming it was written, er, now… would deal with such topics as post-pandemic convention planning, pandemic-set plots, designing stories for mobile, dealing with file-sharing (and when to call it piracy), the sometimes-porous line between comics and memes, emoji design, e-cards, NFTs, and just what’s happened lately to traditional cartooning sectors like political cartoons and comic books (that last one’s probably a multi-parter). A lot of interviewing would have to go into it, because few have McCloud’s ability to project expertise and I wouldn’t even want to portray myself as “the guy who’s figured it all out.” But somebody should be trying to cover this stuff via comics on a regular basis, you know? I don’t know anyone who is… and if somebody is, more people still probably should be.
She asks Graiya to fortify her roots.
The stress is likely going to Gray-ify her (hair) roots.
Reinventing Comics was the only one they had at the library I went to, so it’s the only one I’m actually familiar with! It works surprisingly well without any of the previous context
Whoops wrong email
Then you, sir, have not heard of the Etherington Brothers! Although their “How to think when you draw” instagram and books is art focused and not “The Business” focused.
IDK, there is so much available now. Guigar is still doing Webcomics.com and Comic Lab, many pros have Patreon where part of it is learning what they are doing to adapt to the current environment, etc. Youtube channels dedicated to this stuff. Trying to distill that into an ongoing comic, though, just seems like extra work, considering the media we have available at our fingertips.
I suppose I’d be coming at it from the perspective of one disillusioned with academic or industrial discourse “for its own sake” – I’ve had too much exposure to fine art, graphic design, comics, video games, animation, movies, television, tabletop games, engineering, and audio production to think that anything outside of software- and science-focused studies can dispense universally-applicable advice (law isn’t universally applicable across all these fields, across regions, or even time, I’ve found).
While this is material that I feel should be studied regardless of the focus of your expertise, since those disciplines make for useful tools for creators of all sorts, nothing short of having a solid background in the practice of a craft and peers (and maybe a mentor or two) with which to grow and learn will provide the foundation for achievement in these fields.
Resources like you’ve mentioned make for interesting reading and are useful to consult, however. I agree, someone should make a project out of proliferating their insight. There are many creators out there whom I’d be interested in hearing from on this matter, including yourself.