Creating Comics • Garen Ewing with their comic, it is a success for all comics. If fight scenes or extreme situations are too commonplace then they can lose their potency, their danger. If, like in life, fights are rare, then when they do happen they have greater impact, especially if the result on the characters is serious. Too much death and it takes on very little meaning. When I make comics, I am not a writer when I write the script, and I am not an artist when I draw the pictures – I am a comic creator with both tasks. Making comics is a single discipline with a single end product – the comic. Don’t sit there sobbing over everything that’s wrong with a drawing you’ve just done. Go and do a new drawing and make it better. You can learn from anyone, no matter what their level of expertise, no matter what their age is. Stay humble and be generous. Don’t respond to bad reviews of your work. Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t don’t. Things in publishing aren’t always great. When this happens, don’t withdraw – you’ve got to keep engaged. Keeping engaged means opportunities will still come your way and things will improve.
“Don’t respond to bad reviews of your work. Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t don’t.”
It’s very easy to spend all your time writing emails, doing interviews, attending events, dealing with admin – and not writing and drawing. Don’t do that. Writing and drawing must come first. People are fond of saying how comics are great for slow readers to hook them into reading. Then they complain when comics are seen as dumbed-down kids’ stuff, useful only as a stepping stone to ‘proper books’. CONTINUES ➤
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