2-17-06

I really hate making my characters cry, but sometimes it has to be done.

You all should go read Nothing Better. It's a sensetive slice of life comic about a bunch of young people trying to find their way in the world, and it deals with religion as a part of people's lives, rather than being hostile or evangelical. So maybe it should sound a little familiar.

I was leafing through Warren Ellis' Come in alone recently. In it, he asks several comic artists and writers "Why comics?" It think it's an imteresting question, so I want to answer it, unsolicited and mainly for my own reference. My answer is twofold.

The first part of my answer stems from inability. I've always wanted to be a writer, but I really suck at descriptive prose. I mean, people who like my comic often say I'm a good writer, but really what they mean is that I can write decent dialogue, make up interesting characters and hang them together in something remotely resembling a plot. But I'm also a reader, I know what pleasant and enjoyable prose looks like, and I know it doesn't come out of my pen. But I can draw well. Not brilliantly, but certainly well enough to communicate.

The other reason is power. As storytelling media go, nothing give a single storyteller the control over a reader's experience that comics does. Prose and poetry leave so much up to the reader's imagination that any written story is pretty much just what you bring to it. Which is, in fact, why I love reading so much. Film is more like a total experience for the viewer, but it requires so many man-hours and so many different talents that it's very much a medium built on compromise. In comics, one person can pretty much control everything a reader sees and knows about a story. This is why comic book writer/artists are generally know as "creators" - we make little worlds, single-handed. Of course, you pay for that in bandwidth limitations. It's possible, indeed common, for an artist to spend ten years working on something that can be read in a hour. But I think it's worth the price.