telophase | (no subject)

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THought I'd pull out and post one of my responses on a recent

lilrivkah post about Wizard World Chicago, and creating works, and being passionate about it. The context is a discussion about fulfilling your creative drive through original works (she asked some Big Corporation artists if they ever drew anything for themselves and received basically a "Bzuh?" in answer) , and I'm suggesting that for some people, the creative drive doesn't have to be fulfilled solely through original work.

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How about thinking of it this way: these characters are their passion. Someone who's grown up with Batman, made a million stories about Batman in his head since he was a kid, drawn a million pictures of Batman all over his books and notes, and now he's grown up and working for DC and paid his dues less-popular titles, and now ... dude! He's drawing Batman!!

I don't think that's mere hero-worship. I see lots of people who are passionate about their fanfic and fanart enough so that if they were offered a chance to write or draw in that world, they'd be in hog heaven.

Similar to that, there are people who want to work with certain other people, and they don't care what on. The chance to draw an Alan Moore work, for example - they wouldn't care if it was Watchmen, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen or Top Ten, as long as they got to work with Moore.

There's also the idea that the act of creating is what drives them and fulfils their creative needs, not the subject matter. That's one of my drives, and the one that's taken care of by fanart. I don't really care that the character I'm drawing isn't mine, because that's not the point - just to see the rendering develop under my pencil, or the chance to play with settings in Painter (or, currently, to experiment with my new Copics) is the point, and I really don't want to waste time that I could be using to play with this other stuff in developing something original.

Have you read the book Hanging Out with the Dream King: Interviews with Neil Gaiman and His Collaborators ? There's a lot in there about collaboration - the artists and letterers aren't working on their own things, they're working with Gaiman, and you can see their ideas about how they do or do not like doing it. (One of Gaiman's tricks to working well with his collaborators is to find out what they really like to draw, and incorporate it into the story: Sam Kieth does well with giant crowd scenes with lots of little creatures in them, and another one wanted to draw helicopters.)

Hm, went on longer than I expected. I may repost this to my LJ and find out what my friendlist thinks: they're a creative and opinionated bunch. :)

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Alan Moore's writing Transmetropolitan these days? It's amazing what happens when you stop going to comic shops for a couple of years...

Sorry, brain fart. XD Will edit.

I agree (though the DC people did pretty much sound like pawns). There's a long continuum between "totally original" and "tracing," and most people's work isn't as far on the original end of it as they think. And that's OK. For instance...

Fanfic
Fanfic involving original characters that end up going off and doing their own thing.
Fanfic with the serial numbers filed off, then published as non-fanfic.
Fanfic off of public domain materials. (ie, retellings of fairy-tales, Laurie King's Sherlock Holmes stories, Saiyuki.)
Extremely derivative but not technically fanfic works of fiction. (ie, any high fantasy with quests, orcs, elves, dwarves, a Dark Lord, etc.)
Original works inspired by other published works. (ie, China Mieville's "The Tain," which was inspired by a story idea by Jose Luis Borges.)
Original works which borrow a style but not the plot from other material. (ie, original fairy tales in the style of the Brothers Grimm)
Parody and satire.
Original works in a genre the writer did not create, which make deliberate use of genre tropes and characters. (Any film noir, romance, high fantasy, murder mystery, Top Ten, etc.)

And so forth. Very little is completely original.

Out of curiosity, when I give you a character description and you create the character design, do you think of that as original work (because you created the design) or derivative work (because you didn't create the character's personality and get his or her looks from thin air)?

Fanfic with the serial numbers filed off

Hee! Very astute.

Mmm. Hard to say. There's a sense of ownership there, to an extent, because I know how he looks and moves and what clothes he wears (whether or not that agrees with your vision is another matter), and I can see a guy walking down the street here in a t-shirt and those baggy khaki shorts eveyone's wearing and go "Yeah. Mark." but there's still a sense that there's things I don't know about him. I don't even really have any original characters - the webcomic characters are mostly mine, but were still born of collaboration, and the two origial stories I have partially thought out, the one with fairly fleshed-out characters was done after a couple of long noodling sessions with a friend, and the other one is still amorphous.

If you look at Can't Sleep (http://www.cant-sleep.net), you'll notice that Mark is physically defaulting back to my Beecher character - for some reason if I don't watch it, any guy with short hair is going to be either Beecher or Jason. And I didn't even realize Mark was heading towards Beecher until night before last, when looking at it.

Genghis and Jason's general look and vauge personalities (to start with) were ripped off from the manga Voyeur (not the sequel series Voyeurs, Inc., which isn't as good, IMHO), taken in a few different directions, then slapped into the middle of an SF convention. They're different now than their progenitors. Beecher's looks showed up more-or-less out of thin air - the utilikilt was the important bit - but his personality was shaped with lots of input from my cowriters.

Beecher, Genghis, and Jason live in my head to an extent that Mark and Push et al. don't, so I feel more proprietary towards them - I know them, I know their favorite colors, I know what their apartments look and smell like, and so on.

But it's a continuum - I can usually identify exactly where I ripped off personality and physical characteristics, so I never feel that a character's truly original - most of the ones that live in my head and feature in the stories-I-tell-myself-at-night stuff are blatant Mary Sues or characters that are mashups of characters from other manga, books, movies, and so on - those feel extremely derivative to me, moreso than the Can't Sleep guys or the Project Blue Rose/BK characters.

Dunno if that answered your question. :) I'm not sure of the answer myself.

You know, this puts me in mind of something my sister (who is getting an MA in Children's Lit) was telling me about artist/author collaborations in Children's Lit. She said that unless an author is doing their own illustrations (which they can only do if they're already famous and influential), they're not allowed to have any say in the illustration process. Requesting an artist, throwing in little sketches or saying what you want the art to look at is a good way to get your story tossed on the reject pile. Authors are not allowed to make suggestions, they're not allowed to critique the art, and not only do they not choose their own illustrators, they're not even allowed to talk to the illustrators. Because after all, writers don't know anything about art, and it would be presumptuous of them to interfere with the artist's Creative Process. Writers write, artists draw, and never the twain shall meet.

Which basically sounds to me like Children's Lit illustrators are tremendous prima donnas. You'd have to be crazy or starving to choose that kind of collaboration.

My sister was bemused by the idea that comic book writers and artists might actually talk to each other, or god help us, do little thumbnail sketches of panels, as Neil Gaiman says he does.

Heh - the YA author Patricia Wrede says that for children's book covers, at elast, the artist has to get it right. Adults will ignore the main character painted with red hair when it's described as blonde in the book, but with kids you'll get a ton of letters in pencil on lined paper that say "youg got the hair color wrong and you suck." :)

I was at a con and attended a panel about cover art with David Weber on it, and he said that he left the cover art up to the publisher and artist, unless they came and specifically asked him questions, because they knew what sold. And that once he mentioned to an artist that they got the ears wrong on an alien that he'd written, and the artist said that he put the ears down lower on the skull because the character was supposed to be friendly and sympathetic and if he'd put them higher, he'd have to change the shape of the skull, andhe wanted to keep it similar to human, for the friendly-and-sympathetic effect.

There's a big difference between illustrated picture books (where the artist and author are usually in extensive contact) and the covers of children's and young adult novels. In most trade publishing, authors have no say over their cover illustrations.

Well, when she said that the arists and authors aren't supposed to have contact, and do not have contact in most cases, she was specifically talking about illustrations within the book, not the cover art. ::shrug:: (She has no professional experience herself, yet, but her program works a lot with people in the industry; make of that what you will.)

The cover of a text-only novel is pretty much stands apart from the book; reprints will often feature entirely new art, anyway. The art within the pages of a picture book is a much bigger deal, since it's an immediate visual interpretation of the text, and literally half the point. That's what I find so bizarre--a collaborative work where collaboration means throwing two people at a work and forbidding them to interact.

Also, the rules on cover illustration aren't set by either the artist or the author--they're set by the publisher, who may or may not believe the author knows about art, but who is inclined to think she or he doesn't know about marketing books. It's the publisher commissioning the cover and paying for it as well.

Regarding comic artists who have no interest in doing their own works:

Just because you have training doesn't alter your basic personality. If you are not suited to be an entrepreneur, you probably won't strike off on your own. You may become discouraged and change careers if things don't go your way immediately. If you are satisfied working for others or you work best within structured limitations, corporate life may be for you. And if you are a curious, inquisitive person with the drive to live at the edge of it all, you may become involved with shaping the next trends in the industry.

These things apply to ANY industry. The hobby carpenter is different from the master carpenter is different from the guy who is inventing a new way to pound nails. They are all involved in carpentry, and may be passionate about their role in it, but their personalities gravitate them towards different aspects of the industry naturally.

I've worked with artists before who have no interest in writing thier own works. They live to bring other peoples' stories to life! It isn't fair to accuse them of having no passion because they do not have a personal story to tell, or they don't care to work independent of a company.

And since when does passion and creativity have to go hand in hand? I am not passionate about computer programming yet I spend the bulk of my time doing it because it pays the bills. I am not a passionate person, period. I never have been. Yet, I create indpendent comics, write and illustrate. I think it's a bit of tunnel vision to assume that those who create must be passionate.

You may not feel passion in all aspects of your life, but do you feel any passion when you are in the process of creating? I feel no passion whatsoever for, say, doing the dishes; I do them anyway, because they need to be done. But if I don't feel a surge of emotion or joy while I'm writing a poem, I won't finish it. I create for pleasure, not out of necessity.

You know, I rarely get surges of any good emotion when I'm immersed in something. Frustration, annoyance, stress, etc, yes, but not joy or whatever. It's after I'm done and I look back at it and say "Was it worth that?" and the answer's yes that it all falls together. Release of endorphins, perhaps.

Sometimes there's those moment when you're sketching or painting and every line is just right but those are few and far between and you can't make yourself have them.

"Surge of joy" might have been overstating it a little bit. But usually, when I'm creating, I am enjoying myself very much the entire time; I even enjoy working my way through, a line that just doesn't have the right meter.

However, my inability to work when I'm not high on the creative process might explain why I'm not prolific, and why I tend to produce only poems and short stories. (And, back in high school when I still drew, portraits, but never multi-paneled comics.)

I'm not trying to say what anyone's creative process should feel like, you understand--I was just describing my own, which is generally very pleasant, but not something I ever expect to put in service to a vocation.

Ha, good timing! I just finished pondering that very question and posted in my journal about it. Fear of being forgotten when I'm gone is a big motivator for me. Can I be passionate about fear? Ahaha, I sound so melodramatic! (I'm not really!)

I do them anyway, because they need to be done.
Actually, that pretty much sums it up for me! I feel compelled to do them.
Making a comic means hours of drudge work. I think you either need passion out the wazoo to sustain you or you need to view it as a job in order to slog your way through to completion. I can honestly say I look at making a comic as if it is doing dishes, only in the case of the comic I don't have a machine that automates most of the work for me so it is more like doing dishes by hand. =p But, like having all my dishes done, I come out of it with a sense of satisfaction and I feel pretty proud of myself. (Maybe if I didn't have to do ALL the parts of making a comic myself, if I could just do the bits I consider 'fun', I would feel more passionate; as it is the drudgery kills a lot of the enjoyment.)

But if I don't feel a surge of emotion or joy while I'm writing a poem, I won't finish it. I create for pleasure, not out of necessity.
Would you say that this means you would be happiest keeping your poetry writing as a hobby rather than a full-time job?

Would you say that this means you would be happiest keeping your poetry writing as a hobby rather than a full-time job?

Hell, yes. While I do actually have a separate passion I hope to someday make a vocation, and I get a great deal of pleasure out of problem-solving in work situations, I would never want to make a career out of any of the creative arts I dabble in. It would kill the joy, and I would feel insecure and unmotivated.

interesting discussion.

i feel a lot of passion (though it's a quiet sort of passion) for the things i do (not all of them are creative per se, such as gardening), but i don't necessarily feel it while i am engaged in the endeavour. i am often concentrating really hard to get something just right, or there is drudge work to be done to get the project to the next stage. sometimes i get into what i call a "zen" mode, when things just ... flow, and there is no drudgery; everything just works, but that doesn't feel passionate, it just is, in the moment.

after such an experience i usually feel a surge of joy at how well things went, and that really awakens my passion for the craft, and i could burble on at length about how wonderful doing those things is. :)

and no, i needn't do original work for this to happen. last time i felt a zen moment was when i was filling 50,000 holes with epoxy (i am rebuilding an old wooden fishing troller). it's not creative at all, in fact. but there is passion for work well done, for making something old new again, for fixing something that's broken, and making it useful. there is no difference between the passion i feel for the boat and the passion i feel for my freeform yarn work or my writing.

I get sort of Zen when grating cheese, of all things. I've got one of those stand-up box graters, and I can take a two-pound block or cheese, a bowl, and the grater over to a char and sit and watch TV while grating. It gets Zen because it's a mindless repetitive task, yet you have to be mindful because if you're not, you injure yourself (I managed to grate my thumb almost a year ago, and the scar is still very faintly there).

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passion and creativity

Re: passion and creativity