The Terrible Anvil - How I Learned to Stop Worrying - Episode 5
How I Learned to Stop Worrying (and Love the Lettering)
On Choosing Ideas and Lettering
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Hi, Friends!
Over in Comics FLOW + PUBLISH we had another rollicking episode of The Terrible Anvil, answering two good questions this week about IDEAS and also we FINALLY talked a little bit about lettering.
Deanna asked:
If you have too many ideas whirling around your head, what's a good way of picking one out to work on?
My friend Fionnuala at the University of Edinburgh asked:
How to reconcile what’s in your head and what you put on paper?
Our ideas
Tom: I'm a bit of a hoarder when it comes to ideas…
Also Tom: I have two answers: randomness and cards, but also--ideas are bossy!
Carole McKee Armen: Ideas choose me.
Leonie Sharrock: Sometimes I have to wait for another idea to trigger an old idea into life … like one idea finds its soulmate idea, then we're cooking!! 😀
Jess: I’m thinking about the astonishing ideas vs the ordinary ones…
Tom: Sometimes I am worried ideas my skitter away—putting it off might release it of its creative charge, which is a little sad. ideas are like spells that wear off re: a lot of our mental attachments are spells and they fade.
From Maria Fitzgerald: Maybe some ideas are just perfect for how you think at a certain time, but then as time goes by your thinking changes.
Jess: Some ideas are like fireworks, others are like bossy siblings. Sometimes many ideas live in your book draft. Then you realize 2 are a book, 1 is a different book. As you work, things become more clear.
Tom: An idea is an invitation to act!
Donna: I can’t finish a project until I have an outline (from which to deviate).
Tom mentioned the perils of an old idea that is super mapped out—it is hard to act on it.
Maria: I kind of keep my ideas to myself until I get something down on paper…Because talking about an idea is not the same as actually writing it or drawing it yourself.
Carole also said: Sometimes talking about an idea makes it lose its mojo. Don’t know why…
Tom: Sometimes it's ok if an idea is just cool to talk about and you don't make something. Or what about an idea steeped in curiosity, steeped in a question? Start wherever you can!
How to reconcile what’s in your head and what you put on paper?
Jim Hamilton: Falling was a side topic that came up while I was researching a different book. I only became obsessed with it over time.
Tom: We're creatures! We make stuff! (Create-tures?)
Jess mentioned her love for the competitive baking show, Nailed It! As well as the Trump cake that makes her wheeze with laughter:
Which Tom eloquently paraphrased as: When we try to make the professional art it looks like amateur baking show cake!
Jess wondered: Are you inviting the audience in too soon?
Maria had a good point: I wonder if it is true that the reader gets more involved if they have to interpret the art a little…if it is not just perfectly representational.
One of our nonfiction students, Ellen, said about her work: I have to have fun doing it!—which is a really useful point.
Tom shared this quote via Austin Kleon, from Will Oldham:
“Part of the idea in making a record is to freeze lots of moments of learning and discovery so that it really is like every time you press “play” you are opening up this experiment again.”
Tom further opined: Honoring imagination with a certain amount of liveliness…The fun of it is learning and doing something unexpected. Rereading it later can revive that moment, what it was like to discover something.
Tom says: Try not to separate the process from the final!
Jess: As working professionals we forget to have fun.
On the topic of fun—WHAT ABOUT LETTERING?!
Some lettering tips:
Don't put it off til the very end
Do leave lots of space
Don’t do long Hindenburg lines of text! (giant ovals of dialogue balloons)
Jess used to be afraid of lettering. But if she does it first she now thinks, “Wow this looks like a real comic!”
Alison Kent asked: Wondering how many people produce scripts separate from the drawings?
Jim: I do! But it may not be the kind of script you are asking about. I lay out the text for each page and then trace it before adding drawings.)
Jess mentioned: If I have a clear script, lettering is WAY easier too! Sometimes the fear of lettering is the fear of clarifying the script.
Tom asked: What is the lettering for? Communicators/creatures. It doesn't have to look a certain way—don't fall into the trap of using Arial font and not being specific. Treat the lettering like it's part of the work (or communication/expression of the work).
You can generate your own font here at Calligraphr (thanks Adrean!)
There are good resources out there for lettering! For example, Nate Piekos' BLAMBOT!
Alison Kent: Re: scripts — I heard a podcast about making comic book scripts and this gives the client a good sense of what’s going to be there before you spend 3 years drawing. (Or before the client gives you a contract.)
Adrean added: I think sometimes we research things too much when we really should be playing and experimenting with it. Things like lettering require “do it” time to build up the skills and knowledge.
Tune in for our next episode: PITCHING!
From Sally Charette: How about talking about pitching since pitching for the next FLOW anthology is coming up? (TROUBLED HISTORIES)
Happy Making,
Jess
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