So the more comics I write the more I realize there are some basic truths I live by when working on comics. So I thought about it and then I decided, “Hey! Free blogging topic!” so I wrote some of it down.

I BELIEVE…

… in the 9 panel grid. A lot of artists I have met recently don’t, but in my brain every page I write is written for Keith Giffen to draw. I can’t help it. There is something soothing about a 9 panel grid when done right, to my head. It isn’t an “every page should be 9 panels” thing but I would like the option far more than I seem to get it.

… that webcomics are comics, too. The delivery system is not the medium.

… that the best comics I can create are the ones where the artist leaves my script behind to interpret it rather than cleave simply to it. That when true collaboration happens the pages I eventually see are not just what I’ve written but something more. Truly comics. Not just art, not just words but an honest merging of the two.

… that part of my job as a writer who can’t draw at all has been to learn how to think like an artist in order to write better for artists. I mean that in the sense of how layouts construct, story-flow, panel-flow and so on. All of the non-written technical details of a comic must be as familiar to me as everything else, so we have a shot at a great final project.

… in Jack Kirby. If you don’t appreciate his art and why people love it, you aren’t seeing something and I would be happy to discuss it with you.

… that every piece of the process is as important as every other. A good inker can save you. A good colorist can make everything breathe differently and a good letterer can elevate your script to higher ground – just as much as good pencils can. The reverse on all of those is also true.

… in respecting my editors and collaborators, always being a professional, no matter what.

… that my layouts are a good starting place for people who see smarter things than I do and I refuse to feel ownership over them so long as the replacement ideas serve the story.

… in Keith Giffen. No, seriously he is an amazingly good writer who is also an incredible artist. Look, really look at his layouts for the Legion in the 70s. That was innovation that most people still haven’t picked up on today.

… that any story meeting where you laugh as much as you work is going to create a better story than one where you sit and talk in deep serious tones all the time.

… in always being helpful and always making time for collaborators. Even when working with multiple people in multiple time zones. Everyone needs to feel involved and sleep will happen eventually anyway.

… that comics aren’t “movies on paper” or “books with pictures,” but are, in fact, their own medium with rules, potential and glory that other mediums don’t have. Those others are the same, having their own things that comics don’t, but there you go.

… that the next person to call comics a genre might just get a slap upside the head.

… in giving comics to kids. I remember learning certain words from old Lee/Kirby X-Men books (Thanks, Beast!) and I don’t see why others can’t also find a love of the medium at an early age. Uhm, maybe not the X-Men at an early age, these days, but you know what I mean.

… that this list doesn’t ever begin to scratch the surface.