Some Quick notes on what I want out of the art I create.

I am making space for this idea, the idea of what I want to write and how I want it to be presented. I haven’t done this a lot. I almost never try to purposely think of my own art work. There always seems to be a constant stream of things I am doing where reflection becomes impossible. This is no good. Over the past year I have been confronted, quite a few times, with the problems this lack of reflection creates.

Recently I was listening to a podcast with the writer/actor Danny Strong and he talked about his struggle for the first five years of screenwriting. He said he struggled because he kept making the mistake of writing what he thought other people people wanted to read in a script. It was only when he decided to create the work that he wanted to see made that he found success.

So what work do I want to see?

 

I want to see panels with very short sentences.

I want to create work that flows and is so easy to read that it begs you to keep going. I want to create a comic that people have a hard time putting down.

 

I want to say something with my art.

I want to push people’s thinking on some of the bigger thoughts that make up living. In True Detective this is done through the Rust Cohle character when he talks about the philosophies of human existence. This is an amazing character. I want to create characters that do this. Characters that are driven and reveal that through who they are, whether the story needs it or not.

 

I don’t want to bang long sentences on my own beliefs over my audience’s head.

I want it to be subversive, a part of a flow. Maybe even not there at all. After all, the way I arrange my story will be a reflection on who I am, whether I want it to or not.

 

I want my work to flow.

I want these ideas in my head to get out and on to the page. I want to refine my work so that it can do so.

 

I want to create worlds.

Write in various times of history. Future, past, present. I want all of them. I want to complete memoirs. I want my art to breath and have a quality of flow that people find calming. I want it to be beautiful.

 

Things I decided I do not want:

I am in no rush to create superhero stories.

American BOOOM! Kind of killed that for me. At least for now. Maybe someday when I have the money, I can purchase the rights to that project back and see that story get refined and presented.

 

I do not need to do strict genre pieces.

Though genre can influence my work, I am not really attracted to one over the other. I want to study all the genre’s and let the masters identified therein wash over my work as an unconscious afterthought.

 

I do not need fame.

Or to create money. Above all of that I want to see work that I feel creates a calm and sense of wonder in me. I think I am getting there with the digitally painted pieces I have created at the end of 2014