It occurred to me that the writing phase subforum might be a good place for this question, which is one I ask myself all the time. Why bother drawing a graphic novel at all? If there's already prose and poetry on the one hand, and fine art or the daily funnies and "sitcom" comics (I use the term to cover any of the Infinite Episodics online or in print these days) on the other, why sit on the fence and try to straddle these two and try to produce work in the long-form comics niche? Why not just write prose, or just paint or draw? And, further, why, if you are JUST a writer, write for a medium that places the lion's share of its successful development in the hands of someone else, who you either have to pay or collaborate with to get your work in print?

Has anyone here ever tried to think metaphysically about why they do this, when the input is so high and the return (monetarily at least) so slim? And rather than try to steer the topic, "I'll take my answer off the air."

--M

I do it because it's the most complex visual medium that allows you the most independence. You can do everything just by yourself, you don't need actors, musicians, writers, editors, painters, whatever.

Why someone would want to write comics and not participate in any other aspect of it? Because they love comics but can't draw. Why else. Comics isn't a smart career choice anyhow, it doesn't matter if you're just writing comics, just drawing comics, or doing both. It's a risk no matter what you do with it, even if you're really really good at it and everybody knows it. Even then.
If you love it, you'll do it. It doesn't have to make sense. I mean, why doing anything? Comics are great, therefore you should make them!

I agree with Iaviv so far as the complexity, but another aspect of it, for me, is the amount of control. The ability to say "This is exactly what this place looks like, character looks like, etc. etc." rather than relying on just prose to get it out there. Granted, I think prose has it's own strengths and time and place, but there's a certain satisfaction of knowing that certain things aren't going to be left out.

My mind always goes back to a little issue with Terry Pratchett's discworld. I love the series, but there was a slight mishap on one of the covers when the character TwoFlower, who was described as being "four-eyed," was depicted as literally having four eyes. Which threw the readers off entirely, as what the author had really meant was that TwoFlower wears glasses. In the end it's all minor, but hell.. I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't want to get my vision out there in a way that's available to me (unlike, as iaviv hinted at, with other visual mediums which aren't so easy to produce on a tight budget or one-person crew.)

Agreed with Iaviv that it's a medium that allows you the most independence. Making a graphic novel is just like making a big budget movie, except you have no budget. You also have 100% control.

@Covenmouse - Oh! I forgot about the control issue! Absolutely. Agreed.

Short Answer: Because I can.

Proper Answer: Traditional 20-22 page issues move too quickly to properly develop certain stories. It works just fine for super heroes and vignette type stories, but if you're thinking about a complete story it doesn't make sense to break up your idea into teeny-tiny chunks like that. I'm more comfortable presenting everything in one handy volume with no restrictions on length.

The true Graphic Novel is accommodating in every aspect - unlike the floppies you buy at the shop. If you can't finish your thoughts in 22 pages, there's no worry. You can end it when you feel like it. That freedom is what I enjoy mostly from making graphic novels. That and the subject matter I present often doesn't lend itself well to traditional format.

In terms of money, that is the tradeoff. You create your work, regardless of what the user wants because it is your story presented how you want - no compromises. If a reader shares that vision and buys your work, great. But if you're in it to make money, then you're not really creatively free anymore. You have to slightly bend your will to accommodate the readers who want certain things in order for them to potentially buy your work.

For me it seems an excellent, if work intensive, means of communication. I've taken many a creative writing course that hammered into my head 'show, not tell'... isn't this just a little more literal way of doing so?

I honestly don't have the patience for writing. I have been told I'm a good writer. But I can't stand it. It's seems so slow to me, and the process of composing prose arduous. While a drawing seems to give nearly immediate results. A sketch is messy, but can convey so much more compared to a piece of writing created in the same amount of time.

I'm not discounting good writing, nor am I saying it's not important in a graphic novel, only that being able to show exactly what I want someone to see without tortured screaming involved in a huge plus.

For me, it's just another way of telling a story. I've thought of pieces that work better as prose, or make for better movie scripts, but there are certain nuances of comic-ing that are special to that medium. Some stories are just work better as comics.

It's also so much fun to see characters you've only seen in your head come alive on a page. I do get a kick out of that.

I can wax on at length on why the GN format is so sublime, but I'll give my personal experience instead: because I feel compelled to, because I naturally lean towards showing rather than telling (a LOT of unsaid things are conveyed in my GN for those who look carefully), and because nothing gives me as much joy to work on. The thrill keeps getting better with time

Reason 1: Control. Like many of you have said, you get to be the director and writer and everything else and you get to tell your story the way you want to tell it.

Reason 2: It's something I can look at and think, "I made that." I've tried my hand at writing novels, and I enjoy it quite a bit, but looking at my manuscript doesn't give me the same feeling of accomplishment and ownership as looking at a finished illustration.

Reason 3: I think comics are going somewhere. They read faster than novels, yet provide the self-paced reader involved experience that prose excels at (and movies lack). Not to mention hand-held technology.

My reason. I want to push myself. To improve my art. For me, it's a lot more fun and motivational to try and create a GN with a story to tell while learning. By its very nature it's forcing me to try new things. Maybe what I'm doing isn't actually a GN. Maybe it's a just a sequence of related drawing exercises that hopefully at the least tell the story of a person trying to learn new things. But wouldn't it be cool if at the same time I could create a fun experience for others while I'm doing it?

The question is: why not?

I agree with almost all reasons here. I just love the artform.

Personal reasons:
- Because they`re more like a movie to me than illustration is. And I like to show exactly what is happening instead of writing most of it.
- I`m not much of a gag strip person. I love long stories with lots of drama and an ongoing storyline.
- I like drawing facial expressions more instead of describing them in text.

For me..
i don't know- there's something -Missing- in just prose, something that can't be portrayed correctly in film-
i think, like most things, it has its place- there are some stories that CAN NOT (or perhaps should not) be told any other way;
I hate to use this example, because it -sucked- SO MUCH, but Splice, to me, seems like an excellent example.

i can't, for the life of me, imagine reading a book following the same storyline as that movie.

but I happen to think that (revised a bit, of course) it would have come across EXCELLENTLY in graphic novel format.

stories are like that- I have some that I feel comfortable putting into prose format, but some that have envisioned themselves in a graphic form, and cannot be realized in any other way.

plus, i find it to be a significantly greater challenge, with a greater base of -real- support.

I'm really pleased that this has provoked so much serious thought about the subject, and I think the last response is closest to my own personal feeling on it - that comics are a form of storytelling that blends the emotive qualities of prose with the enormous potential of drawn images to convey meaning, without really being bound by the rules of either.

Prose, for example, has to follow the grammatical rules of the language, as well as the various literary conventions associated with it. Even though you can break those rules, it's only the most avant-garde and experimental writers who can pull it off (Joyce, Robbins, Barth and their ilk.) And visually, even though film can, to an extent, violate physical rules (like in Inception and The Matrix) in general it has to operate within the confines of the physical universe.

Comics, on the other hand, allow the creator maximum freedom to produce imaginative work without being bound by anything. The full range of artistic possibilities, from the enormously abstract or impressionistic all the way up to the photo-real are possible, and can even co-exist. And at the same time you have the chance to continue the narrative and story-oriented tradition as well. In a sense, though some have phrased it as the "control" issue above, I think it is more that there are no controls to comics, and it provides a broad range of possibilities that, while not truly being either fine art or narrative prose, takes the best impulses from both and synthesizes an entirely independent form or applied art.

Plus, I get to be my own boss, and since I don't make any money from this, nothing's at stake - so I can't get fired! Which is nice to know, the world being what it is these days.

--M

Prose with imagery works VERY well. But try and evoke an emotional response by using those things in film, and it doesn't carry enough weight. At times, it ends up feeling hollow.

Watch 300, and then read the GN. The film comes off as being shlocky and gimmicky in its delivery of the dialogue - but when you're reading the actual book, it works well. Watchmen is another prime example of this.

Unless you create a virgin script with no ties to an actual GN that is based on the realm and the characters within it, you'll never be able to recreate the real essence of the story on celluloid.

I have cool stories I want to tell, and graphic novels are such a cool way to tell them although, man, it takes forever to complete one by yourself. I mean seriously. I think it will take me 3 years to finish End of All.

But one cool thing about working on it online is that it does bring hits to my sites. I also get to practice art on a regular bases.

Huntington's comment that "comics are going somewhere" is definitely one of the things that comes to mind.


As to why to work on one personally... well, I tried writing, and I would find myself wandering off in the middle of a story to doodle my characters. And I tried just art... and I'd find myself getting distracted by what the character I was drawing was like and what kind of world they lived in! By the time I was done with a dozen half-finished sketches, I'd have as many or more story ideas floating around in my head! The more I did one, the more it would inspire the other, and the less I would get finished to completion. Taking on a project where I could do both at once seemed the only way to make things work, and thus far, the work I've done on my short-story comics has been extremely satisfying.

I think in the short term, though, my reason for drawing the comics I'm working on now is just to practice. Practice drawing, practice writing, practice both an once, and force myself to have to draw/write things I normally wouldn't when working on just one or the other in order to round out my severely lacking set of skills in both areas.

I am a writer, and have always specialized more in mechanical art (cars, technical drawing, drafting), but I am a visual person. I always envision my, say, fight sequences before I write them. I have always wanted to do one of my stories in a anime style. I would hope that it would come off very Gunslinger Girl.

Anyway, I am finding things more interesting now that I am putting Kennedy, Apryl, Brent, and Kim on a sketch pad rather than a keyboard. I'm finding myself wanting to do all 7 of my novels now... But with my slow start, I'll be replying to this again in 10 years...

I write fiction. So why would I bother with a medium that takes weeks or years to portray something that I can write up in a matter of minutes or hours?

To be brutally honest? I don't think it would get noticed otherwise. The story that I am writing specific to my graphic novel is a story that can really only be told effectively in graphic novel format. True, Harry Potter pulled it off. Hers is a book rich with creatures and world-building, but I think that was a special case. As an artist, I'm too particular about the designs I've created. Part of the charm of some of the characters is seeing them come to life with expressions I just couldn't explain the same way on paper.

The second reason is that this story was meant as a creative writing exercise using characters I already draw and based on a small seed of a story I had already made. Obviously, it became its own beast entirely.

It provides me with a sense of accomplishment. Other people can enjoy my work despite my perfectionist tendencies. My alternate text-only manuscript has never seen the light of another's eye for years (except for my husband) . With the graphic novel, I have something to look back on or show that I can feel (mostly) proud of. It's also a great way to gauge if people will actually like my work, and practice for my writing and drawing skills. It's something more tangible, I guess. People are more likely to stop and take notice of it, without me having to sign my rights away to a publisher in hopes that it will be well-received. It's my creation, and I can change or build it at will.

The last is probably the biggest reason for me. Having published ideas in written form online, and having had them maliciously stolen, I understand the difference between the outcry about art theft and the outcry about story theft. No one cares if your text-based story ideas gets ripped off. More people are likely to know about your work and defend it if it is in art format. I guard my text-story like a mother defending a child...but my artwork feels somehow safer to share with the masses.

Graphic Novels, much more than self-published books, have a potential to bring in a liveable wage. People have to make a real commitment to a book. Most people are more willing to stop and look when they are drawn in by beautiful artwork.


And last of all... because I love doing it.

I argue with myself on this point all the time and for me, it comes down to my ability in both of the fields (or rather feeling that they are lacking). However, it comes down to the artistic vision of the works creator. The issue becomes getting the amazing visual image you see in your head down on paper in a way that your audience can understand and see it as well.

Some people do this with pictures and they do it in an absolutely stunning way, but others are able to be equally stunning by using words to twist the imagination.



One of my favorite cover misprints was on a friend's romance novel where they showed the hero and heroine tangled in a heated embrace. Fairly standard cover, but when you looked closer, there was an extra hand and you had to wonder... does he have 3 arms? Is there a third person in the relationship they're just not showing? Oh, the possibilities!

And it turns out the artist forgot to erase it during the initial sketches and just inked in without thinking. Whoops!