Stop, collaborate, and listen

The last post covered that all kinds of comics are awesome, and should have also made the point that lots of comic book artists and writers are awesome too. I know I implied it. What I want to cover today is the relation between those two points.

Obviously neither happens automatically. The art form has great potential, but that potential still has to be met. I did finally find a comic that I didn't like. Even with the ones I like, some are better than others, and there are so many variations within that it would be difficult to compare them.

I have written before about how being a better person can help you be a better writer, and hey, I love a lot of these writers and artists as people, but that's not where I am going with this right now. Instead, I want to write a little about the magic of collaboration. Ironically, the greatest testimonials on collaboration came during the panel discussion "Beyond Auteurism - Creativity and Collaboration in Comics."

Maybe that doesn't sound ironic, because it mentions collaboration right there. However, even though the title itself said we were going to go beyond auteurism, having that word there implied we might give it some credence, and it was so thoroughly smashed.

First of all, everyone started talking about the collaborations that they were doing, and how they benefited from those, and how with the schedules you are on for regular productions, it's not even possible to put that kind of control into the work, and then how the term was used as a cudgel, and finally Matt Fraction saying the term was born of snobbery, and it's kid stuff.

That's almost too far the other way, though my initial response was mental applause. The point someone else made, and I didn't write down whom, was that when auteur theory started with film, it was one of the things that made it acceptable for people to look at American film as art. So while that is borne of snobbery (Fraction), it helps overcome snobbery too, though it is a false binary (DeConnick).

So I want to hit that a little, and then go on to more interesting things.

Yes, some directors have a distinct way of doing things, and you recognize their elements. That's interesting, but is it to the point? There may be more value in adopting a completely different style if it suits the story better, and consistency isn't great if it's not resulting in great movies.

Also, I always think of Rebecca. I have seen it twice as part of Hitchcock film festivals. Hitchcock had a stamp in a lot of his films, but this one feels like more of a Selznick picture to me. I know nothing about the production process for that one, and I haven't really analyzed why I feel that way, but I do.

One thing, though, that I remember from early on when I started thinking about film making, is someone describing how collaborative the process is. Sometimes that distinct look is largely due to the cinematographer. Wes Anderson and Tim Burton both have their own points of view, but they also go back to the same actors a lot. There is sound and set design and costuming and if you want to work with miniatures in your garage you can control every aspect, maybe, but then you still have the audience interpreting it.

That is all stuff that I knew, and it applies to comic books too. What I had not considered was the value that the creators gain from collaborating with each other. This is where I have two pages of notes, and quotes taken down as quickly and accurately as I could.

I see now that most of what I wrote down was Kelly Sue DeConnick. She's really smart and passionate, and possibly I favor her. As I give this rundown, it may be a little lopsided.

We were moving away from films, and had just been talking about Upstream Color, by Shane Carruth, and he is the dominant force behind that, but still has a small number of other actors, and Matt Fraction said "I just wish I could draw," which got a laugh, but I also really sympathized with it.

Kelly Sue DeConnick talked about how artists have strongly influenced the stories, and she gave examples of artists that she worked with, and their strengths, and how she wrote scenes that they would do well. (This is where I kept thinking 'I remember that!') "If you're not writing to your artist you're robbing yourself.

Gabriel Bá spoke a little about how with Casanova, the idea started with Matt, but then the editor thought of the brothers, but then they decided which would draw it.

The audience brought it back to auteurism, and Kelly Sue asked, justly, if it has to be a solo craftsman, and that's when the cudgel (Charles Hatfield) and born out of snobbery (still Fraction) thing came up.

Someone in the audience asked about From Hell which was totally valid, and certainly Alan Moore, the writer, has been a big influence on comics, but Matt mentioned a cartoon that showed the artist, Eddie Campbell, crossing out words, which apparently is a big part of any artist's process, because they get more text than is needed.

Kelly Sue started talking about working with Emma Rios, and then wanting to do it again which led to other projects. She made a few good points, some of which may have come a little later. One is that she would send her scripts to Emma, and sometimes Emma would ask clarifying questions, and no, that was not what she had been thinking, but it would stop her; maybe it could be that way. Maybe that would be better.

Something the audience asked later was if you could draw, going back to Matt's comment, would you still collaborate? From a practical matter, the answer from everyone was yes. You have to for time constraints, but also, there are rewards to it. Kelly Sue said that even if she could draw like Emma, she could not bring Emma to the project.

So that came later, but the other thing that came at this point was that she talked about how this current project had her so far outside of her comfort zone that she would need a passport to get back, and it was wildly out of control, but also one of the best and most rewarding experiences of her life.

Matt added that he likes collaborators, but not employees, which I think adds an important aspect to it. Again, the creativity needs to be free to flow, so someone dictating to the other, even when you get to be the dictator, takes away from what you can have.

I believe at this point someone asked what the process was like. Kelly Sue said hers was somewhat epistolary, and some others shared. At this point it was said, and there seemed to be agreement, so I am not sure if my notes saying Fábio Moon said it are right, but it probably doesn't matter, that the script is the most boring part of the process. This made me feel a little sad, but that's for this specific medium. Fine.

Kelly Sue came back and said she is from a theater background, and so she is always looking for happy accidents, and that made a lot of sense. And the last thing that I wrote down that she said was an analogy about swimming and running. When she is doing one, the other looks really good, because what you are doing then is hard, and you are feeling that, but then the other is hard too. So you can be a part of all of these different processes, and they are hard, and you feel how hard it is in the moment, but then you may miss it later, because it was good too.

For me, with my one attempt at collaboration, I learned a lot, but it also left me exhausted and had completely unsatisfactory results. Again, that was not comics, so it's different, but as pretty much a straight writer, that's one medium where you can really be a loner. Sometimes that works well, but there can be enrichment from other people. I may get that from socialization and bring it back into working alone, but there may be other opportunities out there that will be rewarding and result in something better. It's good to remember.

In that way, this was the single most valuable panel for me, and that was out of a rewarding and enriching conference.