Back in this post, I wrote the following…
I used to like juggling lots of assignments, especially if they were very different from one another. I was never happier as a writer than I was during a few periods when I was simultaneously writing animation scripts, live-action scripts and comic book scripts — and often, more than one in each category. At one point for instance, I recall working at the same time on Blackhawk for DC, DNAgents for Eclipse and Groo for whatever publisher we hadn't put out of business at that moment — three very different comics for three different publishers and drawn by three different artists who required different kinds and formats of input from me.
I got something out of each kind of writing — animation, live-action and comics — that I didn't get out of the other two.
I've received about thirty e-mails asking me to elaborate on what I got out of each kind of writing, and especially what do I get out of comic books that I don't get out of the other two? I could probably do thirty posts here answering the question and maybe I'll do more than one but I'll try to cover a few here.
To understand my first answer, you need to divide what you do on any given writing job into two categories: "Writing" and "Non-Writing." "Writing" is when you're sitting at a keyboard thinking of what to put into the script and you're putting it into a script. It can also include moments when you're in a room with one or more other writers, all pitching out ideas and jointly deciding which one will go into that script.
"Non-Writing" is all the other stuff — dealing with the company that's paying you and/or the person (be it an editor or a producer) who is above you, doing promotional work, sitting around with various folks discussing what you're going to go off and write, sitting around with various folks hearing what they don't like about what you wrote, attending events where you're expected to "network," dealing with the concerns and problems of others on the same project, etc. A lot of "Non-Writing" involves meetings. In comics, I've never had to "pitch" anywhere near as hard as I have in the other categories of work.
With occasional exceptions, I prefer "Writing" to "Non-Writing" and I particularly dislike pitching. If I were to take the three kinds of writing I mentioned — comic books, animation and live-action shows — and put them in order based on the extent to which they involve "Writing," that list would look like this…
- Comic Books
- Animation
- Live-Action
And if I were to reorder that list based on which ones paid me the most, the list would look like this…
- Live-Action
- Animation
- Comic Books
These are how it's generally worked with me. There have been exceptions — a certain cartoon show that paid me more than a certain live-action show — but most of the time, this is how they've stacked up for me. Others' mileage may, as they say, vary.
There's something to be said for the glory of a job where you spend most of your time writing and very little of it in meetings. I really like to just sit and write, often all day and into the night. Believe it or not, I'm doing just that at this moment. A reason I have this blog is because apart from occasional tech maintenance, the time I spend on it is all spent writing. I don't have to have meetings with folks who outrank me to discuss what I'm going to post tomorrow or when it will be time to plug Frank Ferrante again or curse the evil that is cole slaw.
But I also like to be paid money and I can't very well do the things that don't pay well or at all if something doesn't pay well or at all. Some folks reading this probably won't believe this next part but there have been some comic book projects that I loved writing — I won't mention any by name; I'll just stick an illustration below — that paid me very little (or near the end, nothing) and those were made possible because I was getting decent bucks at the time on some animated or live-action project.
It was the best of both worlds because I like writing comic books. In most (not all, alas) situations, you don't have to deal with lots of different people who alter your work, criticize your work, put their spin on your work, etc. You just do the work. On an animated or live-action TV show, between you and the audience there are hundreds of people who impact what gets to that audience. In a comic book, it's more like five or six…if that many.
Take Groo the Wanderer, which is one of the most enjoyable things I've ever done in my life. I don't mean most enjoyable jobs because it's never felt like a job to me. It's not something produced by a committee. To me, it feels like it's done by me, my best friend and two other friends who letter and color. You cannot do a sitcom or a cartoon show with just three other guys or with only talented people you like. General rule of thumb: Once you have a dozen people involved in a project, at least one of them is going to be an asshole and/or a non-removable incompetent and you just have to live with that.
Also, I like writing comic books because I like comic books. I grew up with comic books. I'm fascinated by the history of the medium. I enjoy being part of that world and not because it's ever paid me huge sums of money…because it hasn't.
And lastly for now — and remember I may write more about this later because there is more — there are the people I've met and known and worked with in each walk of life. I think the ones in comics have meant more to me than the ones in the other two fields. I just can't imagine my silly existence without all three.