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An Artist.

An artist’s responsibility to his art is to create; and each act of creation of art, by definition, makes the world a better place. That one’s easy.

Easy, too, is the artist’s responsibility to his audience. An artist owes his audience nothing but the best art he can create. Sometimes observers in the Peanut Gallery think that the artist owes them something and here’s a harsh truth for those folks: An artist doesn’t care what you think, because an artist isn’t creating his art for you; he’s creating it for his audience. And usually, an artist’s audi ence is himself. I had a pleasant exchange of email this week where I had occasion to describe my process of writing; how I psyche myself up, banish inner demons, make myself not worry about outside observers, the whole thing. How I Get The Job Done. This is what I wrote: "Usually, I don’t answer these things, because these are questions no out side force can help you out on. But because I am feeling all full of sun shine and happiness today, I will tell you how I get it done. "Then, I forget that there's anyone else doing comics, because, let's face it, there are tons of folks who are more talented than me. Not to mention all the other people since 1938 who have made awesome comics. How do you compete with that? I don’t. This comic I am sitting down to write will be the very best comic that has ever been made by human hands, because the only comics that exist are the ones I've written. And each one is better than the last, so... cool! Let's go! "Next, I plot it out. Intro, inciting incident, progressive complication, End Act One. Act Two, Act Three, a dry joke if the missus lets me get away with one. End. "By this time, all of the characters are ‘talking’ to me in my head, so I go back to the beginning of the plot and do page breakdowns. This happens here, this is what is said here; that kind of thing. Add dialogue: Oh, yeah? What about this? Look out! Let's get out of here! "When I look up from the keyboard, there is a finished script. An artist whom I trust gets it, and my job is done, because they're gonna play with the pacing and whatnot and hopefully make it even better than the bril liance I thought it was. "First, I have an idea. That's actually the easy part. For me, anyhow.

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