Caleb Orecchio here with early morning thoughts and other news.
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“Sometimes I think that I know too much.”
Talking to a friend recently while he was visiting Pittsburgh, we discussed this feeling of knowing “too much” about comics. The thought seems silly in retrospect. Obviously you can’t know too much about comics, but the breadth of history and accessibility of the medium can be overwhelming. We asked ourselves:
Should I try to draw like Jaime Hernandez? Should I try to write like Alan Moore? Should I learn to paint? Will I ever be as good as my heroes? Who is better, Ditko or Kirby? Ware or Mazzucchelli? Bushmiller or Schulz? Fisher or Herriman? Crane or Caniff? Does it matter? Will there ever be another publisher like PictureBox? Was Moebius actually a good cartoonist? Do these pants make my ass look fat? Have you been eating your vegetables? Do you watch gladiator movies?
We are frustrated to find that our work does not live up to our knowledge. “It’s a slow process,” we have to remind ourselves. “But Mazzucchelli was working at Marvel while still in college! And Trevor Von Eeden started working for DC on his own character when he was 17! And don’t get me started on Xaime!”
Hahahaha! We had a big laugh at the expense of our lack of confidence. What else can we do? Quit? We put the success of our heroes aside, and went back to our drawing boards.
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if you don’t know, now you know
- Matt Seneca wrote about the BWS classic Weapon X over on TCJ.com.
- Speaking of The Comics Journal, you might know by now that it is coming back as a printed object (separate from TCJ.com). AND Nemo is coming back too!
- Rob Clough reviews the new King-Cat on High-Low.
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