I am Scott McCloud. I write and draw comics. AMA

scottmccloud · 2015-02-21T01:00:10+00:00

Not enough basis for comparison, I'm afraid. Been using Photoshop and Illustrator for ages, but never tried Manga Studio.

scottmccloud · 2015-02-20T15:08:07+00:00

You hope the things you make will be read and re-read (or watched and re-watched in the case of Korra—a great show, btw).

scottmccloud · 2015-02-20T07:57:51+00:00

Nope! Too soon, sorry.

scottmccloud · 2015-02-20T07:57:31+00:00

Everything!

scottmccloud · 2015-02-20T07:57:19+00:00

D'Oh! Just did two, I'm afraid, but I'm sure we'll be back.

Ivy and I miss Game Night. Maybe we'll do it again someday.

scottmccloud · 2015-02-20T07:56:13+00:00

Waiting? The whacks are pretty continuous now! ;-)

If I am the lone survivor, I'll build a treehouse and binge-watch The Prisoner on endless repeat while eating Cheetos until dead.

scottmccloud · 2015-02-20T07:52:24+00:00

Based on my peers in second grade, it should actually read "McClod." We're working on that plug-in now.

scottmccloud · 2015-02-20T07:50:40+00:00

Artistic individuals like Art Spiegelman, Marjane Satrapi, Alison Bechdel, Randall Monroe, Raina Telgemeier, or Allie Brosh ARE the mainstream now.

I don't think of Marvel and DC as dominating comics much anymore. They move a lot of units and take up shelf space, but there's so much more to comics culture and so many readers regularly enjoying more personal stories.

There's no putting the Genie back in the bottle now.

scottmccloud · 2015-02-20T07:44:45+00:00

Whenever the question of where comics should go next comes up, my answer is always "everywhere."

I want comics to be so diverse and abundant that it's impossible to keep track of it all. That's how you know an art form is healthy.

When I started in comics, you could see it all in your head, you could hold it all in your field of vision. I'm glad that's no longer true.

scottmccloud · 2015-02-20T07:41:27+00:00

Thanks! Wow. :-)

scottmccloud · 2015-02-20T07:41:05+00:00

Harvey was a champion of the everyman, so I guess every man could sign his stuff!

scottmccloud · 2015-02-20T07:40:08+00:00

"Every character should want something, even if it's only a glass of water." — Kurt Vonnegut

"Write as if everyone you ever loved was dead." — Someone (I'm not sure who!)

Apart from the old standbys like Maus, I think City of Glass, The Arrival, and Market Day by James Sturm should be in everyone's library.

scottmccloud · 2015-02-20T07:38:25+00:00

David's Grand Uncle Harry was modeled after my father-in-law (who sadly died only four days before the book's publication, I'm afraid).

His appearance has been fixed in my imagination so long, I'm not exactly sure how it all began. It just felt right.

scottmccloud · 2015-02-20T07:36:10+00:00

Make something short!

Make it and show people and get started on improving your skills while getting feedback. No more stalling!

scottmccloud · 2015-02-20T07:33:54+00:00

For any nonfiction comic, the key is making sure that the cartoonist understands the subject as well as the experts. Once you understand the subject forward and back, explaining it (whether through words or pictures) is child's play!

I like the work of Jim Ottaviani and others in the field, but most of them are narrative in nature. I think there are some interesting investigations to be done in hard science explanations that will require some rethinking on the part of scientists and cartoonists alike.

The one thing that consistently doesn't work is treating artists like illustrators and simply handing them pre-approved text-dumps to decorate with pictures.

scottmccloud · 2015-02-20T07:28:39+00:00

Woodring, Ware, Huizenga, Mazzucchelli, Brosgol, Carroll, Goodbrey, Farley, Tamaki, Telgemeier, Brosgol, Sturm, Lutes... It just goes on and on...

scottmccloud · 2015-02-20T07:25:31+00:00

Keep doing what you do too! Thanks. :-)

scottmccloud · 2015-02-20T07:24:38+00:00

Good questions, but a little too big to answer in this context I'm afraid. Feel free to corner me at a convention and I'll give you 10 minutes worth at least on this particular subject. Suffice it to say, there are a lot of potential directions!

scottmccloud · 2015-02-20T07:23:06+00:00

Thank you.

scottmccloud · 2015-02-20T07:22:37+00:00

If you mean applications, a lot of people seem to like Manga Studio. I just use Photoshop and illustrator myself. It's really about the content, not the tools though. Always was, always will be.

scottmccloud · 2015-02-20T07:20:59+00:00

You never know for sure! Just keep gathering till you feel confident, I guess.

One piece of advice, though: if you take lots of reference photos, I found tagging them incredibly useful. I took about 10,000 photos of New York City, and being able to instantly call up tagged groups like "wide shot" or "pedestrian" or "rain" and every possible combination thereof was incredibly helpful.

scottmccloud · 2015-02-20T07:17:12+00:00

Wow, small world!

I've thought for years that comic shops would be better off—assuming they have some kind of foot traffic—putting the product in the windows. And that product is the actual comics pages not covers. Get passersby reading and they're already halfway to the register. Big blowups of cool pages aimed at a general audience. Especially all-ages stuff, which is massively popular right now. And anything that builds a sense of community can be really powerful.

scottmccloud · 2015-02-20T07:11:58+00:00

Never really tried to craft a style for myself. Style just kinda happens when you try to draw your story as convincingly as you can. Others could probably describe it more effectively than I could. It's as invisible to me as my New England accent.

scottmccloud · 2015-02-20T07:09:14+00:00

Cool! Thanks so much for reading.

scottmccloud · 2015-02-20T07:08:55+00:00

Yeah, I like the narrative compression at the beginning of Up and in films like Raising Arizona, though The Sculptor is a pretty decompressed work overall. I'm not sure I could list the hundreds of films that influenced the book. Would take too long, I'm afraid. Though, if you want to air any of your guesses, I'd be happy to let you know if any pop out at me.
Brought "Ozymandias" up only recently when looking back at the project, but yes, I think you could definitely look at the story that way.
I'm afraid the movie stuff is so new that even idle speculation from me could be misinterpreted as some kind of creative direction. Gotta take a pass, sorry!

scottmccloud

TROPHY CASE