I went to 2 panels at SPX. The
first was an informal interview of Scott McCloud and the other was a talk about
the small print comics business.
The Scott McCloud panel first
started with a discussion of McCloud’s four categories: Classist, Animists,
Formalist and Iconoclasts. The Classists who are the artists who strive for
perfection, the Animists who tell the story, the Formalists who are interested
in experimenting and the Iconoclasts are interested in being true to life.
However, McCloud called this a “toxic theory” since many artists do not fit
neatly into one category and was reluctant to put newer, Internet-age artists
into a category. The discussion ended when he noted that there is usually one
category that artists don’t fit.
The rest of the panel was about the
process for creating “Sculptor”, McCloud’s latest graphic novel. He started off
by drawing 40 pages in Photoshop and attempted to format the comic so that he
could create “forward movement” in the flow. He also talked about techniques he
used such as bleeding panels, digital manipulations and disorientation in order
to invoke feelings within the audience. Then there was short audience Q&A.
The 2nd talk I went to
was about the small printing business featuring people who ran small print
companies that printed more indie and short comics. Many of them started to get
into the business by printing and promoting their own comics and just decided
to turn it into their career. All of the panelists agreed that it was easier
and more fun to promote the works of someone else then their own and found that
they were never unable to find new talent or comics to promote.
At least 2 of the speakers also said that they
are not making huge money off of their businesses but rather that most of the
money they make goes back into their businesses, in order to produce and
create. I found this fact to be reassuring in financially.
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