Comics and Writing
It’s an exciting time for me, as the trade paperbacks for Y: The Last Man and Fables are out. Sadly, I haven’t yet been able to lay hands on the latter (curses!), as Forbidden Planet was all sold out. One of the best things of the past year has been getting back into comic books, and I have my friends at Shakespeare & Co. to thank for that.
I wonder how other writers visually imagine what they’re working on. For me, what I visualize is a bit like a moving comic book. A series of blocks of action, and stills—the difference being that my visualized segments sometimes move, and there are no word bubbles. My comparison between comics and my understanding of what’s happening in my head as I write should not lead you to believe that I could write comics. That’s a very particular skill I don’t have. In fact, the one time I thought, “If I were to write a graphic novel, what would it be about?” I had an exciting idea that I instantly recognized as being a book— just a novel, no graphics.
Here’s an interview with Brian K. Vaughan, one of my favorite writers (and not just because he says The Wire is the best television show ever, or because he compares something to a self-licking ice cream cone).
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