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music for the last 50 years.
* The options for music at the beginning of the 21st Century are phenomenal. Let
us choose the best delicacies and not glut our stomachs on a diet of cardboard
music.
* The world needs your music. Piano and guitar classes are available at most
community colleges. Home-recording equipment and software have never been
more accessible and cheap.
* I wrote this chapter while listening to the clothes dryer spin.
RESOURCES
Rather than list all the albums that have influenced me, I m just going to
recommend three of my all-time favorite musicians. These are artists I ve never
grown tired of and who are always revealing new things to me:
Mozart - king of music. I don t think any other music is so utterly re-listenable.
The scope of Mozart s work boggles the mind and his ability to create an
environment of sound, an entire world, elevated Western music to a new level.
J.S. Bach - For similar reasons to Mozart, but in some ways even more subdued,
nuanced.
Brian Eno - a giant. I especially recommend: Discreet Music (I ve probably played
the title track over 1000 times), Music for Airports, and his four "pop" albums from
the 70s: Here Come The Warm Jets, Taking Tiger Mountain (by Strategy), Another
Green World, and Before and After Science.
Chapter 16:
COMICS
* "I'd like to think that if I've shown anything, it's that comics are the medium of
almost inexhaustible possibilities, that there have been...there are great comics yet
to be written. There are things to be done with this medium that have not been
done, that people maybe haven't even dreamed about trying. And, if I've had any
benign influence upon comics, I would hope that it would be along those lines; that
anything is possible if you approach the material in the right way. You can do
some extraordinary things with a mixture of words and pictures. It's just a matter of
being diligent enough and perceptive enough and working hard enough,
continually honing your talent until it's sharp enough to do the job that you
require." Alan Moore
* Picking up a copy of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures in 1988 changed
my life. I must have seen comics before, but they suddenly became something
magical.
* I found comic stores and was hooked, making monthly pilgrimages to pick up
Batman, Superman and anything else I was reading.
* As I got older I followed writers and artists more than characters. I started seeing
the comics medium itself as a fabulous amorphous blob of pure potentiality.
* People continue to see comics as a children s medium. Why is that? Yes, the
content has its roots in material aimed at kids. But the medium s limitations were
largely self-imposed.
* When I read comics authors like Grant Morrison and Alan Moore I found people
who seemed to understand the angst and existential weirdness of being alive. These
were comics that spoke to me more than any story I d ever seen or read in books or
TV.
* Comics as a medium are not a recent phenomenon. They exploded in the 20th
century largely because of cheap printing. But comics may be our oldest recorded
communication medium. Before books, our ancestors recorded in caves the stories
of the hunt. Like music, comics originally communicated without words, bringing
to life a liquid narrative of indefinite waves and mutating times.
* Do comics use both hemispheres of the brain more than prose? It s certainly
worth scientific study. We do know that people learn faster with images than
words alone, so I d like to see comics a part of every student s education.
* In their modern form, comics have some of the finest writers and artists alive in
all history. Comics are everywhere, from airline safety cards to textbooks, and
understanding their form and dynamic will give you an edge, as with any radically
different medium. Comics do things that prose and film can not do, that only
comics can do. They are certainly not a mere combination of other media.
RESOURCES
The Invisibles Grant Morrison and artists
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Alan Moore and Kevin O Neill
David Boring Daniel Clowes
Sin City Frank Miller
Sandman: Fables and Reflections Neil Gaiman and artists
Quimby the Mouse Chris Ware
Marvels Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross
Bone Jeff Smith
Madman: The Oddity Odyssey
Ode to Kirihito Osamu Tezuka
Low Moon Jason
Good-bye Yoshihiro Tatsumi
Moomin Tove Jansson
Understanding Comics Scott McCloud
Chapter 17:
VISUAL ARTS
* As a boy I decided I had to draw comics. I knew people (mainly men) were being
paid to put stories on paper. I wanted to do that.
* One day I was with my brother and dad and I begged to go to Crown Books
(RIP) to find a copy of Stan Lee and John Buscema s How to Draw Comics the
Marvel Way. I had read a library copy of it and finally decided that now was the
time (11 years old or so) to take art seriously and that I had to have that book to
study religiously, and once I had it running through my blood I would know how
to make comics (the Marvel way) like a pro.
* Well, my dad acceded to my request and I got the book. I gave it many hours of
my time and (needless to say) it didn t quite have everything I needed to make it as
a comic artist. I would need more. I quickly found art books by Burne Hogarth (a
great artist but his books aren t very instructive) and Jack Hamm. It was with
Hamm that I found my niche. Here was a man who knew how to whittle out the
nuance of line and space and teach it. His pages were crammed with cheat codes of
the art world, and to this day I love his books.
* The type of drawing I was doing is what I call cartooning. Even if it s very
realistic, I m drawing from memory or standardized drawing techniques that don t
require a model or photo to reference. I actually prefer cartooning since I have little
interest in drawing realistically. However&
* When I got to college I took drawing classes and suddenly we were doing things
differently. We put fruit on a table and drew it. We had models and drew them.
Sometimes we didn t even look at the paper. We turned off the left side of the
brain and just drew what we saw, not giving it a name. This is a much more
realistic style of drawing, and it feels different.
* When you get in flow with drawing on the right side of the brain (as Betty
Edwards puts it) time moves differently. Thoughts slow or vanish, and the drawing
is virtually automatic.
* Both styles of drawing, cartooning and realistic drawing, open up entirely new
ways of thinking, and I recommend learning both. Many people say things like "I
can t draw" or "I m not artistic," which is like someone saying they can t do
handwriting because they never learned and it looks hard. Of course it looks hard if
you ve never done it! But drawing (especially realistic drawing) has a quick
learning curve and with a little instruction you ll be amazed at the work you re
doing.
* Once you ve learned pencil drawing basics you can go off in so many other
directions: painting, pastels, charcoal, abstract materials and techniques. Just get
started and enjoy being "bad" at the beginning. Savor that process and know that
time and consistent effort inevitably improve your skill.
* Start thinking of yourself as a creative and artistic person. There is nothing you
are incapable of if you release those chains from your mind. You are not a business
man or a mechanic or a flower seller. You do things, but your definition of yourself
is as fluid as you want it to be.
* Learn to enjoy the process of drawing, regardless of results, and you ll always be
successful. Drawing can be extremely relaxing.
* Classes really vary in art instruction. It s often better to have a one-on-one
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