Periscope: Portland's storyboard and comics studio.

"You can almost always tell an artist what really needs to happen in a scene, and she will have opinions on how that should all go down. And she’ll be taking composition into consideration, and balancing lots of visual elements. Can you do that? It’s not really necessary with a good artist, she’ll do it anyway. But if that isn’t a strength of yours, then don’t impose such notes on our artist. Then you’re just Sam Phillips at Sun Records walking in the recording room and telling Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins how to sing."

Jeff Parker has an essay up on writing for artists: Part One | Part Two

Labels: career advice, Jeff Parker

Jeff Parker and I were taking yesterday about good advice we've been given, and after a few minutes, both of us came to the conclusion that the best we ever heard came from Dwayne McDuffie. Here it is.

Dwayne's advice to Parker:

Not long after The Interman came out I was at the excellent Earth 2 Comics in Sherman Oaks, which is very close to the Warner Animation offices where Dwayne worked. Jud and Carr of Earth 2 were putting on a little party for the store and other creators were there. I had never met Dwayne, but he seems to keep tabs on everyone in comics, and gave me some great advice. Speaking about my promoting of Interman and that I was about to do more work for DC (at the time, Jon Lewis and I were supposed to be starting a book for the ill-fated FOCUS line). I'm screwing up/paraphrasing, but essentially McDuffie the Sage said: "You're pretty good at promoting your stuff. Don't stop doing it when you're working for DC or Marvel. They'll tell you not to, that they want to handle all that, but go ahead and do it anyway. It'll just help you, and they won't do anything about it."

It's really some of the best advice a creator has given me, and I follow it.

Dwayne's advice to Lieber:

I was sitting next to Dwayne at a con, and the conversation had moved from comics to the general matters of taking care of yourself. Dwayne noted that over the past few years, he'd dropped an extraordinary number of pounds. I asked him how, expecting an elaborate story. Instead, he just gave me a level look and said "Steve, I quit eating bullshit."

40 pounds, later, I've got to say, it works.

There's lots more good stuff over at his forum.


(photo stolen from rfrancis)

Labels: career advice, Dwayne McDuffie, weight loss