Horror Comics – when did you decide to write them?
I finished an interview yesterday with Richard Vasseur from Jazma online which should go up in the next week.
From my background as a reporter, I’ve found that asking the most simple questions can reveal the best answers.
Richard clearly comes from the same school of thought and one question in particular took me bloody ages to answer.
The first question was: when did you first discover you wanted to be a writer? I answered this one fine. No probs.
But it prompted another question in my own mind which I struggled with: when did I decide to become a writer?
There is a difference between the two questions.
A lot of people may discover they may like to become a writer, but when you decide that you’re committed to being a writer, well, that’s a whole different kettle of fish.
I’ve been writing comics for the past four years, I’ve always loved comics, but when it came time to remember when I decided to write them, my memory telescoped to a dot.
Researching interviews with a few other comic writers, they all tended to describe their first big break with a publisher. They didn’t describe the exact point at which they resolved to write comics.
Was this mass amnesia? A collective conspiracy to keep new and up and coming writers from the one bit of advice that might help them unlock their own potential?
Nah.
Because after thinking about it I remembered exactly when I resolved to write comics.
I decided to write comics because I couldn’t find a comic book out there for me.
There. Purely selfish.
Up until that point, I had read some great comics that had resonated very closely with me, most notably Joe Matt’s Peepshow and Adriane Tomei’s Optic Nerve.
But what these works opened my eyes to was the value of writing comics with my own take on things.
Once you start writing comics imbued with your own voice and your own view of the world, that’s when you write something of value, not only to yourself, but to the industry.
If you’re thinking of writing your own comic, take stock of what’s around you and what’s not.
Resolve yourself to fill the gap.
If necessity is the mother of invention, discontent is the father of change.



