KD^3C^3 - 20260621 Tēcum circumambulāre nolō
I’ve been having a hard time thinking of stuff to write about lately.
I haven’t been without opinions, but none of them have felt particularly worth sharing. So like most thoughts, I have them, then let them sail on. Very few have felt interesting enough to put down in print (someone in the crowd yells “when has that stopped you before?”)
Which isn’t to say I haven’t been making things. A while ago I picked up a couple of books at the local library. I was inspired while watching Lindsay Ellis’s latest video essay about the parallel development of 2 movies, Aladdin and The Thief and the Cobbler. Ellis breaks down the commonly told story that Aladdin was rushed through production to compete against the Thief and the Cobbler and was so successful that the latter film never got finished and now only exists as an incomplete work print.
Like so many commonly repeated stories, the actual history is a lot more complicated than that, which is well worth checking out. I’ve seen the Thief and Cobbler “recobbled” cut and while impressive visually, especially as a hand drawn animation, the story is… not as impressive.
But as a side note in the larger narrative, Ellis mentions the Animator’s Survival Kit by Richard Williams. It seemed like an interesting book, so I put it on hold at the library. While I was searching for that, I also stumbled upon a book called Making Comics by Lynda Barry. I already knew of a different book by that name by Scott McCloud and thought it was interesting that two different people made books with the same rather simple name. I put it on hold at the same time and didn’t think more about it.
When the books finally arrived, The Animator’s Survival Kit was a hefty tome. Nearly 400 pages, and in an oversized format, the book was intimidating. So intimidating I haven’t actually cracked it open. On the other hand Making Comics was a much smaller volume. It was (deliberately, I would learn) the size and shape of one of those black and white composition notebooks you might have used in school. It was covered in doodles and inviting, while the Survival Kit felt much more like a text book (because it probably is).
Lynda Barry’s Making Comics is a wonderful book however. Not more than 20 minutes into reading it I was planning on getting some paper and pens and itching to try out some of the exercises in the book. She makes the idea of drawing cartoons/comics feel like a natural outcome of being a human being. It was downright inspiring.
She also recommends a book called Cartooning: Philosophy and Practice by Ivan Brunetti and so I put that on hold too. It turned out to be an even smaller book, but with the same goal of helping people to see that they can make comics.
So for the past few weeks I have been drawing, following some of the exercises laid out in both books, alternating between them. I’m not going at a fast pace, just taking a few minutes when I can to put pen to paper and see what comes out. It’s been a really fun time.
I’m also deliberately not posting the things I’m drawing online. I know this sounds weird coming from a guy who has spent most of his adult life putting all of his thoughts on the internet, but it’s been a useful exercise to create without the idea that anyone but me will likely ever see it. The creation itself is the goal, rather than being seen. Theres a power in drawing in ink on paper. The constraint of being unable to erase, or change my mind. If I put down a line or a scribble, it’s part of the work now and it becomes up to me to decide what it means, and learn to live with it. Sure, that means the final product is a lot rougher than it would be otherwise, but it also crates a sense of boldness. I have to make my mind up either before or after the line itself, but the line isn’t changing.
I long held a belief that I only have so many words to write in me in any given day. I can spend those words writing out my silly little internet thoughts (which is where they usually go) or I can put them to other things, like things I have to write at my job, or slightly more substantial writing like this newsletter. This stands is slight contrast to the much more popular belief that the more creative work one does, the more they are able to do; being creative creates more ideas and inspiration to be more creative. And I don’t think that idea is incorrect either, but I’ve never really sat and reconciled these two seemingly contradictory beliefs. But when I spent some time thinking about it this week, I realized the real limiting factor is time. It’s not that I have so many words in me, but rather I only have so many minutes in which to be creative. That number of minutes isn’t particularly large after you subtract things like working and sleeping and feeding myself, (which can be a creative pursuit) and other social obligations that come along with being a human. So you have to spend them wisely, or find out where to put them.
A short documentary I watched this week was about a man who spent 40+ years creating a hand drawn map using a bizarrely arcane set of rules. It was an incredibly surprising and thoughtful documentary (but it’s on youtube so good luck logging it on letterbox) about a lot of different things, but one o the ones that stuck out to me was the idea of persistence. How small stops every day can, if you let them, add up into something far more impressive.
My drawing practice over the last few weeks has felt a little but like that. I do it or a few minutes here and there, but I can also look back at the things I’ve made in a relatively short period of time. I just have to keep working at it.
So I haven’t been writing as much, or at least as much as I feel like I should, but I have been drawing and that has been nice too.
I haven’t been without opinions, but none of them have felt particularly worth sharing. So like most thoughts, I have them, then let them sail on. Very few have felt interesting enough to put down in print (someone in the crowd yells “when has that stopped you before?”)
Which isn’t to say I haven’t been making things. A while ago I picked up a couple of books at the local library. I was inspired while watching Lindsay Ellis’s latest video essay about the parallel development of 2 movies, Aladdin and The Thief and the Cobbler. Ellis breaks down the commonly told story that Aladdin was rushed through production to compete against the Thief and the Cobbler and was so successful that the latter film never got finished and now only exists as an incomplete work print.
Like so many commonly repeated stories, the actual history is a lot more complicated than that, which is well worth checking out. I’ve seen the Thief and Cobbler “recobbled” cut and while impressive visually, especially as a hand drawn animation, the story is… not as impressive.
But as a side note in the larger narrative, Ellis mentions the Animator’s Survival Kit by Richard Williams. It seemed like an interesting book, so I put it on hold at the library. While I was searching for that, I also stumbled upon a book called Making Comics by Lynda Barry. I already knew of a different book by that name by Scott McCloud and thought it was interesting that two different people made books with the same rather simple name. I put it on hold at the same time and didn’t think more about it.
When the books finally arrived, The Animator’s Survival Kit was a hefty tome. Nearly 400 pages, and in an oversized format, the book was intimidating. So intimidating I haven’t actually cracked it open. On the other hand Making Comics was a much smaller volume. It was (deliberately, I would learn) the size and shape of one of those black and white composition notebooks you might have used in school. It was covered in doodles and inviting, while the Survival Kit felt much more like a text book (because it probably is).
Lynda Barry’s Making Comics is a wonderful book however. Not more than 20 minutes into reading it I was planning on getting some paper and pens and itching to try out some of the exercises in the book. She makes the idea of drawing cartoons/comics feel like a natural outcome of being a human being. It was downright inspiring.
She also recommends a book called Cartooning: Philosophy and Practice by Ivan Brunetti and so I put that on hold too. It turned out to be an even smaller book, but with the same goal of helping people to see that they can make comics.
So for the past few weeks I have been drawing, following some of the exercises laid out in both books, alternating between them. I’m not going at a fast pace, just taking a few minutes when I can to put pen to paper and see what comes out. It’s been a really fun time.
I’m also deliberately not posting the things I’m drawing online. I know this sounds weird coming from a guy who has spent most of his adult life putting all of his thoughts on the internet, but it’s been a useful exercise to create without the idea that anyone but me will likely ever see it. The creation itself is the goal, rather than being seen. Theres a power in drawing in ink on paper. The constraint of being unable to erase, or change my mind. If I put down a line or a scribble, it’s part of the work now and it becomes up to me to decide what it means, and learn to live with it. Sure, that means the final product is a lot rougher than it would be otherwise, but it also crates a sense of boldness. I have to make my mind up either before or after the line itself, but the line isn’t changing.
I long held a belief that I only have so many words to write in me in any given day. I can spend those words writing out my silly little internet thoughts (which is where they usually go) or I can put them to other things, like things I have to write at my job, or slightly more substantial writing like this newsletter. This stands is slight contrast to the much more popular belief that the more creative work one does, the more they are able to do; being creative creates more ideas and inspiration to be more creative. And I don’t think that idea is incorrect either, but I’ve never really sat and reconciled these two seemingly contradictory beliefs. But when I spent some time thinking about it this week, I realized the real limiting factor is time. It’s not that I have so many words in me, but rather I only have so many minutes in which to be creative. That number of minutes isn’t particularly large after you subtract things like working and sleeping and feeding myself, (which can be a creative pursuit) and other social obligations that come along with being a human. So you have to spend them wisely, or find out where to put them.
A short documentary I watched this week was about a man who spent 40+ years creating a hand drawn map using a bizarrely arcane set of rules. It was an incredibly surprising and thoughtful documentary (but it’s on youtube so good luck logging it on letterbox) about a lot of different things, but one o the ones that stuck out to me was the idea of persistence. How small stops every day can, if you let them, add up into something far more impressive.
My drawing practice over the last few weeks has felt a little but like that. I do it or a few minutes here and there, but I can also look back at the things I’ve made in a relatively short period of time. I just have to keep working at it.
So I haven’t been writing as much, or at least as much as I feel like I should, but I have been drawing and that has been nice too.