Drawing Pictures and Writing Words

Or "Why Drawing Is So Much Easier Than Writing"

I have to confess - I find drawing and painting to be relatively simple.  Let me clarify - I find drawing to be far more novice-friendly than writing.  Beginning visual artists usually focus on arrangements of household objects and copies of old masters' paintings.  This is a great set of training-wheels, because the Old Masters already did all the hard work of deciding what to put where, and how to apply it - the part that I find the most challenging about the drawing process.  And almost any arrangement of objects will look pretty good when rendered.

As your foreknowledge grows, it becomes easier to notice the little details that make a scene more accurate to life.  And as you develop your skills, you become more adept at recognizing the thought that went into those masterpieces, but even in the very beginnings of one's "art practice," it's encouraging to finish a piece that actually looks good.

Where is this sort of encouragement to be found in writing?  Do we copy the short stories of master writers?  Would we learn anything from doing so?  Not in any class I've taken, or book I've read on the subject.  Maybe you work from a prompt, saving yourself from having to think of whatever question is at the core of the piece.  Maybe you try and write "from life" or "stream of consciousness," but that can be pretty turgid stuff, in my experience.

Thank god I don't have to be a writer only (though maybe someday. . . )  Thank god I can dress up a mediocre story with attractive pictures.  This seems to be the default mode for a great many writer-illustrators, unfortunately.  Some of my favorite comic artists are covering for a weak story (and vice-versa.)  Some, like Craig Thompson, can do both with equal alacrity, but how do you get that good at both?

I'm coming to suspect that my assumptions about the process need revising - instead of spending an hour practicing illustration, and another practicing prose writing, I should two hours doing both simultaneously.  Because comics is neither writing, nor illustration, but something altogether different.