Mark Waid Brainstorming Interview


Welcome to the first part of the course. We're very lucky to have Mark Wade here. Mark has done a lot of great projects from Daredevil to Kingdom Come to working his own original series, Irredeemable. Mark also has his own digital publishing label called Thrillbent where he's managing a lot of projects through there. And on top of it all, Mark also owns a comic book store in Muncie called Aw Yeah Comics. So Mark, the first question I have for you today in regards to ideas is where do good ideas actually come from?


Right, well my ritual in the morning is I get up and I hit the web and I look at the aggregator sites I have to show me the headlines from the sites that I'm interested in. And I'm looking for the things that are interesting to me that day, whether or not it was something some idiot politician did, or whether it was some sort of natural disaster across the world, or just something that catches my interest. And then just digging into that and letting the ideas fly about that, like how did that happen? How would that impact me if that were part of my world? What is it about that that interests me? And then sort of developing out of that. You really have to look at the world. You really have to feed your head.


Cool. Not all ideas do come fully formed. Do you have some tips on how to take an okay idea and then bring it to a great idea?


Yeah, find your emotional context for it. Find, it's one thing like I said to, you know, a story about some mom who saves her kid because she has an adrenal rush and she lifts a car or whatever. That's an interesting story but what is it about it that makes it personal to you? What's the emotional investment? How do you tell that story in a way that makes the reader want to know what happens next, creates suspense, and makes them identify with the characters in the story? Because the stories that stick, the stories that have any importance, the ones that you remember forever, are the ones where you're invested, where you really care about what that character wants, even if that character's a jerk. Even if the character's an evil villain, you still want something for him, even if it's comeuppance. And so that's how to take a good idea which is just the skeleton of a story, and put some emotion into it and make it something that people will want to care about.


So our learners are kind of tasked with this very daunting exercise of telling a really amazing, great story in 16 panels, because they only have four pages to tell this, four panels each on each page. At this stage where they're coming up an idea, what should they be thinking about in regards to that idea fitting into a 16 panel strip?


It's a really great parameter, because the thing I teach my students is clarity, clarity, clarity. It doesn't mean your story has to be super simple, or stupid, or childlike or anything, but it has to be clear. And if you're locked into 16 panels you don't have time to screw around. You start your story as late as your possibly can and you end it as soon as you possibly can. I liken it, telling a story in that length, to just telling a joke.


A joke is set up, punchline, then get off the stage. With a joke, you're only giving the listener enough information to understand the punchline. You don't have to know everything about the guy, a man walks into a bar. I don't have to know why he walked into the bar, I don't have to know where he comes from, I don't have to know what he had for dinner earlier that day. Man walks into a bar, that's where your story starts. And so that's what I would encourage people to remember. If you're doing 16 panels, you get to the meat of it, right off the bat. Conflict, resolution. Back story and what happens after you can worry about later.


So, a lot of learners are probably coming to the course, well, not a lot, but some of them are probably coming to the course and thinking, I just want to get good at the art and the inking. I don't really care about the script writing, and coming up with an idea part. Why would you say it's probably important for them to think about the idea portion of the creation process?


Well because they're still part of the creative process. It's like when I work with my artists and my collaborators I make it abundantly clear they're not art robots they're not there to take my story and put pictures to it, it is our story. It's only my story until such a time as I hand it off to the artist. At that point it's our story. And they, it's up to them to figure out how they want to tell the story cinematically, how they want to choose the shots, what they feel like drawing, what in their mind visually communicates a story.


If that wasn't an important part of the process I could just do it all myself, or I'd do it as a prose story. I wouldn't need illustrations. And then back to the issue of clarity, same thing. If you're telling a story as an artist, just cut to the chase and draw what's important to tell the story. And don't worry about the background details on the Buick, and the background of the panel, or how many bricks there are in the side of the building. You know, noodling might be fun to do, but concentrate on the fundaments of the characters, the situation, the basic elements that it takes to tell the story.


Great, thanks Mark.


Sure.