So I see this getting tossed around a lot and it's definitely true, but I don't think it 100% captures how much "writing" an artist does and how much "Art" a writer does. (@Cera_OMalley this isn't really directed towards you, I'm sure you already know this, and you seem to be a great person to work with.)
So let's imagine a typical writer/artist collaborative duo, we will name the writer Tom and the artist Stacy.
Tom has provided Stacy the script to an 8-page comic, it is mostly dialogue, some brief descriptions of environments, and brief descriptions of the actions taken by the characters.
Tom has told Stacy outside of the script in casual conversation that he wants the comic to be "Like an old 80's Saturday-morning-cartoon, with lots of neon!"
Stacy takes the script, reads through it, does a couple drafts of characters designs. She has designed characters that she believes reasonably look like they would say and do the things that happen in the script, while also taking into account the few visual clues that the writer gave them "Buff, tall, long golden Fabio hair". What Stacy has done, is effectively writing.
She shows Tom some drafts of her design for feedback. Tom says "I like this! You did a really great job with this neon, but I think they need to look EVEN MORE buff" What Tom just did was effectively "Art".
Tom and Stacy go through several drafts of character, prop, and environmental design for everything in the story. At the end of this part of the project, Stacy has created a total of 10 character illustrations (drafts and all).
Stacy then takes the Script and Outline and begins to do thumbnails and panel layouts. The panel layouts are effectively describing the PACING, and to some extent the TONE of the project, the thumbnails experiment with various camera angles, expressions, and body language, that all visually communicate and interpret the (MOSTLY DIALOGUE) of the writer's script. THIS IS WRITING.
Stacy shows Tom her thumbnails, he loves them, but he points out a few issues where he was confused as to what was happening and offers some suggestions as to how to fix them, but ultimately Tom doesn't really know anything about composition at this point, so his suggestions aren't really useful. Stacy redoes the thumbnails that Tom pointed out to fix the issues he had with them, THIS IS STILL WRITING.
Once the thumbnails are done Stacy begins to develop rough color pallets and begins to produce finished pages. These color pallets HEAVILY impact the perception of the story and the mood of each scene. THIS IS WRITING. Stacy shows Tom the finished pages and Tom suggests that they need more texture and FX to really capture the 80's cartoon feel. (This is "Art"). Stacy goes back and adds FX to all of the pages.
Tom chooses a font, Stacy places all of the dialogue bubbles and types in all of the dialogue.
The project is now finished.
Who did more work here???
Is it really fair to say that Stacy is JUST an artist? I'd argue that she did almost 60% of the writing, whereas Tom was mostly just editorial.
Just to really drive it home, here's what Tom did.
- Wrote a script with some loose descriptions of characters, environments. And lots of dialogue and the story was mostly an homage to 80's cartoons so plot really wasn't anything special.
- Gave Stacy some feedback every now and then.
- Picked a font.
This is what a typical writer/artist collaboration is like, and I didn't even touch on the writer asking for updates and work in progress images, and Tom was pretty relaxed as far as critiques of Stacy's work went. That's not to say that ALL writers are like this, typically they do put a lot of work into developing the idea and the plot, but to say they do more work, or that the amount of effort put in by artist and writer is equal, is crazy.
NOTE: Some writers do write detailed descriptions of panel layouts, and shot descriptions, some even do thumbnails, or at least a draft of thumbnails. This is work that Stacy does not have to do, and "writing" that you can take credit for. But EVEN STILL, Stacy did more work than you did.