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Mallory
Jun '22

I don't think that art is necessarily valued more above writing, it's more like... art pretty much always produces a product that can immediately be judged for its quality. People generally don't really walk around talking about how they're an amazing artist without people asking to see their art.

With writing though, though the act of moving through the story is undeniably faster with writing than with art, you generally don't present a piece of writing by itself. Usually it's presented as a "compilation" of pieces of writing in the form of a book made of scenes and chapters, which takes much longer than each individual piece. This means it's a lot more normal of people to go around talking about their writing without actually showing it - and that means WAY MORE people walk around talking about being a writer than there actually ARE writers (i.e. people who actually complete stories and goals and work to improve their writing craft), which means that it feels like there are way more writers than artists.

Swamp
Jun '22

I hope nothing I've said comes off that way. I try to hammer home how hard art is because I am a writer first and artist second, and also because I feel like a lot of writers searching for artists get... pretty cruel about other people's writing.

I think part of it is... writing is a lot easier to think you're good at. Even if you don't have an 'eye', most people can see their work doesn't look like a professionals.

On the other hand, I've seen a lot of very smart, talented people who assume writing is something they can just jump into. It's much easier to be blind to how far you have to go, and taste is so much more varied.

UrMom
Jun '22
TheLemmaLlama

Oooh, aright! I get you! It's like how some movies do better with leaving things to the imagination with certain horror movies because the imagination will always be way more scary than what the film makers can come up with. There's definitely an argument to be made there since I can agree that sometimes it's better to leave some things open-ended, there's also the factor that allowing for imagination helps with creative problem solving and such. But yeah, I can see how visual mediums can be less valued due to that. There is definitely a crowd that sees it as a lesser thing to an extent due to how hand-holding visuals can be. What's said is visual mediums can leave just as much to the imagination when done right, but it's really difficult to do, and takes a lot of understanding of psychology and visual storytelling. Not very many can pull it off, but when they do it can blow your mind.

SoaringMoon
Jun '22
1

Sorry for the Wall of Text.

To the people who responded to my above post, I'll let you know I read your posts in full and agree with a majority of your criticisms. I'm not here to argue, I just want to voice how I feel about the matter, from my own worldview and the kind of people I'm exposed to.

This has been my case as well. If I don't enjoy the art style of a comic, I'm simply not going to read it. I've turned down manga that people have suggested to me as good purely on the art style alone.

I've also been on the other side of that, where I have written a comic which utilized very poor art skills but told a story; and people resonated with that anyway.

It's all about delivery, execution, and... well marketing unfortunately.

But as for my "art can be done relatively quickly and quality art is dime a dozen" statement, that applies to writing too. I never said that artists were "quick and disposable", I implied that "it was quick and easy to purchase". Which is a very different kind of statement. In a way, writing can be quick to purchase as well, but I can't "request" the way in which writing is written by an author. Not in the same way art is revised and customized in turnaround.

When I purchase art for various projects, manly for board game components, and illustrations for larger things like display art or promotional material. Even original concept designs in finalized color are delivered within 2-4 hours, that is including revision steps. When it comes to revising writing, you normally are requesting a rewrite of almost the entire draft document from a different viewpoint, prospective, or containing different content. Where sometimes artwork, a portion of the art has to be removed and redrawn; most of the time its adjustments to color composition or the request of specific items be included or moved... etc.

I'm not saying either is more difficult than the other, as one is a dexterous skill practiced over a lifetime, and the other is an entire redo of a composition. I am saying that any practiced artist can become a "hyper efficient" producer of "quality" art. Some of the best artists, especially in the video game concept industry (most of the top of artstation) are used to this fast turnaround on commissions and requests. That is their job, day in day out.

These people are comparable to authors who produce multiple novels a year, in the sense of throughput. The best are publishing 3-5 novels (sometimes 10-20 if they are a ghost authors who have 3rd party editors). Often, the "pros" only need to publish about 1 novel a year to "sell"; your JK Rowling's, Steven King's, and George RR Martin's. Statistical outliers.

Lesser known writers tend to produce more work to "get something to stick".

The same goes for artists. The difference is however, that alot of these "professional" artists produce a constant stream of artwork, textures, materials, concept artworks, character model sheets...e tc Day in and day out. 8 hours a day, multiple works per day. After that same year of work they have as much as a thousand, unique, original, full color illustrations in their portfolios. Being used in video games, trading cards, marketing materials, tattoo parlors... etc. While none of these people are "household names" like the above authors. They are within the industries they represent. Comics being one of those industries.

This says nothing about the quality of either group's product; but it does about the recognizability of that product.

It is more difficult for an above average writer to stand out because writing has a low barrier of entry. Put words onto page, have general knowledge about story structure, and the grammar and syntax of a language. Writing also has a quality "bell curve". There are very bad writers, and very good writers, but a majority of people fall somewhere in-between. The best writers tend to stand out and are quickly recruited.

Art on the other hand has a high barrier of entry. Knowledge of architecture, or anatomy. Endless practice of repetitive motions. Knowledge of artistic mediums and their best use cases. The results of practicing with those mediums. Subjects. Stylization. Color theory. Sure there are comparisons to aspects of each in creative writing. But art, unlike writing, has a "descending quality curve". Most people are "bad" artists, very few people are good artists. Most people are weighted toward the "bad" side of the curve. For this reason, it is easier for above average artists to stand out among their field.

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The difference here is that a practiced artist can make a single striking representation of their craft with much less time investment. Even if it takes 1 solid work week to make a piece of art. 40 hours, and I know what an artist can accomplish in that amount of time. They would have 50ish amazing pieces to share with their world, in their portfolio, and to further their carrier. It would get them hired.

In the same vein as an author, I might have 3 full sized polished novels in that amount of time. The perception is, "that sound like alot of work" not "that sounds like you make a good product". To absorb the quality of your work, they would have to read at least one of those novels. Not be judgmental and align with the content or its message or whatever else they are looking for.

For the artist, they show their portfolio. The person looks at 50 images, and makes a decision. One takes a full day, maybe longer. The other takes an hour, and that is only if the person they are trying to get the art production from looks at each image for more than a full minute before making a choice to hire them.

tl;dr - I don't think this is really about art vs writing. It's about how difficult it is for the writer to get noticed over the artist. I feel that is why writer's are sore about credit of a collaborative work. Of course, the right thing is to credit everyone equally regardless the level of contribution. That is what game studios do, and Hollywood sort of.

Shanny8
Jun '22

Also the stuff behind the curtain: it's not like these writers were working on one project at a time; a lot of our current reads from them- were written years ago and it's taken that long for them to get a publisher to agree to it, after edits. A lot of them are probably scribing new material as we speak.

It's easy to do that, once an artist has gotten their foot in the door and have gained a value for their work; it's a whole other hill to climb being a starting creator who has to "find their groove"...

I think both can be noticed...if a story is good, it's good. The goal of writer and artist when creating a comic is to tell a story; the art needs to be indicative of the writing- to express what the story is trying to tell or sell.

I'm always down for a good story/good art comic...but the current discourse & climate sometimes has me peeved about how artists are perceived and valued; almost like they're "meat for the grinder". I've seen rising writers who post the heck out of their artists work- and don't name names/give credit to the artist; it's like, "read my comic or [the comic brand] comic"...I've also seen writers who do give their artist credit.

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