In episode 096 of the Functional Nerds podcast, Patrick Hester and John Anealio welcome artist Len Peralta.
About Len:
Len Peralta is an Internet cartoonist. He’s been very fortunate to do some interesting illustrations. He’s drawn princes throwing up, Internet rock stars dressed up in skin-tight catsuits, illustrated a few books, drawn art for a card game about medical malpractice and even the New Yorker has shown off his stuff.
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[…] Nerds (Patrick Hester and John Anealio) interviews Len Peralta […]
Something Len said about his early life and drawing struck me as familiar. His talking about re-drawing Bloom County comics strikes me as similar to re-typing and rewriting science fiction and fantasy stories. I’ve heard a couple of authors on podcasts the last few months or so talk about doing that early on, and Len’s re-drawing seems similar to that.
Maybe I’m dumb, but I never ever thought of this idea, be it drawing or writing. (The idea of covering a piece of music is obvious, of course).
I think this is something everyone does in order to learn how something is done. Drawing is a great example. I used to draw Garfield, the Peanuts characters, even Calvin and Hobbes, trying to learn. I had an old Beetle Baily book that my Grams gave me, so I used to draw him a lot. Archie and Jughead, too.
When you pick up a musical instrument for the first time, you don’t start composing original songs – you learn to play your favorites (which quickly become your least favorites due to repetition). How many people start writing by doing fan fiction? My first stories were Star Trek stories before I moved onto The X-Files, and even a sequel story to Tim Burton’s Batman flick.
I think it’s just natural. You’re learning and at the same time, you’re starting to find your own, unique voice and style.
~P
It probably is natural. I feel callow for never having thought of this as a technique I could have profitably used 10 or 20 years ago.
Then again, is writing endless play by email turns for the Amber Diceless RPG really a form of this and I’ve never seen that was really what I was doing? Hmmm…