Month: July 2021

Who would win in a fight between Superman and the Hulk?

Short answer: The writer decides.

Long answer: It’s a complicated question. Is Superman holding back? Where are they fighting? What are they fighting about? Does Hulk’s amazing strength and resilience overcome the many other powers Superman has? Are either fighting at full strength? Are they really trying to win? And a whole list of questions that all still boil down to this:

The writer decides.

To paraphrase a recent Tweet I read from comics legend Kurt Busiek: Writers aren’t referees. It’s not simply their job to weigh all the factors and provide the appropriate outcome.

The goal of writing isn’t to be real. The goal of writing is to be engaging. And often, being engaging is avoiding reality. Even in non-fantastical settings, most stories don’t set out to give you the obvious answer.… Read the rest “Reality Ensues”

There’s an old saying. Never let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

As a professional creative sort, I run across a lot of professional creative sorts. I also run across a lot of people who want to be creative. There are plenty of reasons to not exercise creativity. As a professional creator, I am intimately aware of all of them. Every writer I’ve met has wrestled with self-doubt and procrastination and distraction, and we’re supposed to be good at this. So I get it. I can’t tackle every obstacle in a simple blog post, but I can pick one.

Let’s talk about bad art. Specifically, let’s talk about the fear of creating bad art.

The terrorizing possibility that someone might create bad art can be crippling. It’s understandable. Even before the internet, there was no shortage of people to tell an artist they sucked.… Read the rest “Bad Art & The Bad Artists Who Make It”