by Alexander Danner and William G.

Editor's note: During last issue's roundtable on the Future of Webcomics, a side discussion started on the issue of collaborations in comics. Not being particularly pertinent to that discussion, I pruned it and persuaded two of the key antagonists to slug it out in a separate feature. Following are the results of that trial.

The Myth of Pure Artistic Vision:
A Defense of Collaborative Comics
By Alexander Danner

“Collaborative comics.” For many people, especially comics creators working on the alt/indy side of the industry, the phrase has some very specific connotations. It conjures images of assembly line creation, hack writers passing pages to uninspired artists passing pages to disinterested inkers, all in rapid-fire succession, as demanded by the needs of mass-produced, non-literary, superheroic juvenility. A creative method whose sole purpose is to serve the bottom line, entirely at the expense of any hope of genuine artistic achievement.

Sure, there are a couple of exceptions: Watchmen, From Hell. Occasionally someone will remember to mention Cerebus or American Splendor, but usually they just stick to books by Alan Moore. Alan Moore: The sum total of all worthwhile collaborative comics that have ever been or ever will be produced. All the rest is corporate tripe.

This attitude toward collaborative comics, which began as reaction against the corporate manufacturing model, was later codified as comics theory, most notably by Will Eisner himself in his Comics & Sequential Art:

In view of this interdependence [between writing and art] there is therefore no choice (in fairness to the art form itself) but to recognize the primacy of the writing. In doing so, however, one must then immediately acknowledge that in a perfect (or pure) configuration the writer and the artist should be embodied in the same person. The writing (or the writer) must be in control to the very end.

-Will Eisner, Comics & Sequential Art.

It is a theory that has since been boiled down to the easily touted catch phrase, “pure artistic vision.” Taken together, the rejection of mainstream comics and the elevation of the ideal of “pure artistic vision” has resulted in an environment through much of the independent comics industry (including webcomics) that’s openly hostile toward collaborative creators.

And that’s just a damn shame.

Because here’s the thing: collaboration often results in brilliant work, sometimes much better work than either creator could produce on his or her own. Besides which, neither of the abovementioned objections to collaboration actually holds up.

To start with, the conclusion that collaboration must lead to sub-par work (as evidenced by the fact that mainstream collaborations often produce sub-par work) is a clear instance of mistaking concurrence with causality. There are numerous other ways to explain poor mainstream comics besides the collaborative element— not least of which is the lack of creative control offered to any of the collaborators involved. While it may be true that collaborations formed by corporate go-betweens for the purposes of maximizing efficiency and the bottom line don’t often lead to great artistic achievements, this fact has absolutely no bearing on collaborations that result from two complementary creators deciding to work with each other out of mutual respect and common goals. These are drastically different situations— in purpose, in method, and in final result. The latter is true artistic collaboration. The former is collaboration mired in corporate culture. To judge one based on the failings of the other is wholly inappropriate.

As for the idea of pure artistic vision…well, that’s fine for Will Eisner. He was as gifted an illustrator as he was a writer. No doubt, there are some truly great writers in print and webcomics, and there are some truly great artists in print and webcomics -- but it's exceedingly rare for both talents to be found in the same person. And if the writing and the illustrating aren’t operating at the same level, then there’s no purity of vision happening— the disconnect will be just as clear as if it were the result of a bad collaboration.

People often talk about how good art sometimes masks bad writing, but it's just as true that bad art can obliterate good writing. Way back when I was first getting into webcomics, I briefly tried illustrating something of my own. This experiment didn’t just result in bad art— it also resulted in the worst writing I've ever done, because I had to dumb the writing down until it fit into my very limited capabilities as an artist. A lot of great writers are suffering from their own bad art. It hobbles you.

And taking it a step further – there’s no such thing as “pure artistic vision” anyway. The ideas of the writer always get filtered through the abilities of the artist, even when the writer and the artist are the same person. Likewise, the effectiveness of the artwork is always restrained by the imagination of the writer. And this isn’t just a matter of skill— it’s also a matter of style. If a talented artist spends years honing his or her art into a style appropriate to all-ages funny animal stories, and then one day has a brilliant idea for a dark crime noir, the creator is either going to have to adapt the idea to their art style, or their art style to the idea. Either way the end result will be a blending of artistic ideas. The vision has been filtered through limiting factors. That’s not to say the final product won’t be good— just that it defies the ideal of “pure artistic vision.”

And how did this come to be an “ideal” anyway? To call it such ignores thousands of years of well-respected collaborative artistic forms; music, theatre, and film all rely heavily on artistic collaboration to achieve their effects. Is a one-man-band inherently superior to a symphony orchestra by virtue of his greater “purity?” Is a one-person play, starring and directed by its author inherently superior to a play with an ensemble cast? Certainly such individual works have value, but if this were to become the rule for how these forms functioned, it would grow very dull very quickly. Collaboration is vital to the artistic cross-pollination that allows these forms to remain interesting. Why should comics be somehow above that?

In fact, much like theatre and film, comics lends itself very naturally to collaboration. It has a literary component and a visual component that can very easily be divided among collaborators, just as it’s easy to divide the literary component from the performance components of a play. Yes, Eisner argued that in the final experience of comics, the writing and the art are inseparable— and he’s right. Likewise, in viewing a production of a play, the writing and the acting are inseparable— but that doesn’t mean they can’t have been carried out by different people in the process of creating that unified production. Don’t believe that the performance is inseparable from the writing? Go see two or three different productions of the same play— you’ll be amazed at how often it feels like you’ve seen completely different plays. And just as with comics, a bad production of a good script results in a bad play.

“But wait,” you say! “Theatre is an interpretive artform!” Yes, it is. And so are comics— even the single creator comics. Like I said before, every story idea is filtered through the artist's skills and style, no matter who the artist is. In fact, barring the prohibitively time-consuming nature of comics, there’s no reason why the same comic script couldn’t be interpreted and reinterpreted by different artists to produce completely different comics— where, like in theatre, no single interpretation would be the “definitive” or “right” one.

Now, I'm certainly not suggesting that artists should never illustrate their own works. Some projects naturally lend themselves to independent work; Kochalka’s The Sketchbook Diaries, for instance, would be nonsensical as a collaborative work. And some creators are well suited to independent work: Derek Kirk Kim the artist happens to be a great match for Derek Kirk Kim the writer. Jenn Manley Lee the artist is perfectly suited to Jenn Manley Lee the writer. Some people are really lucky like that. But that model won't work for everyone, nor should it have to. Nor is there any reason why even these creators shouldn’t occasionally stretch their abilities through collaborative side projects.

Yes, sometimes it’s good for a creator to illustrate his or her own work. But we need to kill the bias that says that every artist has to illustrate their own works if they want to be “real” artists. (It will come as no surprise that there is considerably less of this bias among creators of action/adventure comics.) There's an a priori dismissal (among creators, at least, if not readers) of collaborative works as being inherently less serious than single creator works, almost regardless of the particular works in question. This results, first off, in a lot of really great work being overlooked just because there are two names in the credits. And it also seriously inhibits a lot of creators from thinking objectively about whether their own art style is really the best choice for their story idea. Again, there are some truly great writers in webcomics, and there are some truly great artists in webcomics. Once those differently talented people start pairing up more often, webcomic will realize a huge surge in quality and sophistication as a direct result of those cross-pollinating talents.

But that's not going to happen until we dispel the idea of the "pure artistic vision.” At best, the idea of “pure artistic vision” is a conceit that allows solo creators to hold themselves above the rest of comicdom. At worst, it’s a self-imposed barrier that’s holding webcomics (and indie comics in general) back from achieving a higher standard of literary accomplishment.

To Collaborate Or Not To Collaborate...
That's A Good Question
by William G

See, if I paraphrase Shakespeare, my argument will seem that much smarter.

I've been asked to provide a counterpoint to an essay on collaboration and the falsehood of the concept of the pure artistic vision. Mostly because I've come out against collaboration before. And I'm a loudmouth who's just smart enough to make what he says seem semi-intelligent.

Oh yeah, and I never work with other people because there's only one captain on my ship. And that's me. Arrr!

The main problem I'm facing in writing this counterpoint is that I don't really believe in "pure artistic vision" myself. I know that no vision is pure. Everything that we creative sorts make is little more than us filtering what we experience and think through whatever medium it is we use. The stuff we put out there, especially in the comics world, is no more pure than us telling you what movies we watched last year.

So, discussing this topic means that me and Alex are coming at it from completely different directions. We'd be talking past each other. I'd like to avoid this. But give me roughly one paragraph of his essay to work with. This is the paragraph right here:

In view of this interdependence [between writing and art] there is therefore no choice (in fairness to the art form itself) but to recognize the primacy of the writing. In doing so, however, one must then immediately acknowledge that in a perfect (or pure) configuration the writer and the artist should be embodied in the same person. The writing (or the writer) must be in control to the very end.

-Will Eisner, Comics & Sequential Art.

This is why Eisner was very smart man and the rest of us are just punks not worthy to whisper his name.

I don't think Eisner was saying that all comics MUST be a one man show. I've always read this as him saying that the art must serve the demands of the writing first. If you're capable of doing both, the easier the comic-making process will be.

This means that the writer of the work should always be the one wearing the pants in the relationship. Since he was brought up, look at Alan Moore: He has worked with some highly talented artists. Having read his works a for couple of decades now, I feel safe in saying that his works would never have succeeded as well as they have unless the artists were willing to go along for the ride and not interject too much.

Of course, I don't know. Maybe Dave Gibbons was the true mastermind behind "Watchmen" and he only kept Alan Moore around to look like a cool writer with that beard of his.

However it seems to me that Moore was entirely in control of the books he made. There has been such a consistency over the years, that I find it hard to believe that he's been letting go of the wheel too often. One of the reasons I assume that Moore has never drawn his own stories is because he simply doesn't have the skills to do so.* I see nothing wrong with that. If you can't draw, then it's important to get someone who can to do it for you. But the relationship should never be one of collaboration. The artist should be something like the first mate on a ship: There to voice opinions when needed, but to always follow the captain's orders when a decision has been made.

And that's pretty much why I'm not in favor of collaboration. I'm not saying I'll never do it in the future. I may do so one day. But my artist is in synch with my writer. As well, I simply can't see anyone being willing to suffer under the Captain Bligh working relationship I'd demand out of anyone drawing for me. But I know that's just me.

I understand Alex Danner is a complete darling to work with.

* Note-- Moore is a capable "big-foot" cartoonist. --Ed.