Thursday, May 26, 2011

How to Get Ideas


This is a problem that any self-proclaimed creative person without a daily regimen of psychotropic drugs has experienced. The search for a great idea can be incredibly frustrating, like trying to force two unlike species to breed. 
Further reading:
Elizabeth Gilbert on the concept of "genius." 
Richard Thompson on where he gets his sublime ideas.
The visual inspiration for the third panel.

14 comments:

  1. This is one of my favorites of yours. As far as I'm concerned, time is nearly as elusive as the idea, and the two never seem to arrive simultaneous or even sympathetically and never really get along. Why is it that ideas have so often to stew or pickle or brew before they're actually ready to be put on the page? Ugh.

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  2. So true.
    The last panel made me smile so much I looked like a goofball. :3

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  3. I find the last one to be true. U don't search for ideas, they search for YOU.

    www.riskofrain.com

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  4. Very true. I do love to grab ideas from dreams though. They're so strange.

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  5. What if your ideas center around what super-being you can create through cross-breeding? A super-being that is incapable of intrapment and subconcious recogniton and drills.

    Well done comic. :)

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  6. I think this is basically true. I try and come up with jokes everyday. And I usually do that by walking around in the woods pretending not to be looking. And I only find them when I lose focus for a second

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  7. I get good ideas when I'm not trying to get them, then and only then. It's Murphey's law.

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  8. Joseph: Well put. I often end up salvaging ideas from old, discarded sketchbooks. Or I'll jot down a few words, only to figure out much later that they were the root of a comic. Other times, I end up drawing a not-so-good idea just because it's new and exciting.

    PeaceLoveandSharpies: That's great!

    Vincent: "incapable superbeings" would be an awesome comic book series.

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  9. It's true. I just usually let my mind wander.

    thedeepend-comic.blogspot.com

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  10. Seems like I always get a great idea when I have nothing to write it down on. So, I repeat until I'm sure I will remember it.....now, what was that again? Shit!

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  11. Thank you, Carl. I suppose I should file an NDA before I modernie the bible. Someone get the animation and I/we can make the words.

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  12. Nice one. I like the the last two. Ideas come randomly and sporatically...just gotta capture them or let them fade away

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  13. I often try to make my dream-ideas into something wroth while, but then I end up with pictures of goat-heads on a fish body and I think the market for that is really small. I really loved this!

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