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Ryan North talks about writing, ideas, creativity, and zinc
Description
Dave and Brad welcome Ryan North, two-time Eisner Award winner, creator of Dinosaur Comics and writer for Marvel Comics' Squirrel Girl. We discuss his upcoming book, How to Invent Everything and his successful Shakespearean choose-your-own-adventure To Be or Not To Be. Along the way, we go deep on several topics involving writing — getting ideas, subconscious plagiarism, self-plagiarism, rejecting unoriginal ideas, creativity as a compulsion, juggling multiple projects, exorcising ideas, and much much more. BUT FIRST — Brad explains how zinc is more precious than gold for your good health. Show notes
- 9:13 — How did Ryan first get into writing for comics?
- 12:37 — Rejecting an idea if it's not completely original
- 16:30 — Creativity as a compulsion
- 18:08 — Getting the idea for "To Be or Not To Be"
- 19:10— Capturing ideas
- 24:14 — Writing Squirrel Girl fro Marvel Comics
- 30:06 — The "minced oath"
- 31:51 — Avoiding subconscious plagiarism
- 38:34 — Juggling multiple projects and how to decide which ideas get used in which projects
- 41:57 — "Exorcising" ideas
- 43:13 — Self-plagiarization on social media
- 45:47 — Ideas are easy. Execution is hard.
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Brad Guigar is the creator of Evil Inc and the editor of Webcomics.com
Dave Kellett is the creator of Sheldon and Drive.
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Brad Guigar is the creator of Evil Inc and the author of The Webcomics Handbook. He is available for personal consultations. Dave Kellett is the creator of Sheldon and Drive. He is the co-director of the comics documentary, Stripped.