Steve Lieber argues for a return to apprenticeships in comics:

Suppose Sally is apprenticing with Zack, a working professional cartoonist with a couple of decades in the business. Twice a week, she works at a spare table in Zack’s studio. Zack takes a look at the offer, spotting red flags that tell him this isn’t a client that understands how comics are made. He suggests things to ask the client and proposes reasonable alternatives to any unreasonable requests the client is making. And after the client and Sally come to an agreement, Sally has the benefit of his experience in solving some of the tough storytelling problems in the script.

What’s in it for the Zack? Why should an established pro help train his eventual competition?

Apprenticeship is a trade. Sally assists with research, backgrounds, erasing pages, trimming boards, file prep, flatting, social media, and wrapping packages for eBay buyers. There’s always stuff Zack doesn’t have time to do. He offers guidance and answers Sally’s questions about art, craft, and professional practices.

Firstly, man, Zack is offloading a bunch of stuff onto Sally’s plate. Secondly, I can’t say “Yes, this” loudly enough to this idea; the idea of comic pros teaching comic pros to be comic pros is the kind of thing that pops up all throughout comics history, and then weirdly seems to disappear for the most part at some point. I’d love to see more of it happening.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 12th, 2013 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Comic Books, Creators. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.