



Time Management and Process

(or How The @#$% Do I Write So Many Books?)

I love making comics





One of the most frequently asked questions I get on Twitter and at conventions is how Imanage my workload? I've been meaning to write a newsletter about this for a while but,ironically, I've been too busy. So, sorry for the delay. Anyway, I'll do my best here to explainmy weekly work schedule and my working methods for both writing and for drawing.I am currently writing about 7 or 8 monthly books and drawing one as well(right now I'm finishing up art for the graphic novel AD: AFTER DEATH,written by Scott Snyder, an exclusive page from which is featured above!).The first thing I would say is that I am probably doing too much stuff right now.But, when you love to do what you do, it's hard to stop, and hard to say no tonew opportunities to work with artist and characters that inspire you.So, how do I do as much as I do? First, I've always been a very organized andself-motivated person and had a great work ethic. Before making a living in comicsI worked as a line cook at a variety of restaurants in downtown Toronto. Being a linecook isn't about knowing how to cook, it's about knowing how to stay organized andhow to manage your time and do a lot of things at once. Furthermore, when I wasworking nights in these restaurants I was also trying to make comics, so I wouldwake up early and draw all day before going back to restaurant for my next shift.I had a window of 5-6 hours a day to do comics and I maximized that and took fulladvantage of it. I think I carried a lot of the mindset from those early days into mywork as a cartoonist and writer now.Secondly,, It's all I've ever wanted to do. So, basicallyI have no social life at all. Really. I don't want one. The older I get the moreI just want to do what makes me happy. And the two things that make me themost happy are making comics and spending time with my wife and son.So that's basically ALL I do. And I'm happier for it.Having said that, love alone does't get the work done on time, so I do employ apretty strict system in order to juggle everything...I work Monday to Friday at my studio from about 7:30 am to 4:30 pm.(pics of my studio here. Notice my origibal art collection on the walls. Constant inspiration).I also work an hour or two every night after my son goes to bed and a few hourshere and there on the weekends when he's busy reading or Legoing. In that timeI can draw about 5 pages a week and also complete one script. At this pace I canwrite 4 scripts a month and draw and paint aprox- 24-pages of comics.And the bulk of my Mon-Fri studio time is spent drawing. Drawing is WAY morelabor intensive than writing. I spend at least 40 hours a week drawing and probablyonly 10 or so writing.I can do thumbnails and pencils for 5 pages in about 2 days, I can then ink thosesame 5 pages in 2 days. And the 5th day is spent painting those pages or workingon a script. This allows me to draw the equivalent of a monthly book in about 4 weeks.In term of my drawing method, I work in 5 page batches at a time. I draw my initiallayouts for these 5 pages on layout paper with red prismacolored pencils. Then Itighten these up with graphite or lead pencil and tape these pages to watercolorpaper where I ink them using a lightbox. (Here of my drawing set up...)I ink using Pelikan Black India ink with a Deleter metal dip pen nib and a#2 Windsor Newton Sable brush.When the inks dry I watercolour right over the inks and then scan it all in.(Layout and ink stages are shown here on a page from AD: AFTER DEATH)As I said, I spend much less time writing than I do drawing. In terms of writing,I stagger my titles. Meaning I get a few months ahead on a book, then put it asidefor a few months and replace it in my schedule with another title. So, while it mayseem I have 7 or 8 books coming out every month, I'm really ever only writing 3 or 4a month.For example, I am currently 5 months ahead on Moon Knight, 3 Months ahead onThanos, 6 months ahead on Descender and 6 months ahead on Black Hammer.So for the next two/three months I can put those 4 titles aside and work on Old Man Logan,X-Men, Inhumans v X-men and Bloodshot. And soon I'll be ahead on these 4 booksso I'll flip back to the other four titles for a while.Each week I only focus on one book at a time, and that's all I think about until I'veexhausted all my ideas and energy for that title. So this week I'm working on a new two-partOld Man Logan story and its running through my head constantly. I get in my Loganframe of mind and pour everything into that, then put it aside and come back to it in amonth or two when I've recharged on that character and story. If anything, I feel havingmultiple titles to jump between like this help keep me fresh and excited rather thanburning me out.This is a shot of my trusty white board. You can see I have one script to write eachweek of the month. And I plan ahead for what's coming in the next two months.On the right is the list of all the current titles I'm working on.(And beside that a carefully edited teaser for a couple of future!)The scripts themselves are fairly quick to write once you have the plots done.Plotting can take longer, but I usually plot out an entire story arc page-by-page and getthese approved by my editors far in advance, so that when it comes to the actual scripts,I can easily manage a script a week in my "extra time" on weekends and at night.I also keep a notebook for each project I'm working on by my drawing desk so I canwrite down new ideas as they come to me and later work these into detailed BiblesI keep for each series with all my issue by issue plots and future story ideas.It's hard to go into detail on my writing process, because so much of it is intuitive.But I do write full scripts, and try to keep the art direction to the bare minimum.I want each artists to have as much freedom as possible so that they can injectas much of themselves into as possible and do their best work without feeling restricted.Here is a page from a recent OLD MAN LOGAN SCRIPT for Andrea Sorrentino aswell as an excerpt from the outlines for that same issue from my "Series Bible".This is from Issue 9, which came out in early August. OF all the artists I work with,Andrea take the most liberties with the scripts, and I love him for it. He always takesmy ideas and turns them up to 11. We've been working together for a while now onGreen Arrow and now Logan, so we have a great chemistry.A Page from my Old Man Logan Series Bible...A page from the corresponding Old Man Logan ScriptSo, I don't know how enlightening that was. I hope it helps to answer some questionsabout how I juggle my work load. But really, it does come down to the fact thatI LOVE what I do. It's all I've ever dreamed of doing. I had to work a lot of shittyjobs before I started making a living in comics and there isn't a day I don't feellucky as hell that I get to wake up and just make comics. So I try not to take thatfor granted and I do as much as I can every day.Having said that, I have probably exceeded my maximum lately. So, as this yearwinds down, I'll probably start scaling my workload down to writing about 3-4 booksa month plus one that I write and draw, instead of the 6-7 (or 8!)I've been doing for he last couple of years.