The cute manifesto

Bien. Son las 17:15, tengo la tarde libre, mi autobús sale a las 19:00 de Avenida América, me he tirado una hora al teléfono, no he fregado, he estado un rato leyendo, recreándome en mis gilipolleces y, por supuesto, la maleta sin hacer. No puedo evitarlo... me gusta el riesgo, andar siempre con el límite pisándome los talones, percibir cómo aumenta la tensión a medida que las agujas corren sigilosamente hacia ese minuto clave en el que no puedo retrasar más aquello que no me apetece hacer nada, nada, nada... Es como ponerme a prueba a mí misma... ¿cuánto sufriré esta vez para llegar a tiempo y sin olvidarme nada? En realidad yo creo que es algún trauma infantil que consiste en llevar la contraria a mi madre (ella que siempre tiene todo taaan controlado).

Bueno, yo en realidad venía aquí a hablar de mi libro... bueno, de mi cómic. Ayer mi gigante acertó de pleno... ¡como siempre! Y me regaló un maravilloso, precioso y GENIAL cómic titulado 'The cute manifesto'. He leído poquito porque quiero reservarlo para mi laaaargo viaje (suponiendo que no pierda el autobús), pero es que necesito reproducir aquí la segunda parte del manifiesto para que juzguéis por vosotros mismos por qué mi gigante es "el más mejor" de todos :) A disfrutarlo (perdón por las posibles erratas):

CRAFT IS NOT A FRIEND

Okay, I will say it again in a different way for the idiots who couldn't understand me the first time.

When you are shooting for inmortality, anything less than a stunning achievement is a failure. Creating a powerful work of art is like running and leaping across a chasm. It takes all of your strength and you'll be dashed on the rocks and fall to your death. Being a craftsman is like sitting in your woodshop all day carefully building a chair and when you are done you sit on it. Are comics craft? Well, certainly any cartoonist you are likely to meet will tell you "yes". And that's a big problem. Craft is boring. Ever been to a crafts fair? Not unlike a comics convention. Craft sucks.

When a cartoonist sits down to draw, and ther goal is to draw well, they are doomed to failure. No matter how much they practice the best they can hope for is to become a polished hack aping their preconceived ideal of "good comics", to become a mere hollow shell of the cartoonists who came before.

For one reason, there is no objective "good" in art. Someone could conceivably thing 'Spawn' is well drawn and thing 'Penauts' is poorly drawn (although that sounds insane to me). So if you are trying to draw well what you are shooting for is illusory. There is, objectively, no such thing.

However, if you are burning up inside with the need to express yourself, if there's something you desperately need to say, when you sit down at the drawing table you think "how am I going to say this? How am I going to express myself so the people will understand?" The art will be slave to the content. Either the artist expresses the meaning, emotion, and power of their vision or they do not. The comic succeeds or fails on these terms. The notion of quality is meaningless.

* Escuchando: 'English country garden' - The Darkness - 17:39!!!!