In an old issue of "The Comics Journal" the cartoonist and rocker James Kochalka wrote two letters, or essays, about how craft is the enemy of cartoonists. This is what they said:

Craft is the Enemy
James Kochalka
Burlington, Vermont

I'm not exactly sure why I am writing this letter, but I've been Reading TCJ #188 for a couple hours now and my mind has just been racing and blood pounding. My Excitement with the power and possibilities of comics mixed the fear of a royally screwed-up marketplace... well lets just say I've got a weird shaky adrenaline rush.

I just felt suddenly like I had to write and say craft is the enemy! You could labor your whole life perfecting your "craft," struggling to draw better, hoping one day to have the skills to produce a truly great comic... If this is how you are thinking you will never produce this great comic, this powerful work of art, that you dream of. There's nothing wrong in trying to draw well, but that is not of primary importance.

What every creator should do, must do, is use the skills they have right now. A great masterpiece is within reach if only your power is strong enough (just like Green Lantern.) Just look within yourself and say what you have to say.

Cezanne and Jackson Pollock (and many other great painters) were horrible draftsmen! It was only through there sheer power to be great that they were great. The fire they had inside eclipsed their lack of technical skill. Although they started out shaky and even laughable, they went on to create staggering works of art.

This letter is not for the established creators... they're hopeless. This is for the young bucks and does... let's kick some fucking ass!

Craft isn't a Friend
James Kochalka
Burlington, Vermont

Ok 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 immortality, 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 comic's craft? Well, certainly any cartoonist you are libel 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 their 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 think Spawn is well drawn and think Peanuts 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 that 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.

Do you agree with this guy? Or is this just idealism? Should comics be all about the striving for mastery or all about the telling what you want to tell with the skills you have? The reason I'm kind of opposed to what this guy says is because I look at the work I've been doing since I quit drawing comics and I think it's a lot better. I think now with the skills I have now I could sit back down and draw a better comic than before. However I don't want to yet because I feel my art hasn't developed enough.

Does this kind of attitude mean I, along with many others, have become slaves to the craft? Or do you think Kochalka is full of bull?

Someone
is use the skills they have right now.

This is exactly what i am doing now, i have great MS paint skills.

Craft is boring. Ever been to a crafts fair. Not unlike a comics convention. Craft sucks.

He has a point...
Ha!

I like his comment about art in relation to comics. Instead of defining craft as a certain kind of "low" art creation that applies strictly to certain practises the way some do these days, he's talking about "art" and Craft" as ways of approaching any sort of creative process.

I think it's a good ideal! It's Good to have ideals like that. Of course you should hone your skills a bit in order say more effectively what you want to say, but once you reach a level you're happy with, go for broke just like he says! Produce something magical, magnificent, and meaningful!

I know I approach my work this way.

The guy definitely makes a good argument. Too many webcomic artists suddenly go, 'oh, I'm stopping doing this comic, 'cause I don't draw well enough', or 'I'm starting again from the start and deleting all these old pages'. Sometimes, these are really good comics too, and they just get replaced by something more polished, but lacking the experimental, fun, quirky, unusual edge that the old versions had.
I think a perfect example of a comic which shows how enthusiasm can beat preconcieved ideas is 'Scott Pilgrim'. If you haven't read it, check out the free sample pages on the website:
http://www.scottpilgrim.com/
Now, the artwork is messy, it's sketchy, it's all over the place. The twenty-something year old characters look like little kids, and people and scenery bend and stretch around...but I wouldn't want this comic to be any other way. Look at the energy in that work! When you're reading it, you're never going 'hey, this artwork is very nice', because you're just so immersed, you don't even notice.

I don't think that craft is completely unimportant though. I mean, without the skill to represent what needs to be shown to the reader, you can't tell the story. Still, It's better to have a brilliant idea, tonnes of enthusiasm and energy and try your best, experiment, improve as you go along, just get that story across as well as you can manage to, than to have an idea you think will be sucessful and make it look really pretty and have all your pages look exactly the same. Some artists have this goal of reaching a certain 'perfect' point of evolution, at which they can turn out pages that all have the same level of quality, but perhaps the ultimate goal should BE evolution itself? To be in a state of constant flux, always making tweaks, trying new things....
Really makes you think.

i think this was joe mad's downfall, he kept trying to beat himself in every page and burnt out. now he's just a hasbeen instead of a force in comics like he was before. he inspired me to create bilaran wars, but when he quit battle chasers...i quit creating bilaran wars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Mad [en.wikipedia.org]

I don't know, I think a good level of skill is needed to be able to do good comics. The thing with a lot of artists which established artists always stress is that even if a cartoonist simplifies his style for print, they can draw a much larger range of stuff. No one should therefore expect to learn how to draw from doing comics. They should study their material beforehand so they know how to control their style when they do their comic work. At least this is true with many artists, and something that people who start comics without studying art first lack.

For example Ryan Ottley who draws Invincible can draw photorealistically. If you don't believe me check out the last 2 or 3 pages of his deviantART gallery. http://wya.deviantart.com
But he simplifies his style in Invincible so that it's easy to read the comic without going "Oh my god what amazing art" and being distracted from the story. He does do really good work on covers though, which helps attract readers because unlike comic pages covers are meant to be admired.

So I'm split on this. I think artists should have a really good grasp of basics before doing comics. But at the same time I don't think they should get too caught up in making each page a genius piece of artwork. Just tell the story and make it look dynamic but not overly awe inspiring. If it's over-rendered in some cases it takes away from the story.

Of course James Kochalka practices a very simplified cartoony style. So I guess this is affected by what he thinks looks good and what worked for him.

I know what they mean, but I think it only applies to ppl who draw comics as a hobby. When your next meal depends on churning out the next page, I don't think you're gonna go "oh I'm not gonna draw this comic anymore I'm gonna go practice on some life drawing."

But if it's you hobby, then productivity is always your greatest enemy. There's always something more important to do than spending an entire afternoon drawing a few pages. So, it's more important to just draw rather than thinking about how to draw.

i think ottley does it also for scheduling
you can't draw a streetlight realistically all day

True, but still. I like his style more than I like, say, the style of the guy who did Civil War. Although I respect that guy for his art.

Although I DO like Ex Machina, a monthly title (I think) that has nearly photo realistic art. Tony Harris is a freakin maniac at art.

It really depends. Somehow I think Kochalka is approaching the problem too literally. There has to be a balance between passion and craft to create a good work, or at least that's what I feel. One has to aspire to create a great work while at the same time being passionate about creating a great work out of what they are doing at that moment.

Whenever I see people, art teachers especially, instructing aspiring comicers that they must first study fine art and master draftsmanship before cartooning or making comics I feel the need to interject. You really need to just jump in and start making comics because that is the only way you'll learn sequential art. People have made effective comics with stick figures. But the more you want to achieve with your art, the more honest you are with yourself and dedicated you are, you will eventually come back to craft to expand your communicative abilities. Why do these people look bad? Maybe I should study some anatomy. I want to do a cool establishing shot but I'm going to need to bone up on perspective to do it. And so on. That's craft in service of creation. You need craft. Not just draftsmanship, but storycraft too in one way or another. But I think people get so caught up in proper craft or what they think is good technical craft that their work is either dull and sterile or they are so intimidated they just don't get anything done. What I like about Frank Miller's art is that it is often sloppy and grotesque and powerful. I'm probably in the minority but I got more out of DK2 than most of the tightly-rendered pseudo-realistic books out there. Miller employs craft but certainly isn't slave to it at the expense of the art. I don't know about Kolchalka's opinion, but there are plenty of skilled craftsman in comics who I strongly admire and use their skills to produce beautiful work but I think their craft is still in service to their creative enthusiasm. I figure his essays for a sort of devil's advocate, shake up pretensions sort of thing.

Thinking on this, I was often taught to rule all my straight edges and yet lots of cartoonists work completely freehand and it makes for lively work. I was told that real inking is done with brushes and nibs but Mignola and Toth both use markers and pens. Manga defies many of the traditional conventions of craft found in maainstream super hero comics. And yet while all these examples may demonstrate a willingness to defy craft they also demonstrate a mastery of it.

That's good insight, Kline.

Thanks!

I've been thinking about this a lot lately myself. For a while I used to think that comics were best when they didn't go too detailed or illustrative and instead stuck to very immediate fluid communication through simple cartoony art. But I've been reading a lot of comics lately, manga, super hero, small press, older strips, and I've realized that I really enjoy having an excuse to pause in my reading and take in some visual detail and eye-candy. I think it would be hard to achieve that without practicing the craft and I take that as a good reason to think about craft. And as a reader recognizing good craft can add a new level of appreciation to the work.

I wanted to correct something I said about art teachers. That was within the context of creating comics. It makes total sense to me that within the context of art classes they would want students to focus on the academic basics before pursuing other types or styles of art.

Oh and Invincible is a great example!..It really impresses me how the artists are able to establish a strong sense of setting without going overboard with extraneous details. It's really just up to each individual creation how craft is used. I usually feel that even with really detailed or rendered art something needs to be left out, some sort of "space" or abstraction to allow the reader to fill in the parts the way they would if reading prose in order to breath life into the work..Sort of the reader as collaborator, or like McCloud's masking theory. Something I read once that sticks with me is that suggestion is often more powereful than simply directly stating something. I suppose that is a part of craft too.

... I don't really have anything to contribute to this thread. I just keep giggling whenever I come to the Art & Literature Corner and see this topic because my ex boyfriend is known as "Craft" (his last name). So you know. IS CRAFT THE ENEMY? Worth a smile.

... ... *leaves awkwardly*

That's pretty funny, suzi.

subcultured
i think this was joe mad's downfall, he kept trying to beat himself in every page and burnt out. now he's just a hasbeen instead of a force in comics like he was before. he inspired me to create bilaran wars, but when he quit battle chasers...i quit creating bilaran wars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Mad [en.wikipedia.org]

That whole Cliffhanger line turned out to be a mess apart from Ramos. Where is Campbell now? Did he even finish Wildsiderz? Bachalo has been really productive doing work-for-hire but it appears Steampunk has long been abandoned right before the climactic chapters. Oh well. I look forward to seeing Mad's Ultimates 3 work.

I think a lot of reasons companies like Image are being over protective and only allowing really established creators do long storylines is because many comics are being just abandoned when they go on too long and companies think that will scare away readers. Unfortunatly that'd kind of bad, because really limited series tend to not be able to develope characters much because they're so focused on finishing the plot.

suzi
... I don't really have anything to contribute to this thread. I just keep giggling whenever I come to the Art & Literature Corner and see this topic because my ex boyfriend is known as "Craft" (his last name). So you know. IS CRAFT THE ENEMY? Worth a smile.

... ... *leaves awkwardly*

To be honest, i thought the thread was about the cheese.

im gonna put down my cents here aswell.

i think that Yes you need art knowledge from real life to draw cartoons.

it makes the biggest difference people who hasent done it cant even begin to understand what kind of knowledge and possabilities there are after doing such a thing.

Your imagination isent the limit.
its The way you are able to present something.

its all fine and dandy that you have an idea about something but not the slightest clue how to present it to the reader.

if you dont have that skill you suck as a cartoonist.

but of course if your doing strips.

just get the panels right dont learn to draw and well yeah thats about it oh yeah get some shitty jokes in there aswell that only some people of the globe gets.

but story comic, The art level of yourself is Your Ticket to faster getting your pages finished and looking awesome.

Its tedious work at times but its a reward getting it finished and i beileve people actually appreciate the work you put into a page if not you will and more people than you prolly does appreciate good detail.

ccs1989: I feel like your argument in kind of flawed. You say, "ever since I quit my comic I've gotten a lot better!" But that's because you're still learning art. Whether you're working on a comic, or taking Drawing I or whatever, you're going to learn. You'll learn different things, of course, but their values are subjective to the artist. I'm sure if you continued with your comic, you'd still have seen a marked improvement by now.
What the guy was saying was that you shouldn't hold yourself back in the attempt to make perfect-looking art. You should allow your ideas to evolve along with your skills, let them have a symbiotic relationship (heh?) and stuff. He seemed to be talking about how people restrain themselves because they don't wanna mess up. Kind of like, let's say you're drawing a page and you want to do a panel from a funky angle. But you think, "nah, I'd mess up, better draw it head-on so that at least it won't be an eyesore on the page." But bridling yourself like that will cause your art quality to stagnate.
Also, I mean come on, everyone knows that originality is very important in art of any kind. So instead of making a cookie-cutter perfect comic, he's suggesting that we find our own style and just run with it! Who cares if it's messy and ugly and disproportionate?! You've got your whole life ahead of you to hone that artwork!!! ^_^
I full-heartedly agree, and it makes me feel better about my first bunch of pages of Misfit Assassins. I've improved so much (still got a long way to go, though ;_; ) and it's mostly because I've done what that guy who wrote the letter recommended.
geez though, apparently my style is cliche and styleless and does not evoke "me". that's what I was told earlier today. my heart still hurts... that was one very crippling blow to the glass-hearted artist within me. (it made me for a fleeting second want to ditch art entirely and just stick to poetry...)

the spelling errors in the letter really made me wanna stab my eyes out with flaming hot pokers and then maybe emo-cut myself until the pain in my soul stops. "Libel"?!?! ...did they print that?!?! It's "liable"! And there was an apostrophe in the word comics that did not belong, no sir.

Kristen Gudsnuk
geez though, apparently my style is cliche and styleless and does not evoke "me". that's what I was told earlier today. my heart still hurts... that was one very crippling blow to the glass-hearted artist within me. (it made me for a fleeting second want to ditch art entirely and just stick to poetry...)

the spelling errors in the letter really made me wanna stab my eyes out with flaming hot pokers and then maybe emo-cut myself until the pain in my soul stops. "Libel"?!?! ...did they print that?!?! It's "liable"! And there was an apostrophe in the word comics that did not belong, no sir.

Libel is a word though. It means to misrepresent damagingly. Liable means accountable.

Anyway if you do any creative work you're going to run into criticism. Comics are open to lots of criticism because they've traditionally been restricted to only certain genres and are supposed to communicate things immediately to the reader without any confusion. You've got to develop thick skin against attacks, but also realize that in many cases the reviewer is right. That's what I was forced to do with my comics. And although it seems I gave up, I'm actually working on scripts for future stuff now as well as doing concept and practice art. Maybe I'll draw some pages come summer.

Anyway if it makes you feel better, you can read early reviews of my old comic done on this very forum. Reviews like this help make one understand his/her weaknesses and learn that revision will be necessary and mandatory.

ccs1989
Libel is a word though. It means to misrepresent damagingly. Liable means accountable.

yes, yes, but in context:
" Are comic's craft? Well, certainly any cartoonist you are libel 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."

Liable also means "likely" which is what the writer meant to say there. Especially since libel is only a noun or verb (while the sentence structure there calls for an adjective.)
trust me... one of my very few talents is my grammatical finesse...

oh and by the way, what people said about your comic was unconscionable. I feel like that kind of commentary only hurts an artist. saying "your art is terrible and your writing sucks" is just useless and ineffective. I think those people need a lesson in tact.
The purpose of review isn't to tear something down, it's to try and help it improve. Thus, a reviewer shouldn't be needlessly mean and catty (even if they believe they're being "honest" ). Instead of saying "OMG you can't draw necks for the life of you!" they should instead say, "work on the anatomy of the necks, they're too thick." or something.
grr. that got me kinda steamed.

I dunno, it's rare to find a reviewer who will actually attempt to be nice about the work they're reviewing if they generally don't like it. Anyway those were nothing in comparison to the first reviews of my earlier version of that comic. So in some ways those reviews were actually a relief.

But those reviews, while harsh, can help. I would have never realized that I was drawing necks too large if Aqua hadn't pointed that out. And Eggbert helped me a lot with getting perspective down, and remembering to experiment with color more later on.

But anyway I seem to have derailed this thread off of its original topic.

Good musings, Ian, but actually Charles Shultz was a really great artist. Realism just doesn't work for a sunday comic strip.

You know, I'm reading this and sort shaking my head because the whole thing is based on a misunderstanding of what a 'craft' is.

This is the context in which it is being used:

From Dictionary.com
1.an art, trade, or occupation requiring special skill, esp. manual skill: the craft of a mason.

Most crafts are considered trades. A trade has three stages. Apprentice, Journeyman, Master. You spend many years as an Apprentice and Journeyman before you are considered a 'master' of your trade. In the old days, when you finally created a 'masterpeice, which had to be judged so by other recognized masters, you were considered to have mastered the trade, or in this case the craft.

Does that mean you don't practice your trade until then? Hell no. Thats what its all about, practice. The same holds true with the 'craft' of comic making. Do you not practice until you can make a masterworks? No. Because if you never practice, you'll never do it. You have to stumble, fall on your face, and scrape your knees before you can walk. Similarly you have to fall flat on your artistic face, wear some egg and tomatos and have your fragile little artistic ego flayed many times before you are ready to really make something amazing. In trades system the apprentice works under a master until they are judged to be journeyman, which means they are permitted to go out and work on their own, without the supervision of a master. In comics, this is the equivalent to being a pencil grunt for an established title for several years while learning the ins and outs, before being considered competent/good/recognizable enough to have your own title. In the world of dead tree printing, its very expensive to gamble on a newbie. The north american comic market has been suffering for years and the way it works isn't very friendly to aspiring artists. So the 'good enough' threshold was not so much for the act of creation itself, but for when you were 'good enough' to work for a professional publisher. This misconception hasn't really died, its just sort of gotten perverted. Now with webcomics, there is no publisher or editor to please. Artists can display work the world would never have seen before because they can. Internet access has given artists so much freedom and accessablity its mindboggling.

The greats don't start great. They make themselves great. Just because you haven't seen their practice work doesn't mean they haven't done it. The craft isn't the enemy. Its meerly a set of guidelines. The enemy is things like critics without a clue, fragile egos, low self esteem, lazyness, lack of confidence, and such. Those things prevent the practice from getting done. No one can improve if they don't get the chance to screw up and if they don't recognize that they are going to screw up and to expect to be told where they screwed up. When you get told you screwed up, don't get all depressed and mopey, work on fixing it. Might take years, but thats why you keep practicing. Someone who is truly serious about the craft is going to practice it no matter what, even if they don't show everything they do. Many of the so called 'masters' are declared so by other people. Rarely does one consider themselves a master of their craft on their own. But people who do ultimatly master their craft are people who continue to consistantly strive to better themselves and their skills in relation to it. Its a passion issue.

I agree that people should go and DO what it is they want to do instead of worrying about what other people are going to think. People are going to both like and dislike everything you do, get used to it. But I don't think that the craft itself is the enemy. What I think the letter was refering to was more akin to the difference between something like fine art and graphic art. Fine art is more personal, requires a lot more emotional envolvement and personal freedom. You need the 'freedom' to create and its more the inspiration and singular message it conveys rather than the execution of technical detail that matters. Whereas in something like graphics or a comic book there are standards of storytelling and art conventions which are required to be met for legibility and communication of an ongoing story dialogue or longer message that will be relayed over many many pages. Its also a commercial thing in the sense that it is shown to people who will be consumers of the work. It might need to be reproduced either on the web or on a press which means there are technical standards to meet. Its a totally different 'craft' than something like visual arts. Comic making is also one of those things that " The more you know the better it gets" kinda crafts. So you generally have to master many skills. You aren't just a painter, you are the pencil/ink/color/drafter/figure drawer/writer(sometimes)/setmaker/propmaster, etc. Thats a lot of different artistic skills you have to learn. It takes a while. But if you don't practice, you'll never learn. And if you don't aspire to better yourself eternally, you'll never be great.

The essays answer themselves, or the original question, rather.

I'm hardly a master in my own right, but it seems to me they were written with alot of gusto; passion. But, as it's already been pointed out, they're fraught with spelling and grammatical errors. They're structured poorly. Their argument is clear and specific, but weak.

Sure, craft alone is nothing more than repition and practice. That's the point. And while expression by itself is passionate and inspirational, it is ultimately crude and raw. Hardly any better in comparison.

If craft was such a horrible thing-- and I apologize for taking this out of context-- ninety percent of literature would simply be dumbed down to something like "We're all gonna die" or "Love hurts and sex is good".

It's the combination of the two-- craft and expression-- that makes the good stuff.

Shaun

sovietturkey
It's the combination of the two-- craft and expression-- that makes the good stuff.

Oh, I think that's a given, but "craft" writing is Mill's and Boon, Dragonlance etc... So the idea is still valid. "craft" writing never transcends. The thrust of the essay is that once you have achieved a level of proficiency it's time to go off and produce a masterpiece, not sit still and keep honing your skills, but also not to never achieve any level of skill to start with- it doesn't say that ;)

That's borne out by studies in creativity: People are at their most creative and "artistic" in life when their skills are good enough to archive their passion's desire. But when passion wanes, so does creativity.

Roughly it works like this:
Passion decreases with age, while skill and knowledge increase with age.
There are exceptions, but it's generally observed to be true in all fields: art, writing, physics, music, etc.
The optimal time for creativity depends but I think it'usually from the late 20's to the early 40's for most people and fields.

-When the passion dies you're just a machine :(

...

Huh. I usually just do whatever. I don't think about 'craft', or any of that. I try to get better, true, but I usually rely on instinct.

I try to make my comics worse and worse everyday.

ozoneocean

sovietturkey
It's the combination of the two-- craft and expression-- that makes the good stuff.

Oh, I think that's a given, but "craft" writing is Mill's and Boon, Dragonlance etc... So the idea is still valid. "craft" writing never transcends. The thrust of the essay is that once you have achieved a level of proficiency it's time to go off and produce a masterpiece, not sit still and keep honing your skills, but also not to never achieve any level of skill to start with- it doesn't say that ;)

That's borne out by studies in creativity: People are at their most creative and "artistic" in life when their skills are good enough to archive their passion's desire. But when passion wanes, so does creativity.

Roughly it works like this:
Passion decreases with age, while skill and knowledge increase with age.
There are exceptions, but it's generally observed to be true in all fields: art, writing, physics, music, etc.
The optimal time for creativity depends but I think it'usually from the late 20's to the early 40's for most people and fields.

-When the passion dies you're just a machine :(

I find Kochalka's 'us versus them' crap upsettingly exclusionary. I don't see why I can't like 'Monkey vs. Robot' AND 'The Killing Joke'.

As a fossil who's just starting to come into his own, and do the most interesting work of his life, I've got to take a bit of issue. While your POV is presented quite fairly, I feel it is based on a widely-accepted, yet erroneous Meme. Many of the finest and most creative people in comics or literature didn't hit stride until their mid-forties. Virtually the most famous artist ever in comics, Jack Kirby, didn't hit peak creativity and originality until he was fifty. Philip K. Dick always wrote brilliantly, but didn't start doing peak, boundary-defying work until in his forties. Joseph Conrad didn't even start writing until he was 39. Hal Foster didn't start writing and drawing Prince Valiant until when he was 44 1/2. Dave Gibbons and Brian Bolland are both better now than ever. Alex Toth said he spent the first 10 years of his career learning what to draw, and the next 10 learning what not to draw. Gene Colan is almost 80, and doing the finest art he's ever done. I'm not saying that folks who start in their twenties, and work into their to forties don't burn out (John Byrne should have taken a break in the early '90's and gone back to basics--taken some life drawing classes and creative writing courses--Miller disappoints me as well)--all I am saying is that some of us require the living of a full life to feel comfortable in writing about the human experience, that people age differently, and most of the creative geniuses whose work I love aren't 'flash in the pan', 'fan-favorite' boy prodigies--their ability was hard-won. In adventure and superhero comics, pure Craftsmen burn out, popularity fades--and it's the mainstay, but not the rule.

Just my Anxiety-Attack-driven two cents. Peace.

Oh I'm not working off "memes" here, I've actually read academic studies on creativity, it was part of my post grad work at university. I'm also not saying that people hit their stride when they start working in their 20s and on into 40, I'm saying that various people produce the best examples of their work at ages within that range. And as I said; there are exceptions, it's not a perfect science ;)

Think of it like a broad average... Say we have a few people who do their best stuff in their teens and a few who do the best stuff in their 90's; these are the extremes on the range. The bulk will be in their 20's, 30's, and 40's, with a some more in their 50's, but trailing off quite a bit after that.

It's a pretty good indicator...
Experience+Skill--->
<---Passion+Inspiration
One rises with age as the other falls, there is an optimum period where Max creativity happens, don't waste it ;)