About inspiration (QnA)

Omg it doesn't show but I've worked on it for days lol, I felt so involved, I really wanted you to understand how it works (at least for me!) I hope it helps! 

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      As frustrating and disappointed as this may sound, inspiration comes from everywhere: it's cultural and environmental, it's the books you’ve read, the movies you’ve watched, things you’ve experienced…

What bothers me about this question (inspiration for writing and drawing), which you get a lot when you start working on your own project, is that it kinda sounds like ideas CAN’T come from you. Like it have to be based on something. Assuming this question is mostly asked by people who’d like to write stories (otherwise you’d probably just enjoy the story lol) you’re getting it wrong. If you think you need to copy another story to do your then you’re not ready yet.

I’ll give some examples in this post. Keep reading!

Story structure

The first thing to note is that a story has a structure.  It’s not just a matter of throwing out one idea after another as they come to you or because you feel like telling them; Once you know what you’re about to tell, you break your story down into chapters, knowing each chapter provides new information/situations for the characters and leads them to the end. When I start writing a new chapter (script) it’s not about what I want to draw, I ask myself what I need to foreshadow and tell the readers. Random example: In the last chapters your character was too nice and you need to show how strong he is? you're going to put him in a difficult situation and make him succeed.

I think that’s the first step.

I've had to cut out several scenes that I thought were funny just because they slowed down the story or didn’t really help the plot.

And the same thing happens with the supporting characters (funny how in english "Supporting characters" says it all!) : usually they have their own goal but they serve the purpose of the main character. In one of my last posts I explained how Joris and the therapist were "mirror" characters because they reflected to the boy what he couldn't see about Tera. I write their scenes having this in mind. 

How does imagination work?

Once I know what the chapter should be about, I start looking for ideas. I’m not gonna lie I think some people have a better imagination than others, just like some people do better in school, or sports, etc etc… we're not equal on that.

It's really hard to explain how imagination works, I mean how do you explain that an idea comes to you? People think my comic is funny: it's probably because I'm also a clown in real life, and the humor of my comic is mine! I am the kind of person who imagines burlesque situations very quickly, every day; in French we say " partir dans des délires ". It is literally saying "oh can you imagine … (insert funny stories) ...! ». That’s what I’m good at lol.

There’s also the fact that I know my character like I would know my family or else. Probably even better. So once I have a situation, they do the rest of the job. It comes naturally, there’s no other way to put it.

Here’s an example: I can’t describe the process, but this is what happens in my head:

The other day there was a show about cars on TV. At one point I saw a convertible car and thought, "that looks like those cars where women in disguise spy on their cheating husbands in retro movies!"

• What if the Boy is in a car like that? Knowing he loves to dress up, he’d be dressed like those women: big glasses and a scarf in his hair. That just makes sense, it’s the Boy. The car doesn’t run because the Boy can’t drive.
• He waits in the car, spying on who?
• Someone gotta see him, to make the situation funny.
• Joris.
• While the Boy’s spying on (???) Joris' voice surprises him: ”what the hell are you doing, is it yours??” Pointing at the car since we know Joris loves cars.
• The Boy can’t tell it’s not his as it would just stop the scene. « Shhhh!!! Get in, I’m spying on someone!! »
• Joris gotta get involved cause that’s how their relationship works : the Boy gets the      worse from Joris. They are the comic duo of the story.
• The Boy is focused on the person he’s spying on.
• While they chat a bit, Joris being amazed by the car, someone yells « what the hell are you doing in my car??? » It’s the owner.
• « Oop, time to go!!! »
• The Boy would probably leave the car first because he knew this was going to happen, while Joris who’s a little bit clumsy and confused, would probably get in trouble.

And here's a funny scene! The Boy referring to those women in retro movies, in a car that isn’t even his, and he successfully gets Joris in trouble too! There’s just no other way this could go.  I’m aware you need to have strong characters you really know to make it work. Then I need to give that scene a purpose (who is he spying on and what does he find out).

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Everything else is more of an ”environmental inspiration” than “Oh I like this idea, I'll copy it" (not to mention it better have a purpose).

So you might ask: but Pico, what are your “environmental inspirations” then?

I’m personally really “out” of everything my comic represents: I don’t read manga, I don’t read BL nor gay stories, I don’t read comics, and I don’t watch shows about mafia or gangs... I know that’s weird, but I can’t explain it. Now the question is: Is it a strength or a weakness? …probably both.

Environmental Inspiration

I LOVE boring books (that I don’t think are boring obv). I say boring books cause most of the time not much happens in those stories. Sorry, they are all French authors but I’m a big fan of Colette, she has an incredible way of describing emotions. I love how Boris Vian made me believe L’Écume des jours (Frowth on a Daydream in english?) could have been a beautiful love story, just to tear my heart apart with the ending. I love how Philippe Besson describes male bodies and passion, it’s just so touching and sensual at the same time.

There are just so many books and authors I’ve read that “inspires” me. Not because I check or even think about their books while writing my story, but because I’ve read them, they've touched me and now they are a part of my “cultural” environment.

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Let’s take an example: The Boy’s fashion sense. Why did I choose to have him wear all those crazy outfits when in most of the manga, the characters wear the same thing throughout the story?

First of all: I love fashion myself. I love what I think is good looking, I like to watch fashion shows and I like to design clothes. So that just made sense!

It was also a good way for me not to get bored and not to draw the same outfits over and over again.

But I knew I would go “crazy” and really have fun with it when I noticed that Fran from The Nanny (which is a show I used to watch a lot) was never dressed the same, and that it was always a little over the top. The same happens in The Devil wears Prada or Scream Queens. But it wasn't only about my love for aesthetics: It has a purpose, it says something about the Boy and your brain probably picked up on it: He doesn't care what other people think, he’s confident (and it shows when he is with Tera), we kinda understand that his grandmother taught him to be true to himself. That’s what it says. Not to mention it will evolve and highlight the Boy’s inner journey.

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I could tell you which books/movies/cartoons had an influence on me (which I can still feel today), but that might spoil the direction of the story!

Let's take another example: The first time I watched Titanic I was probably 7 or 8 years old, and I remember noting something that surprised me at the time: Titanic is a love story and yet when the ship starts to sink, Jack and Rose are no longer "lovers", they try to survive. They stay together but do not waste their time to express their love. It feels so real and harsh all of a sudden. And God knows James Cameron could have done something much more sentimental! And I think it's great, and I can feel how this little thing has stayed in my mind and is now having an influence on the way I'd tell a love story.

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Is there any manga that you really like or inspire you ?

I’m gonna be honest, and I've said it quite a few times: I don’t read manga or webcomics or watch animes. I'll focus on those ones first because that's obviously what I'm doing lol. If you've payed attention you may have noticed that I never use the word manga to talk about my comics. Why not? Because I don't like manga lol. I just can’t stand them. I’m not saying they're not good, who am I to say that, I just think it’s not for me.

Like everything else, manga/animes follow their own writings rules. Because I've read quite a lot of interviews about that when I was a teenager, I know that publishers really keep an eyes on them to make sure they don't go off the rails.

I like the « show don’t tell » idea. In anime it’s literally the opposite. In most of the mangas out there everything is said and described. Nothing gotta be misunderstood by the reader or left to the reader's interpretation, so they make everything as clear as possible. And I don't like when characters say or think what they're about to do and why (or what they just did), when you could just… watch them act.

But I'll be honest, with my own comics becoming a bit more popular, I'm starting to understand the need to leave as little mystery as possible in the story. With Tapas I realized that if I just sketch out a plot element rather than have a character say it clearly, people are totally confused. There's also the fact that most people don't read carefully.

I mean editors didn't come up with such rules with no reason.

Now speaking of the art style!

Obv the main inspiration is Takeshi Obata, but I feel like I'm saying it just because that's how I really started drawing manga: by copying his drawings. But when I started my own comic I just … did it my way, with everything I had learned. The truth is that I’m way too focused on what I’m drawing to even check what others are doing.

I think it's like mangakas who were assistants first (which happens a lot). Sometimes you can tell who they were working for ! It feels the same for me: when I was 15-16 someone show me Death Note and said « that might be the most incredible art style I’ve ever seen » and I thought « I gotta to be that good. » (it really sounds like a manga plot lol). I also thought that if you can draw something realistically, then you can draw everything.

I'm working on my own now. I usually have my own pages (the one I like the most) on my workspace and that’s the only ref I use. And it shows! Reading the pages in order, you can see my evolution, the pages where I start doing  something different (by accident or trial and error) and then I keep doing it, getting better.

For some specific scenes where I have no idea how I'm supposed to draw them, I’ll look at some manga (for example I think the author of Innocent is doing an amazing job with gore etc).

I still have so much to learn!

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There is so much I could say about it, but I think that's a pretty good start! I hope it's not too confused. I could also talk for hours about story structure lol. I cut a lot of passages because I was rambling too much! 

Hope it helped all of you who wondered about it!