Mark Pett is a former syndicated comics creator and self-proclaimed “Authorstrator” of 5 charming picture books, including his forthcoming title: This Is My Book!
In today’s interview, Mark reveals how creating a daily comic strip became his creative boot camp… And how this shaped him into the prolific picture book creator he is today.
Listen to ‘Stories Unbound’ Episode 7:
[ download the mp3 ] [ subscribe in iTunes ]
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…or draw storyboards or comics: You are a storyteller.
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The Storytellers’ Summit – a new online course from The Oatley Academy – will provide guidance from some of the entertainment industry’s best teachers.
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Awesome Links:
This is My Book! on Amazon (Shawna’s Amazon Affiliate Links)
Lizard From The Park on Amazon
The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
Music by Ryan Keith and Wes Cepin
How Do You Maintain Consistency?
In his interview, Mark talks about how his syndicated comic taught him how to show up every day, produce better artwork and to publish daily.
Consistency is difficult for all of us.
When you have achieved consistency in your work or publishing routine, or even in something unrelated to art, how has it made a difference for you?
Share with us in the comments below!
What a great interview! I especially loved his idea of creating rough, bad content until you find something special. That would definitely take the pressure off and it sounds like a fun way to explore.
Thanks Scott! And thanks for commenting here. Writing awful first drafts, exploring, taking the pressure off and just having fun just like we did when we were little kids- that sounds wonderful to me too!
Thank you Shawna for an excellent interview!!! I enjoyed it a lot and I realize that life experiences and our loved ones, near and far, they are a source of inspiration, not only to make an illustration, but also to create stories.
It was good to hear that it is not necessary that all stories have a moral, that they need to be interesting and funny for kids.
Thank you also for interview a lot of talent children’s books illustrators and introduce them, now I have new books in my library . 😀
Hi Micsy! Oh yeah, our loved ones are definitely a great source of inspiration for stories!
It is nice to know that children’s books don’t always need a moral- but if you do put a moral in, most publishers don’t like you to say it outright. They want the moral to be hidden in the story instead of telling the moral and risking sounding too preachy.
I’m so glad you are enjoying the interviews and the interviewee’s books as well!
Thank you Shawna, for the advice about moral, I will take into account for my personal project. 😀
You’re welcome! And thanks for stopping by to comment!
This was an excellent interview and I’ve been really enjoying all the episodes. Per this episode, the idea of a wordless story is really compelling, I would love to try it out one day. Besides Mark’s books, which I’ll definitely be checking out, could you recommend any others like this?
Hi Joshua-
Oh yes! There’s some wonderful wordless picture books out there! Both Mark’s Books “The Boy and the Airplane” and “The Girl and the Bicycle” are great! The other book we mentioned in the podcast, “Wave” by Suzy Lee is another great one. Some other ones that I like are “Journey” and “Quest” by Aaron Becker, and “Tuesday” by David Wiesner. There’s one book that is nearly wordless that I love called “Once Upon a Banana” by Jennifer Armstrong and illustrated by David Small- all sorts of hilarious action in that book!
Thank you so much Shawna!
Since no one has answered the question yet, I’ll go ahead and be the first!
Have any of you participated in PiBoIdMo (Picture Book Idea Month)? I’ve participated in it three years. The first two years I did really well and the third year I failed miserably because I got too busy. But let me tell you about those first two years.
I really wanted to succeed and come out of the month of November with 30 picture book ideas. So every day I made myself go on a walk. I took along something to write on. Then while I was on my walk I would try to think of any random ideas that I could. I would also do the exercises the bloggers would suggest for coming up with ideas while I was at home. I pushed myself to try and think of ideas every day even though I was really busy with freelance work.
I didn’t know if I could do it when I started out, but I found that consistently trying to come up with ideas every day for a month- even if some days I wasn’t able to come up with anything good, I was able to come up with 30 ideas for picture books- one for every day, and even a couple extra. Many of the ideas were really bad and unusable, but I was able to think of some great ones.
It really went to show me that if I make a habit of doing something consistently every day, I can reach goals like this, and it makes me want to make up my own challenges to make better habits of consistency for myself.
It’s defiantly worked for you Shawna! I have loved seeing your art grow these last couple of years!
Thanks Tegan! And Ditto!!
I defiantly use to struggle with publishing work, waiting until the work was “done” in my eyes and only portfolio pieces were published. And this can really make you feel like your not achieving much in your artistic journey, even though you know you are dedicating many hours to the craft. So I started publishing my observational paintings and almost anything that is related to me created portfolio work and easy to post once a week. So homework from classes, to scribbles of ideas and even a portfolio pieces I think weren’t “done” but just picked a deadline. A week later I might change that portfolio piece from critiques and I will re-post it, as I’ve discovered my social network loves to see progress, love to see where an idea comes from or what you are studying. Publishing more changes my mindset that I am achieving more, and much better then my previous twice a year art dump 🙂
Hi Tegan- That’s been a real struggle for me! Especially as a lot of the work I do is freelance client work that I can’t show until it’s done. And a lot of the times when it is done, I don’t feel like showing it anymore! And yes, that’s exactly right. When you don’t post very much, it makes me feel like I’m not achieving much, especially when I see people around me posting amazing “sketches” every day. I really like your idea of posting one thing every week- even just quick studies. I’ve been trying to do that more, and I hope to get more consistent. I have really admired how you have taken critiques to heart and improved things, even a long time after you’ve done the original. It really has been fun to see the progress!
Thanks for posting your experience. I definitely think posting just something- even just sketches or studies- once a week is an attainable goal, and inspiring to me, and I’m sure many other people!
I definitely had the idea that work had to be ‘finished’ before I could put it up on the internet. After reading Austin Kleon’s Show your Work I realised my Instagram didn’t have to be one polished piece after another. This was very liberating! Also, Inktober was great for just putting up what I had (within reason) and not worrying too much about that polish.
So now I share on Instagram every day and upload a webcomic page every week. It’s gratifying to know it’s getting out there where people can respond to it. You also get a king of objectivity once it’s up. Like Mark says, you look at your work differently when it’s published.
Thanks for a great interview!
Rene-
“Show Your Work” is such a great book! I need to go read it again. It is so good to know that it’s okay to show rough sketches and process posts in between the polished pieces! I think it’s so awesome that you are sharing your work daily! Keep it up! And thanks for listening and commenting!
Love this one, Shawna. Mark is excellent. So are you. I put this up in my Binders FB group. Great job. Oh, Shawna, I do PiBoIdMo every year. In 2015, I came up with two FABULOUS ideas. *fingers crossed*
Hi Robyn, I’m so glad you enjoyed the interview. Yes, Mark is excellent!! I love participating in PiBoIdMo! I’m so glad you hear that you were able to come up with some ideas that you really like! Good luck in bringing your ideas to life in story form!
Wow, another truly inspirational and awesome podcast. I am so close to catching up XD. But what really got me is when the daily comics conversation popped up. It was great to listen to how he got those jobs and that sometimes you need to get stuff done because of deadlines even though you know its not the best. That determination needs to be more then just inspiration.