STEVE LIEBER’S DILETTANTE Dilettante 026: The Importance of Sketchbooks Telling stories with comics requires that an artist keep things consistent. Characters, settings and props generally need to look the same from panel to panel, page to page, story to story. And a cartoonist—even one who draws “realistically”—needs to create a stylized, abstracted world that maintains […]

STEVE LIEBER’S DILETTANTE! Dilettante 025: New Year’s Resolutions for a Comics Artist There’s a new year on the calendar. A week of double shifts at the drawing board has helped me catch up for all the work time lost to holiday celebrations. It’s time for me to finally look ahead and think about what I […]

STEVE LIEBER’S DILETTANTE Dilettante 024: Tips on Mentoring Way back in my 2nd column here on Toucan (click here to read it!), I called for a revival of mentorship via cartoonists working in an informal apprentice system. I’ve meant to return to the subject for a long time. As part of Periscope Studio, a workspace […]

STEVE LIEBER’S DILETTANTE Dilettante 023: Influences Last weekend I was riding Amtrak back from a convention when my train was delayed by a freight train. Stuck there in a comfortable seat with only 10,000 calories of tasty snack food close at hand, two good e-books, and four strong bars of free wifi, I wondered how […]

STEVE LIEBER’S DILETTANTE Dilettante 021: Ten Ways to Add Life to a Page Telling stories with comics is a long haul. A painter or a songwriter can sometimes go from conception to completion in a single session, fueled by the enthusiasm that comes from a new idea. A comics story tends to take a lot […]

STEVE LIEBER’S DILETTANTE Dilettante 020: The Art of Self-Promotion There’s been a lot of chatter online the last week or so about an artist who is having trouble finding an audience for his work, and the extent to which not thinking like a businessman contributed to the problem. The conversations took place mostly on social […]