Bill Nichols’ Prescription:
Comics 10ccs of the Process with
Michael Conrad

What inspires you to create and keeps you going?

I have a rather fatalistic view of life. It may be due to the loss of friends and loved ones at early ages, or it may be just part of my programming. I worry that I won’t be able to share enough, that my life will come to its end and that I will have wasted that time doing things that don’t excite me… most of us do this quite often, and for many of us we have to understand that productivity isn’t the sole metric of a life well spent… for me it’s a big piece of it though, so in effort to beat back the anxiety that rides along with inactivity, I try to set goals and pursue them as if my life depends on it. In many ways, it does.

Do you have a set routine?

Not really, I don’t know that I ever will, or that it would work for me. I write quickly, or so it would appear, but often it is just happening in my head while I seem to be doing other things. I have to be prepared to sit and write when I am ready to do so, which seems to be determined by invisible factors that I can’t predict. Thankfully I’ve never had my hand forced by deadlines when I’m in the drafting process.

What kind of output do you try to achieve?

I would like to be among the creators who seem to be working everywhere on everything. I want to write for comics, film, literature, blogs, video games, zines, radical pamphlets, poems on bathroom walls. I haven’t found a glass ceiling, and I don’t know that I ever will.

What inspires you WHEN you create? Music? Noise? Silence?

Sometimes I write to music, at others I prefer silence. I’ll know when I need some noise because it will feel like I’m missing something. Film scores are a frequent go-to, and oddly I can write to Christmas music, even though music with lyrics can become distracting.

Who was the first comic book creator that influenced you to pursue this?

The earliest work I ever shared with other creators were some shorts I was working on as an exercise. I sent them over to a number of folks and was delighted to have actually gotten meaningful and kind responses from Scott Snyder and Chip Zdarsky. Their tips and kind words meant the world to me. Far and away the most important encouragement came from my lifelong friend, partner, and now frequent co-writer Becky Cloonan. She has been a constant source of inspiration, education, and patience. I have learned an incredible deal from her and now all I do is in an effort to impress her.

When did you realize you could follow this path yourself?

I don’t know that I ever realized I “could” –it was more that I decided I “would” rather than accept anything as impossible or as something that would surely happen. I continue to maintain this philosophy, things could change and I could end up back at Kinko’s printing zines at midnight and I wouldn’t feel like a failure. Failure would be the result of stopping because it became too much of a challenge.

What do you find to be a challenge in creating?

Everything is hard in comics, but one of the most nagging pains has been finding the right folks to collaborate with. As a writer I need artists to believe in me and my work enough to commit long hours to projects that don’t have a guaranteed payday. I could fix this by coming out of pocket and offering pagerates from my own savings, but a great concern would be that the project dynamic would become an employer/employee situation, rather than a collaborative effort. I strongly believe that artists should be well compensated in comics, but I don’t feel like this burden should be met by the writer.

What else do you have to learn?

So much. A folly of youth and ego leads us at certain times in our lives that we are quite well informed, or even wise. I think this is a product of ignorance, and having only been exposed to kind critique, rather than the cruel nature of people speaking from the anonymity of the internet, or those who would broadcast their intellect by taking shots at others best efforts. We all have so much to learn, and a careful reader can discover weak points in even the strongest pieces. Part of learning is an acceptance of this as a certainty in all that we do. We’ll never hit some Platonic ideal, but making efforts toward that goal is far less tilting at windmills, and more of a kata through which we edge closer to results that require less mourning.

What keeps you motivated to get better?

I love stories, good and bad alike. Language is magick, by very definition, arguably the WORD is GOD according to some of the most enlightened to ever live and die on this groovy spaceship Earth. I like seeing how words move things along, how they can become sharp weapons in some hands, while others can barely wield them. Some of the greatest storytellers I’ve ever met would never use such a descriptor on themselves, be it out of self awareness, or humility, they see themselves as simply transferring information, and that’s beautiful. As someone who studies and deconstructs language and its marriage to the static images of comics I have to see this arcane quality of words to communicate big ideas, to take something from my own mind and to send it through time and space into the brain of an artist. That idea travels through their circuitry into their hand and something is made manifest. The better I do at sending that occulted information in the form of tiny marching characters in a script, the more I feel I have succeeded in communication. I wish to deliver what is important to me, and to willfully withhold elements for the artist to interpret, this will always motivate me to experiment and reach.

Can you turn your brain (creativity) off (and on)?

Not willfully. My brain goes into off mode, most often when I’m making demands of it. Flow state is something we talk about often with regard to sports, and meaningful meditation, a point in which we aren’t making demands of our minds and things just fall into place. I pursue this through a number of means, but often this desire is the blockage to that good, quality flow. 

Booster Shots

What advice do you have for aspiring creators?

First, NEVER call yourself an aspiring creator, this isn’t a world that requires a membership card, permission, a degree, 7 labors, none of that. You became a creator when you created, you will remain one until you die. Next, NEVER give up your personal agency to create because you’re waiting for a moment of validation, if you wish to “break in” the only way to do so is through action. The wall doesn’t come down because you wish it would, it requires preparation. Each thing you do on your own and with friends becomes a tool, a chisel, a hammer, a honking clump of c4! You have to be doing, and be showing, otherwise you’ll remain in line with your little yellow deli ticket with the rest of the folks hoping your number gets called next.

Do you ever worry about running out of ideas?

No, they’re free and plentiful if you look for them. I used to become so sad when a book would show up with a concept similar to one I had… now I understand that there’s a lot more, and often the similarities are imagined. No one else in the world can write the way I do, and this is true of all of us. If you’re worried about running out of ideas, wait a moment… life will harm you, that pain will become your new idea and BLAMMO! you’re back in business!

How do you handle the slow times?

I’ll create something no one other than me wants. Blog posts, solo comics, short fiction. This is also a great time to do research, experiment with routines, and consider other pathways. This also might be a sign that you have earned a moment of respite, or the universe is encouraging you to look into the dark places for inspiration. It might just be that you’ve chosen a path that is quite difficult and that this slow moment is a reflection of that difficulty. I remind myself in these moments that I have chosen this, and thank myself for not being boring.

Do you have a website or link to promote your work?

I rarely update my website, but I’m fairly active on social media. Find me on IG and Twitter @michaelwconrad and here you will gain access to a number of links to my blog (it’s been a bit quiet lately) and webpage and such.

I wish you all the best, thank you to Bill for the opportunity to share some words.

DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed by the above creator are theirs. This interview may not be reprinted or reposted without permission.