I'm not at all a linear thinker. I know the feeling I want to convey, but the form is what I struggle to find. I'm sure I'd fail if I tried to write a grant proposal or a book proposal.

I don't think it's possible to teach a person to be an artist. But yet, I'm here, and I suppose this is what I'm expected to do. I teach a course called graphic narrative and one called digital studios, but no matter the topic, the basic principle underlying my "method" of teaching is that a properly prepared artist/creator must simply know everything. Not just how to draw, but how to see. Not just how to use a computer program, but what the word "penultimate" means. And the shape and orientation of a goat's pupil. And where Kentucky and Chile are, at least approximately.

It's much better for an artist to know everything than to be limited by ignorance.

The more you expose, the less personal it becomes

The only way to know everything is to learn how to think, how to ask questions, how to navigate the world. Students must learn how to teach themselves to use new tools, how to talk to unfamiliar people, and basically how to be brave.

Most comics are not truly rebellious or creatively free. Most comics, paintings, music, etc., are derivative of other, more successful works. And it's quite often that those without much rebellious spirit are the ones to imitate it. Genuine radical expression is hard to come by, but it usually crops up when money is not a motivating factor. You can take all the liberties you want when someone else's dime is not at stake. The validation is not a threat to comics. A far greater threat to the creative freedom of artists working in any medium is self-consciousness and self-censorship.

An artist's work is a synthesis of much more than the work of other creators.