Ted Naifeh Quotes

Artists forget than the first purpose of a comic character is to convey emotion. Everything else, like realism, or other kinds of virtuosity, is an optional extra. If you sacrifice expression for the sake of other concerns, you're putting the cart before the horse.

Basically, Urban Fantasy means D&D in New York. Ordinary people have no idea that they share the world with fantastic, supernatural creatures. It can't just be vampires or werewolves; it has to be a whole continuum of fantastic beings, with their own society within society.

Everywhere seems bigger before you learn your way around. Take high school for instance.

There was something about being cared for," she thought. Something magical.

I dug up some old John Buscema 'Conan' comics. Man, when Alfredo Alcala was inking, that was some of the most beautiful black and white comic art ever published. The stories are good, too, though early '70s comics based on Conan is a festival of sexist, racist stereotypes.

There's something about girls and unicorns that's deep and meaningful. Something about childhood.

I get tired of stories that keep going and going and never get anywhere. It's like a promise that's never fulfilled. Stories need endings. Otherwise, they aren't really stories. Just pages.

When I first starting conceiving series like 'Courtney,' 'Polly,' 'How Loathsome,' etc., I was shooting for closed story-arcs but open-ended concepts. Then I started realizing I was committing myself to potentially endless series.

A story really isn't truly a story until it reaches its climax and conclusion.

It is knowledge that binds us; shared wisdom from ages past and new wisdom that we should all seek to embrace. Wisdom is our legacy; our refuge from the world of the ignorant and foolish. We chose this path that we might walk open-eyed into the future... undaunted by fear and lies.

I think about 'The Simpsons,' which has been going on for 25 years. Homer is still in his late 30's. Lisa is 8, Bart is 10. Their stories are told. Yet the series keeps going on and on like a zombie that won't lie down and die. That feels forced and unnatural. The characters never change, grow, age.

I think one of the reasons Stephen King's stories work so well is that he places his stories in spooky old New England, where a lot of American folk legends came from.

Courtney didn't like babies at the best of times. As far as she was concerned, anything that existed solely to emit drool, vomit, ghastly odors and loud, annoying screams was more trouble than it was worth.

Character design, like story design, requires a hook to grab the reader's attention.

I think all artists need to try to improve, or their work gets stale.

Urban Fantasy is a subgenre pretty much designed for teenagers. It's pretty twee, but I adore it. I've been trying to come up with an Urban Fantasy comic ever since I'd read the Nancy Collins 'Sonja Blue' series years ago.

Some of the best art in the world is collaborative, a mix of voices that are stronger together than separate. Take the Beatles, for example. Or every great movie ever made. We like to say they're the director's vision, but really, they're huge collaborations between directors, writers, actors, even producers.