by Tom Batiuk | May 13, 2026 | Komix Thoughts
Another thing I find myself doing now is following emotional threads. I’ll often buy a book thinking it’s something that I’d like to read, or that could be useful, and it will stay stashed in the bookcase until suddenly the moment is right and I get a really strong...
by Tom Batiuk | May 6, 2026 | Komix Thoughts
Annnnnd, back to the discussion of the process. Part of the reason the commonly accepted rules don’t work too well for me (and I will readily admit that this is probably endemic to the very art of comic strip writing itself) is that I began gravitating towards a...
by Tom Batiuk | May 1, 2026 | Komix Thoughts
Another and better example of an open ending came at the end of my collection The Last Leaf. When I first presented the book about the story of Les’s life after Lisa to my publisher, my pitch had ended with the strip shown here where a remarried Les and his wife...
by Tom Batiuk | Apr 22, 2026 | Komix Thoughts
Let me tackle the concept of closed endings vs open endings with a couple examples from my own work. For about eleven years, I did a strip called John Darling about a TV talk show host. When the strip ended, he was shot, murdered. Full stop. Nothing after that. No...
by Tom Batiuk | Apr 15, 2026 | Komix Thoughts
While I’m on the subject of rules, let me share a few other thoughts on the subject with the caveat that they will run contrary (there’s that word again) to the accepted wisdom on writing, and the keepers of accepted wisdom would have me pilloried in the square for...
