Dec

15

Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

Filed Under Creating Comics, My Art, My Comics | 3 Comments

That is a question I get asked a lot. It’s the one question I wish people wouldn’t ask because it’s probably one of the most difficult things to answer. Well, someone did come up and ask me at one of our talks during Komikon week at the University of the Philippines last month.

Where do you get your ideas?

Oh maaaan. The short and quick answer is: It just happens. But I’m sure that would be far from a satisfying answer.

I get ideas all the time. I get it from things I see around me, and where my imagination goes when I see those things. We all have the same sensations, I’m sure. We all see the same things, and we all feel the same things. I guess I’m one who stops and thinks more about what I see, even if it’s just the simplest of things. If I see a cat on the road, I just don’t see a cat on the road. I go into the cat’s mind and try to decipher what it’s thinking. I approach the cat. Talk to it. I observe how it reacts. I remember it. I look at the cat’s eyes and study its movements. Does it show fear, surprise, irritation? I don’t only look at the movements, I look into them, trying to understand what the cat is thinking.

Then I go… Look at the eyes, they look really strange don’t they? They look so much like Whitley Streiber aliens. Well, WHAT IF cats are aliens? Animals are supposed to be a stupid bunch aren’t they? At least compared to humans? But cats are different. They act different. They move and act like they know things. They look intelligent. And those eyes, they look ALIEN. What if they are? What are they here for? Are they here to study us? Are they scientists, or worse, are they advance scouting parties for a full scale alien invasion? But my God, if that’s true… they’ve infiltrated human kind so completely. They’re in nearly every household! Once they’re activated, it’s all over!

And that’s the kind of places my mind goes to by simply looking at a cat on the road. You all know by now what happened after I saw so many chickens on the road.

If you’re someone looking for an idea, the most important thing for you to do is to keep an open mind and observe. Really observe. Don’t just look at things… REALLY look at things. Don’t just listen…. but really hear what people say and what things sound like. Once you develop that kind of perception, there is one question that you need to ask every time. “What if?”

Those are probably two of the most important words one needs to use in search of ideas. What If?

What if that car that just passed in front of me driven by a young woman suddenly disappeared? Where did it go? What if it went into another dimension? What if it got swallowed up in a time vortex and it’s now in 1953? What if the old woman who waddled past me just now is the daughter of the young woman who disappeared in that car? What if she’s there at that very spot at that specific time to observe and understand where her mother came from?

What if all of a sudden the sun outside suddenly stops moving across the sky? And for some strange reason, all the birds suddenly drop dead?

What if the chirping bird outside is really a robot?

What if I’m not real, and I’m just living panel by panel in some comic book artist’s autobiographical comic book? So does that explain why I do so many inappropriate things with my hands?

Ideas can come fast and quick so I suggest you keep a small notepad and pen with you always. You bring it wherever you go. So when the idea strikes, you write it down. Some ideas are frustratingly fleeting. You gain some insight on something so quick that it’s gone by the time you go home to write it down.

So write everything down. Even if you think it’s a stupid idea or just fragments of a stupid idea. Who knows they might become useful as part of something one day. And who knows that idea would be the germ of something great some day.

Comments

3 Responses to “Where Do You Get Your Ideas?”

  1. Jonas Diego on December 15th, 2008 9:55 am

    Another thing I try to do is to not to think about what others are going to say about the idea.

    I found out that some people try to censor their ideas early one before it had the chance to bloom all because they’re not sure if it’s wrong or right, how people will react to it, or if it’s been done before, etc.

    I try to let my imagination run wild. :D

  2. Reno on December 15th, 2008 10:11 am

    Well, the sun really doesn’t move across the sky. It’s the Earth that rotates and revolves around it. But what if science was wrong!?!?!! :)

  3. John Amor on December 15th, 2008 12:48 pm

    Someone’s been watching a butt-load of Dr. Who.