STEVE LIEBER’S DILETTANTE Dilettante 013: On Giving a Good Critique Last year, I wrote a Dilettante column offering advice for artists showing their work around conventions. It was well-received, but I realized a short time after that I’d neglected the other side of that equation: I hadn’t said anything about how to give a useful critique, nor […]

STEVE LIEBER’S DILETTANTE Dilettante 012: A Tale of One Wise Guy by One Wiseman As a kid in the 1970s, I had very limited sources for comic books. My family was too broke to buy new comics from the newsstand, and libraries hadn’t yet begun to shelve comics in any meaningful way. I was left […]

STEVE LIEBER’S DILETTANTE Dilettante 011: Thinking About Style About a decade ago, I wrote a few paragraphs on the notion of “style” and how an artist should regard it. It’s about time I expanded those thoughts. As a young artist, I was terrified of looking generic. I wanted “a style.” When young artists like I […]

STEVE LIEBER’S DILETTANTE Dilettante 010: A Cartoonist’s Library I get a lot of questions about whether or not it’s necessary to go to art school. The short answer is this: No. In more than 20 years as a working artist, none of my clients have shown the slightest interest in whether I had a diploma. […]

STEVE LIEBER’S DILETTANTE Dilettante 009: Forming A Studio I’m a founding member of Periscope Studio, a Portland, Oregon workspace shared by two dozen cartoonists and comic book makers, plus friends of the studio, interns, and visiting artists. As far as we know, we’re the biggest such group in the Englishspeaking world, though I’m not sure […]

HOW ARTISTS SHOULD READ A SCRIPT! Dilettante 008: Reading a Script A few months back, I shared some notes for writers on writing for an artist. It’s about time I shared some suggestions for artists. Here are some thoughts on how to read a script. First, all of these tips are AS TIME PERMITS. In a […]