Talent

[Fluks, H.W.]

Don Rosa to Abdulmonem Abbas:

> No one is "gifted" with a "talent".

I must disagree here. Some people definitely have a talent for things.
Which doesn't mean that people don't work hard to achieve things. Most of
them do. But some people can do things much easier than others can.

For instance, people like Daan Jippes and Marco Rota have a talent for
drawing.

> I think when someone claims that people draw well because 
> they are born
> with "talent" is both an insult to the artist and the claimant -- it
> suggests that the artist did not have to work a lifetime to become as
> skilled as he is, and it suggests that the speaker was 
> incapable of doing
> just as good if he had really tried long enough.

Well, in that case I just insulted Jippes, Rota, and myself. I *know* I will
never draw Ducks as good as they do. And if I would try, it will never be as
"easy" for me as it is for them. (Note the quotes around "easy" - I'm not
saying that they don't have to work to make their drawings.)

> And if you want
> to be a something more than a mere artist... a "cartoonist" 
> (someone who
> tells stories with drawings), watch lotsa old movies and read 
> lotsa old
> comics. (I say "old" because I don't think you can become a good
> storyteller based on a background strictly of modern American 
> movies, with
> their utter disconcern with logic or pacing, or from modern 
> American comics
> with their lack of plots and characterisation and humor. 
> Those are lost arts.)

Of course, the world does not end with America. Abdulmonem can also look at
*recent* comics from Italy, France, Denmark, Holland. Lots of very good
artists there.

--Harry.