Welcome to the labyrinth of constraints
Learn how self-imposed constraints can unleash your creativity and help you overcome hesitation and anxiety about making art.
Join me in building a labyrinth
“A blinking cursor on a fresh blank page can be intimidating for even seasoned writers.”
…This is the first line in the template that Substack provides (thanks!) to writers starting on their first post and it cuts to the core of why I’m here: As a cartoonist, I know the anguish of staring at a blank page, trying to will ideas of creative genius into my brain and down to my drawing hand… and failing utterly, most of the time, leading to remorse and feelings of being talentless and hopeless.
But in the mid 1990s I discovered that if you gave yourself a rule (the more bizarre the better—say, to write a story without the letter e or to create a comic that you can read backwards and forwards) you can short circuit those anxieties and leap forward into surprising creative discoveries.
Why I’m starting a Substack about constraints
I learned the principle of using constraints while working on my book, 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style, where I re-draw the same one-page comic 99 times—in different drawing styles, from different points of view, backwards, in one panel and in 30 panels, even in the form of a map.
I quickly realized that the challenge of giving myself an absurd and difficult task, while it seemed perverse and onerous, could in fact be exhilarating and liberating. Paradoxically, the rules I set for myself—in this case to draw the same comics 99 different ways—forced me to engage in problem-solving mode, bypassing my usual indecisiveness about what to draw and what stories to tell. Instead, I consistently found myself fully absorbed in my work, reaching a state that the writer Diane Ackerman calls “deep play,” an ecstatic yet fully focused state of mind that is fulfilling and productive. The result was a book that has been in print for almost 20 years and has been translated into over a dozen languages.
I’ve been teaching comics and drawing since around 2000 and I have always incorporated my explorations of what I call “creative constraints” into the classroom. And in the last ten years or so, my teaching in workshops, residencies, and online, has been exclusively focused on helping people see the numerous ways that using constraints can help you as an artist.
I’ve taught several classes in recent years where the students were eager to continue with their studies and with the communities they have built in my workshops but I haven’t been able to think of a way to make that a functional reality… UNTIL NOW! I’ve been looking into Substack for a while now and I believe this platform is the place for me to create a more engaging and engaged long-term community around comics, constraints, and creativity.
Who’s going to join us here
I love to share my thoughts about how constraints promote creativity, not just in comics but in just about any medium (my personal interests leaning towards film, music, literature, and poetry). I often run out of time in my classes because there’s simply too much cool stuff and too many cool ideas to share in one session or even course. I’m going to use this Substack to talk about constraints in the context of my own work-in-progress, to write more generally about constraints and how they relate to other creative approaches, and to share works I come across that are using constraints in interesting ways.
This will be a space where readers and fellow artists as well as former and current students of mine can keep the conversation going with me and with each other through comments and other features of Substack (which I’m still trying to get a handle on).
I’ve truly enjoyed the engagement I’ve had in my various workshops devoted to constraints—some of them multi-week IRL residencies, others one-hour Zoom seminars—and I’d like this space to be a place where all those people can build on each other’s knowledge, creativity, and experience.
How it’s going to work
I’m not planning to follow a specific posting schedule here, I’d rather share thoughts occasionally as I find the time and as they are relevant to what’s going on with my work as a cartoonist and teacher (I may also bring in observations from my translation and musical endeavors from time to time). I’ll be sharing some of my favorite constraints along with examples from my own work as well as that of other artists from a variety of mediums; I’ll share notes on upcoming constrained comics projects, including a short story collection coming out in the fall of 2024; I’ll share some more philosophical/lit crit thoughts on constraints and their implications. I’ll also share recommendations of works that use constraints in innovative ways.
For now, I’m planning to keep the comments open to all subscribers. I honestly haven’t quite figured out what the chat function is yet but I may make that a paid feature (I’m open to recommendations from seasoned readers and/or writers on this, and I’ll be doing my own homework in the months to come).
The main feature for paid subscribers—and I’m really excited about this, it’s the missing piece I’ve been trying to figure out—is a regular Zoom workshop where I will share a new constraint and invite everyone who shows up to work on it (and it doesn’t need to be comics, I’d love to have writers, dancers, collagists, mixologists–the more the merrier). In each new Zoom we will look at the results of the previous challenge and then I will offer a new constraint. I will alternate these “workshop” Zooms with the occasional AMA type of meeting. I’m going to say one-hour Zooms for now, understanding they tend to run long (it’s just too much fun, most of the time).
I’m offering a founding member plan for “Labyrinthians” which will include a 1-on-1 Zoom session once a year. And probably some other perks TBD. [I’m putting this idea on the back burner for now —M.]
Let’s start building labyrinths
Thanks for reading, I hope you’ll join me on this twisty-turny ride through constraints and creativity.
I've signed up for a yearly paid subscription. I'm really excited about the monthly zooms!
Looking forward to see what you cook up here Matt!