A while back, I was posting quotes from interviews with comic book artists on my Livejournal blog. A lot of these are just comments that I found interesting in regards to my own experiences at the drawing table. Sometimes when you’re dwelling on the vast gulf between yourself and some creative giant, it’s interesting to also note the few small similarities and/or other details of interest. I’m going to transfer some of these to this new blog.

First up, “John Romita on speed”…

“Every time [Gene Colan] came in, we always got on the subject of speed and lack of speed, because Gene used to work until three in the morning, every morning.
“I said, “You know what? You’re asking the wrong guy because I have trouble, too. The reason I’m working 9-to-5 is because I can’t turn out enough pages in five days to pay my bills.” I could not deliver work on time. I could do five pages in one day, and then it would take me the next five days to do the next page. I could never tell. In fact, if an editor said, “Can you get this 10-page story done by next Wednesday?,” I couldn’t guarantee it to him. I used to say, “The truth of the matter is, I don’t know. I could get it done in two days or it could take me three weeks. I have no idea how long this is going to take me, because I have no regular flow that I can count on.”

John Romita
from a 2006 interview with Jim Amash