How to Take Over the World by Ryan North

So that’s my secret: do different things, so working on one feels like a break from the other. Get stuck on a writing thing? Try programming, it’s a whole different way of solving problems! Programming sucks right now? Isn’t it great you can go write a story about talking dinosaurs instead? RN: Most of these different things I do have the benefit that I can do them whenever – which means I can push things aside as I get busy with something else – and that they are mostly unrelated. How do you find the balance between your various work? That was SO much better than reality that it’s now canon.įrom what I’ve seen of your work, you don’t appear to be too pigeon-holed to any one kind of profession - comic writer, “real book” writer, programmer, designer, etc. That interview made it to print saying that I “had a giant textile” – like, this hanging rug on my wall that I look at for inspiration.

In it are ideas, snippets of dialogue, things I want to explore: it’s a way to avoid getting writer’s block.

RN: I was asked this question by my old school paper in a phone interview and I said I had a giant text file that I look at when I get stuck. Is it completely unprofessional and poor form if I just ask “Where do you get your ideas?” Because it’s a horrible question, but at the same time I’m a little curious. Also, dinosaurs are the best animals, the most intrinsically fun dudes. I figured I use up all my dinosaur ideas and I’d fall back to my next idea: “Astronaut Comics.” But then making a new template was a lot of work, so here we are, 11 years later. RN: I didn’t think “Dinosaur Comics” would last the month. In terms of where you are now, I mean, did you even think you’d end up where you are now when you started “Dinosaur Comics?” I think your evolution in the medium is pretty extraordinary, particularly in looking at where you started and where you are now.

Ryan North: It’s the best medium, the most intrinsically fun way to tell a story. The first question I have is just something I like to ask the first time I talk to anyone: why comics?

How to Take Over the World by Ryan North