Dave and Brad welcome Ryan North, two-time Eisner Award winner, creator of Dinosaur Comics and writer for Marvel Comics' Squirrel Girl. We discuss his upcoming book, How to Invent Everything and his successful Shakespearean choose-your-own-adventure To Be or Not To Be. Along the way, we go deep on several topics involving writing — getting ideas, subconscious plagiarism, self-plagiarism, rejecting unoriginal ideas, creativity as a compulsion, juggling multiple projects, exorcising ideas, and much much more.   BUT FIRST — Brad explains how zinc is more precious than gold for your good health.   Show notes

9:13 — How did Ryan first get into writing for comics?
12:37 — Rejecting an idea if it's not completely original
16:30 — Creativity as a compulsion
18:08 — Getting the idea for "To Be or Not To Be"
19:10— Capturing ideas
24:14 — Writing Squirrel Girl fro Marvel Comics
30:06 — The "minced oath"
31:51 — Avoiding subconscious plagiarism
38:34 — Juggling multiple projects and how to decide which ideas get used in which projects
41:57 — "Exorcising" ideas
43:13 — Self-plagiarization on social media
45:47 — Ideas are easy. Execution is hard.

Great rewards when you support ComicLab
$2 — support the show
$5 — submit a question for possible use on the show AND get the exclusive ProTips podcast
$10 — record an audio question for possible use on the show AND get the exclusive ProTips podcast
$50 — Sponsor the show! We’ll read a brief promo for your comic/product and read it twice during the show AND you get the exclusive ProTips podcast
Brad Guigar is the creator of Evil Inc and the editor of Webcomics.com
Dave Kellett is the creator of Sheldon and Drive.