Lynda on words vs. pictures, and how she makes her comics:

I’ve been thinking a lot about when words and pictures separate for people. A kid learning to write the alphabet is actually learning to draw the alphabet.

When I remind people that writing by hand is actually drawing, they look surprised and then try to figure out how it is not drawing, how it is different, but there is no way to argue it.

A person knows the physical moves required to make any letter of the alphabet or numeral. The same person can make these marks very small or very large. With a pencil, or a wet mop on a wall. It’s just a specific movement with a mark maker.

When I’m making a comic strip these two things are not separated at all. I don’t pencil my work in before I start. I just work very slowly with a brush and as I draw the frame of the panel I’ll often ‘hear’ a sentence in my head. It’s not mystical at all or deep or anything different than when a song gets caught in your head. You didn’t consciously put it there, but it’s playing, you can ‘hear’ it– it’s not the same as hearing it coming from a radio but I would bet most people would describe it as ‘hearing the song’ in their head rather than ‘thinking the song’

So I ‘hear’ a sentence and I can tell who is saying it– which character– in the same way you can tell who is singing that song in your head. I’ll write out that sentence and if another one follows I’ll write that out too. But if one doesn’t follow I usually start drawing the character who said the sentence or the person she is saying it to. And in that way the comic strip begins. Each line leads to the next one.

In between there are times I have to just wait. So you’ll see a lot of freckles on my characters or patterns on their clothes or little lines built up in the back ground. That’s me waiting for the next line. It won’t come if I’m not in motion. If I just sit there like “The Thinker” nothing comes at all.