The Four Types of Artists

I’m not a big astrology guy. I like being a Leo, because cats are awesome, but I don’t honestly believe the month I was born had a significant effect on my personality. I never got into Harry Potter, so I don’t know which “house” I belong in. Based on conversations I’ve had about Harry Potter, I’m guessing I’m a Hufflepuffs: a generally nice person who’s not involved in the main plot. I’ve taken the Myers-Briggs, but it didn’t have much of an impact on me. And my understanding is that, scientifically speaking, all personality tests are bullshit. Studies have shown folks get entirely different results taking the same test a month apart.

There is one “tag yourself” personality test I do believe in. I’ve thought about this panel from Scott McCloud’s Making Comics for decades now.

In this section of Making Comics, which is a seminal read about the art and history of cartooning along with Understanding Comics, McCloud talks about how artists find themselves gravitating to one of four “tribes” or clusters. These clusters are based on the spirit and methodology that drives them to create art. He acknowledges that artists may feel like they’re in two clusters at once. So let’s think of these less like Harry Potter houses (and think of J.K. Rowling not at all) and more like four axes on a line graph. Your dot might chart in the middle of a section. Here are summaries of each category from The Guardian that go into a little more detail…

Animists are the first artists, the shamen dancing around the tribal fire who drag raw emotion from their soul and give it to the audience. They are the instinctual artists, concerned above all with content. (Jeff Smith and Jack Kirby would both fall easily under this heading.)

Classicists worship at the altar of beauty, and yearn to create art that achieves greatness. They believe in objective standards of good and bad, and establish the canon of great artists who embody those ideals. (Neil Gaiman and Frank Cho.)

Iconoclasts are either the first against the wall when the revolution comes, or at the front leading the charge. They use art as a means of personal and political expression, and when asked will say that they value truth over all else. (See Robert Crumb and Alan Moore.)

Formalists love talking about art almost as much as they enjoy creating it. They are the experimenters of any given art, obsessing about details of style and technique in their own work and the work of others. (McCloud himself, and Chris Ware.)

When I first read this panel as a young 20-something with a love for comics, it made a profound impact. I’ve often thought about the different categories and where I fit in. Here are my relationships to four different clusters.

Animists – I have Animist tendencies. One of the phrases I often say about writing is “bleed on the page.” How much of yourself did you put into your writing? Are there details from your real life? Did you feel the emotions of the scene as you were writing it? To use astrology parlance, my “moon” is in Animist. Generally speaking, the focus of my personal creative work is not about exploring the depths of my soul, but there is a piece of my heart in almost everything I do. When I was writing a scene in Fallen Legion Revenants about a child who felt abandoned by the cruel world of the game, I broke down. It was physically difficult to write. The voice actors in Clone Drone in the Hyperdome – particularly Debra Wilson, god bless her – told me unprompted that they found the script (written entirely in Google Sheets) to be remarkably deep and invested emotionally in their lines to communicate the passion in the writing. I’ve very proud of that.

Classicists – I’m a recovering Classicist. Not to say it’s bad to be a Classicist, only that I’ve come around to a different way of viewing art. When I was in film school, and when I was in high school daydreaming about film school, I wanted to write Great American Comedy. That was my dream. To excel on the level of my heroes: Steve Martin and Stan Freberg. The two St’s. I studied comedy in many forms and stayed up late with fellow aspiring comedians discussing the “game of the scene” in SNL sketches or debating the merits of Adam Sandler movies. My hope was that I could study my way to being undeniable. What I learned is that being a student of entertainment has only a small part to play in whether you become successful commercially, lol. A whole generation of professional funny people would spring up online who never studied. A legion of nepo babies would nepo their way into writers’ rooms. And as I got older, realizing the futility of yearning for greatness, I developed a taste for the bad, the novel, and the forgotten. Cheesy movies and video games in particular. Nothing makes me happier than watching a “bonkers” movie from the 80s with Amanda. A schlocky production that makes me laugh. I started watching and making art for fun.

Iconoclasts – I deeply admire the Iconoclasts. Remember that Slate article about how people can be divided into Order Muppets and Chaos Muppets? I’m an Order Muppet who loves Chaos Muppets. I have friends who make art I would describe as iconoclastic, whether they’re boldly telling the hard truths about their lives or inviting controversy with provocative (progressive) political work. As I said, I admire that, but it’s not what drives me personally to make art. Perhaps as someone who self-identified as a satirist, based on the comedy I liked best, a deeper connection with the Iconoclast cluster as an artist would’ve served me well. But as Popeye says, “I yam who I yam.” I don’t think Popeye is Iconoclastic, but if he was, it would make a better end to this paragraph!

Formalists – This is where I feel most at home these days. I’m driven by experimentation. I want to understand how a piece of artwork works, as though I were studying the inside of a computer or a car, then produce my own work using those “engines.” My enjoyment for funny and unusual visual novels led to me creating a funny and unusual visual novel. (Or two.) My love for the Marx Brothers and old school management sims led to me try and dissect and replicate both. The projects I get most excited about are personal challenges inspired by esoteric nostalgia. VCR games. Interactive movies. Trading card games. How do they work? Can I make my own? As I’ve embraced the title Narrative Designer, I’ve become more fascinated with game design and narrative systems. I’m happy I found a cluster that works for me.

As an artist, I’m like one of those old Frosted Mini-Wheats commercials. The adult in me is an Animist, the Game Writer, who understands that much of the power of storytelling is inspiring emotions in the audience. So I willingly dredge up pieces of my soul for my art to write more empathetic characters capable of inspiring laughs, tears, and frustration. It’s not so much “suffering” for the art as a kind of personal excavation. Then there’s the kid in me, who is a Narrative Designer. A Formalist who thinks of artwork like toys to be played with. As I’ve gotten older, I get more preoccupied with how the toys themselves work. Sorry I destroyed my View-Master, mom, but I had to know.

🎲 Your Turn: Do you think Scott MacCloud’s clusters are bluster, or is there truth in the four campfires? Which cluster are you in? Feel free to say more than one! I’d love to hear how you think of yourself as an artist. Reply directly to this email or hit the orange button below to leave a comment and declare your cluster for the whole world.