![[NYCC] 'INDEPENDENTS'](http://ep.yimg.com/ip/I/wizarduniverse_2059_555388522) "What makes an artist?" asks this Indie Comic and Art documentary by director Chris Brandt. Using the eyes of some of Indie Comic history's respected creators as its lens, the film attempts to construct and answer, all the while focusing only on the independent as the faction of the art form free of all the constraints that often taint the process funded by big publishers.
Commentary from a load of Indie creators, publishers and passionate enthusiasts composes the film, including Erik Larsen (Savage Dragon), Craig Thompson (Blankets), Eric Powell (The Goon), Wendy Pini (Elf Quest), Keith Knight, Jim Woodring, Jessica Abel, Matt Madden, and Scott McCloud to name just a few.
First examining art and the artist, "Independents" emphasizes the process of creativity as having integrity only when free from influence, specifically, desire for money or fame. Indeed, anyone who perseveres in expanding and improving their body of work hinges no action on either of those universally common goals. And so say the creators, who's "stubbornness" some may say drives their creativity past all conventional senses of worth. Inter cut with stylized commentary from a psychologist on the mind of the artist and how it functions, a comprehensive diorama of a mindset motivated past just talent. To be an artist who creates with integrity, one simply has to not care. About anything.
With that frame, "Independents" moves to its main course, comics: an art form that the film personifies and characterizes as a drooling child in the corner of a room filled with the other, more lauded creative outlets of film, museum-exhibited art and literature. It's a reality that exists only in the perceptions of those unfamiliar with comic's artistic significance, a population that while decreasing in this day and age, remains steadfastly ignorant.
But it's not general comics to which the documentary refers its attention. From the title the object is clear. It's all about the Indies, not to say that the mainstream is ignored. In fact, the film goes head to head with the concept of commissioned pencilers, writers, colorists and cover artists, as they compose a storyline that without them, will go on using another cast of talent. There is no creativity in this process, the film poses. Independent creators, throughout the trials of self-publishing, remain the truest symbols of the outlet's artistic significance. It's a point well made by Brandt and his troop of tapped talent, and a film well worth checking out. |
