The first time I saw it, I was 12. It was in the local library- I was reading a book on the lives of the Beat poets, and along with all of the historical ephemera was “the list.” At the time, being young and impressionable, I copied down “the list,” and sought to make every item on it as familiar as the back of my hand. I read “the list” daily, trying to absorb it’s wisdom and understand the deep meanings that I was sure were mine if I just understood “the list” as well as Allen Ginsburg, the man who compiled it…

About ten years later, I was fortunate enough to actually meet Allen and spend about half an hour talking to him one on one. Among the things we spoke about was “the list.” That collection of items was, in Allen’s words, a list of “mantras” for unleashing creativity, so having him right in front of me I asked Allen what was the most important of them all.

He told me, “Your first idea is your best idea, so you need to run with that above all else.”

Today’s lesson in the Art of the Fail is: Your First Idea Isn’t Always Your Best Idea.

When it comes down to the bottom line, there are two basic reasons that people reject the editing and revision process- they are either too lazy to want to improve their work or they are too in love with their ideas to imagine  that their first effort should be a starting point rather than a destination. Readers of this column KNOW that laziness is an oft-beaten dead horse in these parts, and I don’t want to take much time on that today. I can tell you that if you are not perfecting your craft out of laziness, then you are digging a six foot hole for your career in Comics to rest in piece in… but the lazy person is too busy napping to care.

Instead of waking those in the class who have their head down and are sleeping peacefully on their desks, I want to move on to a bigger concern which is the idea that ALL first ideas are “best” ideas. With all due respect to Allen Ginsburg, That idea is a pile of Horse Poo. And not only is that idea Horse Poo, it’s the most harmful piece of piece of propaganda that maybe has EVER been fed to creative people.

Now, you may ask me a question which sounds something like the following: “But Allen Ginsburg was a genius! How DARE you call one of his ideas Horse Poo?”

Now- like many things in life, there is a short version to the answer and a long version. Today, just to be fair, I want to give you both.

The short answer is: Being a genius doesn’t mean he was infallible.  Common sense can tell you he’s wrong, otherwise everything Humans do would be perfect the first time. Being imperfect, we often have to work to improve ideas or modify them when we find they don’t work out the way we like. That’s true in all life- creatively as well as in all other thoughts & ideas we have a Human beings. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you Horse Poo.

Now, for those of you that need it broken down a little more, here is the long answer…

There are 3 aspects to the claim that “First Ideas are Best Ideas” that need to be examined in order to understand how wrong the idea is. By looking at where the idea comes from, what the idea actually is and what the results of following it can be, I think you will come to the same conclusion I did, which is that “First Ideas” are JUST that. They are first… and chances are excellent that a “First Idea” isn’t a “Best Idea” as it was originally conceived.

Let’s start by looking at where this concept came from. No, Allen Ginsburg didn’t invent the idea that “First Ideas are Best Ideas,” but he was one of the people who popularized the notion and he was, as I stated before, a genius. In fact, everyone that Ginsburg quotes on his list of “mantras” which back up his “First Ideas are Best Ideas” concept are all either genius level creative types or were very, very talented people. Now, if YOU are a GENIUS, then maybe you can make that same argument, but for those of us who are not on that exalted level, we need to be realistic.

And by realistic, I mean we need to consider reality and not some idealism which puffs up our level of ability. When Ginsburg himself wrote HOWL, a classic of literature and one of the works that Ginsburg HIMSELF would point to as a fantastic “First Idea” which came to him in some “whole cloth” form, he didn’t write it as it is being published now. That’s correct- Ginsburg did a number of changes, additions, edits and re-writes to Howl… all in an attempt, I presume, to “bring out” that “First Idea.” Which, of course, is Horse Poo. Ginsburg looked at his poem and made changes in an effort to make it better. That’s not saying anything about Allen other than to point to his Humanity, and that if Allen needed to revise, then YOU most likely will need to do likewise.

Look at the concept itself, though, and you will find it’s almost a academic version of a Ricky Bobby slogan. There isn’t much of a divide between “First Ideas are Best Ideas” and “If You’re not First, You’re Last.” Even Ricky’s transient hobo of a father could see through the problem- to paraphrase, “Your First Idea doesn’t have to be “Best.” Your Second idea can be, or your Third or even your Fourth…” There is nothing “magical” about the first thing that pops into your head, and if you think there is, then you need to get over that stupidity ASAP.

Why?

Not only is true that “nobody’s perfect”, but if we could always see our own imperfections for what they are, most of us WOULD become perfect. Being Human means you not only have faults but that in most cases, those faults are not always a problem of execution. Quite often, it’s not just a matter of you not executing an idea correctly… sometimes the idea itself needs to be modified, changed or replaced with a better idea.

This last fact can’t be minimized when talking about making Comics- I can’t tell you how many people I have met who had an idea for a comic when they were a little child that they can’t let go of today. While I have no doubt that there may be some aspect of that idea which is valuable and could become a cool Comic if handled well, most of the time the person in question is a First Idea purist. They want to see THAT idea become something HUGE exactly the way they originally thought it up, simply because it was THE idea they had when they were 8.

And that brings us to the end result of believing that “First Ideas” are always “Best Ideas,” which is that it leads to an overly romantic view of not only “First Ideas,” but of ideas in general. While you MAY be a genius, and your genius MAY be in an area which leads to a cure to Cancer, as long as we are talking about making Comics we need to ratchet that down a bit. If you are really a creative person, then you will have all kinds of ideas if you are open to them. Falling in Love with one Idea, however, can be like falling in Love with anything (or anyone) else- you tend to become “monogamous.”  By that I mean you start kicking all other ideas out, because you have that “Perfect” Idea and you want to be as “Faithful” to that Idea as you can…

Horse Poo.

The only important thing when it comes to ideas in Comics is- Do your skills (and the skills of the people you work with) translate THAT idea or ideas into a good comic? If you can do that, then go ahead and use your First, Second or Thirty Third idea… it doesn’t matter, because people aren’t reading your mind, they are reading your Comic. If you CAN’T make the idea work, however, then either YOU have to change something you are doing, or you need to change your IDEA.

99 times out of 100, though, it’s easier to change ideas to fit you than for you to be a different artist or writer. In the course of doing both Robot 13 and KING!, Daniel and I have changed all sorts of ideas- some of them visual, some of them in terms of the script, but in every case we were looking for something WE could pull off well. Could another Writer/Artist combo used those original ideas and made them work? Possibly… but we are who we are, so we adapted our work to what we do best.

Want to Fail, however, and you need to latch on to that First Idea and never give in to the concept that your Idea needs work. Never let that first thing go and use it to push other potentially good ideas out of your mind. Who cares what Allen Ginsburg DID, you need to act on what he SAID, right?

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