As much as I hate to think of comics as a bifurcated process, in practice, the truth is that it is. Often you’re in writing mode, and then, at other times, in drawing mode. When you’re drawing, you listen to podcasts and music, and when you’re writing, you don’t. When you’re drawing, you look at the clock rarely, and when you’re writing, you check your email every fifteen minutes. One can be done in public, in libraries, bars, trains, coffee shops, and one keeps you tethered to a big wooden table and bottle of ink. When discussing comics, I think it’s unfortunate to refer to them as “writing – with pictures” or to discuss “illustrating text” or to approach the words and images as independent entities. And when creating, that not really how it works, but when you’re in your studio (or other place of work) these two things often do happen separately, if not in conception, then in execution. Seth has written a great short essay about this split here, called “The Quiet Art of Cartooning.”
