The Shape of Ideas by Grant Snider

Grant Snider is the rare cartoonist who makes me want to be a better person. Not in a "sit up straight!" kind of way, either - his work is gentle and thoughtful and ruminative, so it's mostly inspiration or providing an example.

I don't think it actually works on me- I don't feel myself turning into someone kinder or more caring, even after reading several of his books - but just wanting to be better is still pretty good, isn't it?

The Shape of Ideas came out in 2017; it's along the same lines as 2022's The Art of Living. The difference, I suppose, is that Ideas is about mindfulness and inspiration and the examined life as it pertains to creation - of any kind of art; Snider is, as always, broad-minded and welcoming  - while Living was, as the title implies, about similar lessons applied to just living in the world every day.

I don't create art. There were times in my life that I tried to write fiction - mostly very long ago and very poorly - but nowadays, whatever we call this kind of writing here is as close to art as I get. (And that's not close: I'm at the other side of the table from it, looking at it and trying not to dissect the frog as I do.)

Snider is talking to other creative types here: painters and novelists and cartoonists and probably dancers and actors and comedians as well - anyone who is creating a thing from scratch and presenting it in public, doing that complicated two-step of attempting to say something real and represent something true. Anyone who looks at a blank something (page or stage) and is looking to fill it up with meaning.

So it's largely about the hunt for ideas - getting them in the first place, nurturing them, evaluating them, turning them into a final product. Like Snider's other books, it's largely made up of strips that originally appeared on his site Incidental Comics, with a few that were commissioned by others. Also like his other books, it's broken into shorter thematic chapters: starting with Inspiration and running through things like Improvisation and Contemplation before ending at Pure Elation.

And it's in Snider's usual evocative, friendly style, mostly soft colors and usually small, energetic figures wandering through symbolic landscapes or wresting (literally) with their problems or standing there with brush or pen as they try to do the thing. It is lovely and mostly quiet, warm and inviting and friendly the way a book like this should be.

I'm not in the market for a book to inspire me to create stuff, so my opinion should be discounted appropriately. But I do think this is a good one, and if you are in that market, you should check it out. Snider is positive and helpful in a way that never feels Pollyanna-ish; he's mostly focused on the struggle and doubt.