Physician career change guide

Creative side projects for doctors

Name: Colin Devonshire, MD

Employer: Mount Auburn Hospital, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Education

Undergraduate: Yale University

Med school: UMass Chan Medical School

Residency: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School

Devonshire began writing comic books during a sabbatical. He wanted to try something different from medicine and had always liked creative writing. He had an idea he thought might make a good comic book, so he took a month off from the emergency room and dove into becoming a comic book creator. 

What do you like best about writing comic books? 

With comic book writing, you have complete control over time, the scope of the story and what the reader pays attention to. If you write a novel, it’s several pages to get a description across. With comics, if you can get a description to your artist correctly, it can be revealed on one page. So, it’s extremely powerful! 

What’s the hardest part of the job?

The majority of people who make comics are working on their own self-publishing or getting picked up by smaller publishers. In those cases, you’re basically expected to fund and project manage the book yourself and then they will pick it up and distribute it. You really need to put your nose to the grindstone and make your own comics. Build up a body of work, then you may get picked up by a publisher. Even then, you can expect to still be doing most of the work. 

If you are a comic book writer and not an artist, you will always be dependent on others. It’s a visual medium and I don’t draw well, so I hire a team of artists. As in medicine, we have to work in a team setting. But in this situation, no one cares if you are a physician. The person who has the pencil is the person who has the power with a comic book.

What surprised you about writing comic books?

I had to learn how to recruit and work with artists, pencilers, inkers, colorists, letterers and editors. Ideally, you need to know something about all those jobs to be able to hire good ones, talk with them intelligently and know when they are doing a good job. So, you need to be a jack of all trades in terms of making the book. That’s similar to what an ER physician does, so I’m used to it.

How would another physician get started writing comic books? 

Obviously, read a lot of comic books. Read more than just the superhero books, as you will never get invited to write a Spiderman or Batman book, most likely. If you can pick up the first issue of some comic books, you can see how the creators get things started. A great way to do this is through Kickstarter. It’s great one-stop shopping to see how other creators are getting their books made. The next is to learn about storytelling. If I was to look at one book, it would be Save the Cat!: The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need by Blake Snyder. It’s for movie/screenwriting, but it’s very applicable to comics and building the spine of your story. Also, read Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. Once you’ve got the basics, you should come up with a few ideas to get you excited. Then, you can start fleshing them out until you can make an elevator pitch or logline. Once you’ve written your script, you need to find the best artist you can afford. 

What’s your advice for aspiring comic book writers? 

Be absolutely sure a comic book is what you want to make instead of writing poems or a novel. It’s more work to make a comic than anything you can put on a printed page for an individual. Be humble and willing to fail, which is a hard thing for physicians. No one cares about your background and education. You need cool ideas, be able to get them across and be a good team player. 

Don’t forget to put aside several thousands of dollars to make your comic book. You may make some of it back, but be prepared to lose money. •