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Scott McCloud's book "Understanding Comics" outlines a path of 6 steps for artists. He proposes that the greats all master the same first 4 steps, but then split on which of the final two is their primary tool.

The "pioneers and revolutionaries" play with the form itself (Moebius, Picasso, Stravinsky). The "storytellers" use the medium for their ideas (Schultz, Dickens, Capra). Neither approach is superior to the other, and the line between them is certainly fuzzy.

The original Macintosh operating system, for example, was probably pretty lousy code by any modern standard, but certainly moved the industry forward. TeX, on the other hand, is arguably excellent code, and still used today, but probably never had as many users. Which is "better"? Neither, of course! In McCloud's terms, Apple focused on "form", and Knuth focused on "idea".