The Clarion Group asked me to write an article about getting into comics. So I wrote it. They used it, but it's a lot shorter. So here's the rest of it. Oh, and they used a much prettier picture.
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| Me, imitating Christopher Lloyd. |
After a long San Diego
Comicon, during the Sunday wind-down, a mother with a hopeful son
approached me as a comics professional:
"My son wants to get
into comics," she said. "What should I do for him?"
Pretty much wrung out
after three days of marketing, I blurted, "Break his hands!'
Happily for me and her
kid, they'd been around the industry long enough to recognize the
reality of my comment.
Comics are hard work.
They're probably the most labor-intensive art form we can
successfully finish alone. The best way to get into comics, of
course, is to learn to draw and write them from start to finish;
that's what we call a comics author.
These days, with
print-on-demand and downloads becoming simpler, cheaper and more
easily organized, many comics authors are profiting quite nicely from
the entire publishing process themselves.
Many people are becoming
complete authors, but there's still a demand in the industry for the
old-fashioned penciller/inker/letterer/colorer/writer team,
especially in the old genre markets like superheroes and manga.
If you're going to write
for comics, first of all attend a comics convention, the bigger the
better. Look at everything and talk to everybody. Bring a big box of
business cards, and no matter how good you think your memory is,
write what your exchange was about, or both parties will forget it by
the time you get home. There's just that much going on.
Hydrate, eat a good
breakfast - you may get nothing more until supper - and learn to
fish-swim through the rivers of fans (an art in itself).
Back home? Seen some
books you want to write for? Learned who people are? Now it's time to
get to work.
Think movie script.
You're transmitting your ideas of dialog and images to another
person. If you're writing licensed characters, it's like writing a
Star Trek novel; you get pay, not the rights. On a comic book you get
paid like the script-writer. The artist/s get paid like the actors.
The first lesson is:
nobody's a mind reader. The second is: garbage in, garbage out.
Artists come in at least two flavors; the ones who want you to
describe every detail of every panel, and the ones who want to do the
layout themselves. Too much detail just makes panels clunky. And you
have to leave space for word balloons. Get some comics, and check out
basic layout.
You want to become a
writer for a publisher? Learning a genre and submitting scripts is
the same as for any multi-level project. Each company has its own
requirements. Their websites will tell you how. Nobody has time to
give you the details at a comics convention. It's a trade show
dealing with every level of arts, media and entertainment, and time
is precious.
Of course, if all you
have is a script you're probably going to end up sliding off the
slush pile. A script is just a script. You need art, because the
publisher isn't a mind-reader, either.
Don't try to talk some
artist into working for cheap or free. Learning to be a really able
artist requires thousands of hours of work and thousands of dollars
in expenses. Unless you're part of a team that deeply believes in the
project, that way lies fights, accusations, and a reputation as an
amateur and an asshole. The artist is not lazy or feckless; you're
just on the back burner because you're not paying, and somebody else
is. It doesn't matter if they showed up after your project started.
Artists are professionals, and while it's fun to work for the love of
it - it's where the word "amateur" comes from - this is the
real world, and they have a job to do.
If you've got a fat
wallet, you can pay your artist without quibbling, but you still have
to know if you like his or her art already. Don't demand the artist
imitate a much more expensive artist, unless you're willing to pay
the same fees; that's just getting copy-art for cheap. It's not going
to help your reputation.
You pay up front; you're
hiring the artist to do the work, not to decide if you like it or
not. The usual arrangement is fifty percent up front, fifty percent
upon approval.
But what if you're
strapped? There's a way to get a good start. Put money together to
pay well for the first pages before submitting the project to a
publisher. You're acting as a small-scale producer; you have to find
the funding for the film.
I can remember one young
man who approached me and offered $750 for twenty pages of art.
Starting at black and white for $150.00 per page and going up - he
wasn't getting beyond a short story. I asked him who his dream artist
would be, and if s/he was at the show. The man was. Then I asked the
writer who he'd approach second, and then third. They were all at the
show. I told the writer to wait until his first choice was on a break
from lines of signings, then approach him politely, and offer the
entire budget for one really fine color splash page.
The writer returned
within the hour. His first choice worked at a higher usual page rate,
so turned him down, but thanked him for the offer. The second had too
much work on his plate. He got the third.
Start at the top.
Offering a copy of a really top-class piece of art along with a
script is going to at least let the publisher know you're serious
about your project.
How many of you out there
are asking what a splash page is? If you don't know, or what a Kirby
grid or a signature is, or how many of them go into a comics format,
then you need to google some comic book terminology. Or at least get
to the largest comic book show you can find, and geek up. If nothing
else, you could see Darth Maul on stilts playing a bag-pipe.*
Happy hunting!
