#19: Mailbag
Hey there! This week, we're cracking open the mailbag! (As if anyone gets actual letters anymore.) Nope, the only thing that comes in my physical mailbox is bills, bills and more bills. However, over the past several months, I have been contacted by a number of folks looking for advice on how to get going on comic projects. While I'm happy to help, and enjoy engaging in these types of discussions with folks on an individual basis, it struck me that a lot of people just starting out, have very similar questions. Part of the reason I do this column is to have a public place where I can share my thoughts on this medium. So, I'm going to, when appropriate, share the questions I'm getting and my responses. Again, I don't profess to have all the answers. You're going to get my opinion shaped by my experience, and you might say it's worth just what you pay for it. (This column's still free, right?) Anyway, let's get to it.
Hi Tyler. A friend and I have decided to try our hands at writing comics recently. We are right now finishing up a few pitch ideas for books we are hoping to sell or self publish. Basically I don't know a lot of people in the industry and was just looking for any advice or ideas. I know you don't know me from a hole in the wall, but I was hoping you might take a minute to give me some tips or info you might have wished you had when you started.
When you're just starting out creating comics, it can seem a bit overwhelming. Just figuring out where to start is a challenge. Part of the reason I'm writing this column is to help aspiring creators move up the learning curve a little faster than I did. While learning by doing and learning from mistakes is a valuable part of getting good at anything, I hope to steer folks around some of the bigger, costlier potholes they might encounter.
While I could ramble on forever with tips and tricks and do's and don'ts to answer this question, the first thing I do is point people to resources already out there and freely available. I do this for two reasons. First, because it saves me the trouble of typing or explaining stuff that has already been tackled elsewhere, and second, because it's a test to see how serious the person is about creating comics. I'll answer any question posed to me, but I want to make sure the person asking is willing to put in the time to read the things I suggest and educate themselves a bit. Then we can have a discussion supported by a stronger baseline of knowledge. So, the first thing I'll do is point them to my archive here at Comic Related. Over the past few months, I've shared a good portion of what I know, and may have already answered several questions aspiring creators might have. Read it at your leisure.
What other resources do I tell people to look at first? Well, the question asked what I wish I would have known/heard before starting. I certainly wished Steven Forbes' weekly column (Tuesdays) Bolts & Nuts was around when I started. From Steven, you'll get nothing but a strong dose of straight talk and tough love from him each week. Steven pulls absolutely no punches and isn't going to coddle you, but what he will do is hit you with quality advice week in and week out. I recommend you start out by reading 5-6 of his columns right away (like as soon as you finish this column) and eventually work your way through his archives. The ones I think you should read first include articles on story, plotting, characters, the pitch, and the creative team. From Steven, you'll get a cold hard look at the realities of writing for comics. He's tough, but if you're serious about making comics, it's stuff you need to hear.
There are plenty of other good columns out there. C. Edward Sellner's Catching A Vision column right here at Comic Related is chock full of good advice, week in and week out. I've also gotten a good tip or two from Dirk Manning's Write-or-Wrong column that posts (irregularly, unfortunately) at Newsarama.
Honestly, if you were a complete noob at this comics thing and spent the week archive diving through all the above columns, I'm positive you'd come out with a clear sense of what you are getting yourself into, what it takes to make good comics, and where to go next. The question is how bad do you want to know?
Do you think I would benefit from publishing my comic on the web as a newcomer to comics? Also, would you suggest a web component in addition to print?
I'll be doing entire columns on webcomics and web presence for comic book creators in the future. But, I'll share a few of my ideas on the subject here.
The web vs. print debate...Pretty soon it won't be a debate at all. Every comic book publisher on the planet is putting content on the web and looking for a means of monetizing through digital distribution. Comics are on the iphone, on your desktop, and in your web-browsers. If Marvel and DC, the biggest print publishers in the comics world, think digital is an important endeavor, you and I should certainly look there, too. So, yes, a web component in addition to print is highly important.
And as for why you, an aspiring creator, would benefit from publishing a comic on the web, it comes down to two things: Money and Eyeballs.
Let's take money first. Printing costs $$. And if you're printing in color, it costs $$$$. Because of the large costs associated with print, publishers these days are becoming more and more risk adverse. That means they don't generally pick up comics pitched to them by unknown talent. Ninety-nine percent of the time, you need to build a fan base BEFORE a publisher will take a serious look at your work. In most cases, that means self-publishing for a while. Self-publishing means footing the bill for your own printing costs. Luckily, with print on-demand printers, it's never been easier or more affordable to print a small run of books to sell at conventions or get into bookstores. But, the margins are small. In fact, unless you do a print run of at least 2,500 copies of your book, using an off-set printer, it's near IMPOSSIBLE to break even on a book through the direct market. (This is because the distributer (Diamond) will take a 61% discount on the cover price of your book.) And that is if they decide to carry your book...which isn't a guarantee. Luckily, there are other distributers like Haven, giving self-published creators another way into stores. But they are still going to need a huge discount on your book to carry it. Print is a huge investment, and without a large existing fan base or the backing of a major comic company, it may be tough to see a return on that investment.
While printing is expensive, the web is not. For about $10 a month, you can have your own website. Hell, there are plenty of blog and comics portals that will give you free accounts (Webcomics Nation, Drunk Duck, ComicSpace, etc.) Compared to print, it costs virtually nothing to publish on the web, and there are no distributors or comic shop owner gate keepers that could potentially stand in the way of your comic getting to readers. There really is no more cost effective way of bringing your comic to the masses than the web.
The second reason for publishing on the web is to get eyeballs. Because it's very hard to get into comic shops (you're competing against the Spider-man's and Green Lanterns and Avengers after all) and shelf space is limited, it's very tough to get noticed doing independent stuff. However, there is no shelf-space in cyber-space, and anyone can develop their own little corner of the online universe. The webcomic readership is vast, growing and much more diverse than the traditional LCS patron. I'm not sure what kind of comic you hope to create, but chances are you can find an audience easier online than in a comic shop.
Some of the lower selling titles in the top 300 print comic books sold sell maybe 3000 copies a month. That's not that many. Getting 3000 people to view your comic on the web is a whole lot easier. ICE: Interrogation Control Element had 26K views in a month during the Zuda competition. Good luck duplicating that exposure in print without a Marvel, DC, or Image logo on your book.
Finally, as an aspiring creator, you want to start building a fan base. The net is the best way to get your work out there, get feedback, and start that relationship with your readers. I'll be covering webcomics in detail in the future, but I strongly recommend you add the book "How to Make Webcomics" to your comic library. The Half-Pixel guys make a much better case for webcomics than I'm doing here, and give a ton of information on how to do it right.
How does the art work for webcomics? Do artists draw them like they do for traditional comics, or is it more of a software thing, of both? If I went the web comics route, would I then need to seek out a digital artist?
As a writer/artist, I sometimes take for granted that some aspiring writers really don't have any understanding at all of the artside of how comics are created. I recommend any writer looking to make a comic learn as much about each step in the process as possible, and that includes educating yourself on art of comics. No artists is every going to be as passionate about your comic ideas as you are, so you're going to need a strong hand in order to see your projects to fruition.
Now, to answer the question...in a sense, almost ALL artists are digital these days. While most still pencil and ink on paper, most letter digitally, and everyone scans their files and colors in Adobe Photoshop. A lot of writers never meet their artists in person, except maybe at conventions. The artists don't meet the colorists, and so on. Everything moves digitally. Since you're probably going to use the internet to find your artist, any artist you find will have a basic understanding of that stuff.
We have been reaching out to every artist we can find and trying to get 5-8 pages that we can take and show around to folks. It has been a pretty frustrating process so far, but we are in this for the long haul so it's fine. Obviously people need to be paid for their work, but I have no idea what acceptable page rates are for young artists. I don't want to insult people, but I also don't want to pay someone out of pocket and then have them handicap any deal we are offered by needing more money than the publisher can offer to finish the book.
A few quick points when it comes to finding artists. First, are you sure you're ready for your artist? Is your script really polished? Have you gotten some quality feedback from comics professionals or at least other writers on your script? You don't want to start the art prior to making sure your script is about as good as it's going to get. It's no big deal to change the script. But once pages start getting drawn, making changes becomes very costly.
Second, there are plenty of great places to find artists looking for work. Now, the more work and credentials you have behind you, the more interested artists are going to be in your project (well, that and the amount of money you're offering.) Online, I suggest posting an ad in the talent search section of Digital Webbing. Another good way is to check out DeviantArt and contact artists who you like directly. Conventions are also a great way to network with artists and find out who's available and looking for work. (I found an artist for my next project at a convention last week. He's a guy that right now has next to no web presence, but is absolutely fantastic. Add that to my reasons for going to conventions.) And once you've been doing this for a while, you'll start to build a contact list of quality artists you'll work with again and again. And when you get established as a good person to work with, you may even find artists are approaching you looking for work. Speaking of which, Federico Zumel, a talented penciler, is available for work. Check him out. ; )
Third, the money issue. I covered this in a previous column- Pay Your Artists. Feel free to negotiate. Ask them for their page rates. Figure out what you can afford to pay, and then make a deal. Most work for hire artists are used to some haggling with projects. I've found that if you have a killer script and a clear game plan for doing something with that script (ie. getting it published) artists are usually going to be willing to cut you a break. Every young artist out there is looking for the book that's going to put them on the map. Partnering with an up and coming writer who has talent and is determined to make it in the industry is one of the surest ways for an artist to get known as well. (I'm guessing Ryan Ottley would agree.) But remember, artists also have to eat.
Finally, the last sentence in the question shows a bit of ignorance of the realities of the publishing world. (That's fine. When you're just starting, there are a lot of things you're going to not know. That you're asking questions is the important thing.) If you, as a first time comic writer, are able to find a comic book publisher willing to publish your book based on 5-8 sample pages, then you've already beaten the odds. If you are able to find a publisher also willing to PAY for that book to be produced, then you've hit the lottery. That, unfortunately, just doesn't happen. When Robert Kirkman started doing Invincible, you know who paid for the art? Robert Kirkman. Image doesn't pay artists to do their own books. In fact, there are very few publishers that pay creative teams up front to do creator owned work. Again, goes back to the realities of the market. As a first time creator, you're simply too much of a risk. You're going to need to pay your dues and prove that you are truly "in this for the long haul." How do you do that? Well, by coughing up your own dough and putting out books.
And that's where your focus should be. Don't put a lot of effort into shining up a few submission pages and then spend the next year trying to get some publisher to take an interest in them and make you a somebody. Instead, take that effort and MAKE A BOOK. There's only one way to break into the comics industry. And that's by making comics.
NEXT: Comics Dialogue- Part I
Tyler James is a comics creator residing in Newburyport, Massachusetts. He writes and draws Over, a romantic comedy online graphic novel updating every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He also writes Tears of the Dragon, an epic fantasy webcomic, drawn by Koko Amboro and colored by Paul Little. His work has been featured at Zuda Comics, and includes Interrogation Control Element, a political action thriller, and Super Seed, the story of the world's first super powered fertility clinic. When not making comics, Tyler works as a game designer and content producer for a software company.
Contact Tyler directly at tylerjamescomics@gmail.com, keep up with him at his blog, or follow him on Twitter.
Previous Columns
1: Big Goals
2: Resolutions
3: The Great Idea
4: Research Part I
5: Research Part II
6: The Killer Pitch Part I - The High Concept
7: The Killer Pitch Part II - The Synopsis
8: Pay Your Artists
9: Zuda Comics- A Tale of Five Submissions
10: Creating Great Characters Part I (Or Why Wolverine is Everywhere)
11: Creating Great Characters Part II (Or Why Wolverine is Everywhere)
12: Structurally Sound- The Beginning
13: Your Reputation
14: Structurally Sound- The Middle
15: Structurally Sound - The End
16: Your First Con
17: Beat It
18: Memorable Scenes
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