Seven Questions with FRED HEMBECK

We've had the good fortune here at The Vault to interview a number of comic creators and legends, but this week we're proud to introduce someone who may be among the most beloved creators in comics: Fred Hembeck. Hembeck, who has been providing smiles to comics fans for over three decades with his curlicue joints and lovingly inside jokes (some of which can be viewed on his website), took some time from his busy schedule to answer some our most pressing questions, such as what he thinks of the new Doctor Voodoo series. So without further ado, let's jump right into our Seven Questions with Fred Hembeck.


1. Over the course of your career you’ve worked for seemingly every publisher in the business. What do you have in the works now and is there any chance we’ll be seeing more stuff at Marvel or DC like the recent strip you did for Captain America #600?

Marvel has an 8 page "Petey" story in the can--in which the young Peter Parker meets his new babysitter, the teen-aged Sue Storm, as well as (unfortunately) her kid brother, Johnny--for an upcoming, unscheduled issue of "Web Of Spider-Man". I hope to do some more of these--only time will tell if they'll let me!! I have several other irons in the fire as well, but nothing definitive to report as of yet.


2. It’s my understanding that prior to developing your famous style, you attempted to break into comics as a more traditional artist. How did that transition come about and do you have any plans to ever create a “serious” title?

"No", to the latter portion of your question--I know what's good for me after all these years, and it ain't competing with the likes of the amazing artists drawing super-hero comics currently! Heck, I was having a hard enough time back in 1977 when my portfolio was rejected on several occasions. That prompted me to develop my cartoony style as a way to keep drawing and keep my spirits up as I retrenched and gave serious illoing a second go. But, much to my surprise, the cartoony stuff caught on so quickly, I never had a chance to go back, and I've never regretted how things turned out cuz, as a standard adventure story illustrator, I woulda had to work way, way hard just to make "average"--sometimes your limitations can actually be a blessing!!


3. Speaking of more traditional comics art, you once did a Brother Voodoo story for Marvel in classic superhero style, thanks to your well known obsession (or mock obsession?) with the character. Now that he’s become Doctor Voodoo, the new Sorcerer Supreme, what are your thoughts on the character? Can you take credit for this development? And can we expect to see you involved in the new series?

It'd certainly be fun to be involved with the new Doctor Voodoo series, but so far, that call hasn't come in. I'll admit to not knowing anything about it save for what I can garner from the web, as I no longer keep up with current Marvel or DC Comics, but I wish my ol' pal, Bro--I mean, Doc--only the best!!


4. Image recently published an omnibus collecting hundreds of pages of your work. How did that come about and can we expect to see collections of your Marvel and DC work any time in the future?

Long time inker and friend Al Gordon suggested the idea to me, and while I thought he was a bit balmy for it, he also ran it past his buddy Erik Larsen, who just happened to be Image's publisher at the time, and amazingly, he thought it was a good idea too!! So who was I to argue? It perculated as simply a notion for over a year, then took nearly that long to compile, but Al has my everlasting thanks for putting the whole thing in motion!! As for Marvel and DC collections, nothing's planned, but I certainly wouldn't be adverse!!


5. It’s been clear from your work that right from the start you have always been a big fan of comics and superheroes, so it makes sense that you have a lot of interaction with the fan community, though your website, blog, facebook page and even ebay auctions and message boards. How has the internet changed the fan experience from your perspective as both a fan and as a creator?

It makes everything instantaneously intimate--and this from someone who, due to poor typing skills, stays away from message boards and instant messaging. When I first began doing my strip for The Buyer's Guide back in the late seventies, I wrote my home address at the bottom of each page, and was delighted with the amount of feedback that arrived through the mail. However, when I returned the Comic's Buyer's Guide in the mid-nineties, I often felt as if I was simply talking to myself, as I ditched the home address gambit. But now, online, I find folks WERE reading that stuff, and it's a great place to reconnect with fans who followed my work several decades back! Simply put, the response I've received over the last few years on the internet has been highly gratifying!!


6. You’ve had a chance to work with or riff on just about every publisher or character over your career, both in short strips and in longer form comics such as Fred Hembeck Destroys the Marvel Universe. Are there any dream projects that you have yet to work on, or characters or series that you would like to play with?

Not really--though it might be cool to have a full blown Weisinger-era Superman family homage story of mine actually published inside a bona-fide DC Comic--THAT'D be fun!!


7. Lastly, what’s one specific storytelling technique you use that you could share with new creators to help them hone their craft?

Hmm--well, I always write WAY too much dialog, so I wouldn't advise anyone to follow me THERE. And the knee-squiggles are mine (I stole 'em from Mort Walker and Hank Ketcham fair and square)--HANDS OFF! I suppose my best advice would be to make sure that one panel flows logically into the next--don't get so hung up on drawing pretty pictures that you forget this salient fact!! And have fun--it'll show in the final product!!

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Breaking the Fourth Wall: Episode 10

It's been quite a while since the last update about my quest to break into the comics business as a writer, so I thought I'd get you all up to speed today. When last we met on this field of battle, I was discussing some theories on how to craft a competitive submission for Zuda Comics. One of the reasons I was interested in the topic is that I believe that Zuda may currently be the best opportunity for new creators to break into the field and as a result I have spent my time since working on developing a few Zuda projects of my own.

That, however, has its own pitfalls, in that I've discovered an industry secret that you probably aren't aware of, but which I am now going to share with you free of charge. You ready for this insight? Okay, here it is: comics need artists.

Yes, amazing as it is to think, comic books do require artists in order for them to have art and thus be comics instead of scripts. This is actually the next phase for me anyway, as I have already been sending out scripts and pitches to the few publishers that still accept them. But with those avenues in play, it's time to look to other venues, i.e. those that require completed art to accompany (or, more accurately, replace) the script.

Now, finding an artist isn't my strong suit. Many of the people I have spoken with about this subject have recommended certain online venues for meeting artists, but to be honest, none of them hold a lot of appeal for me. I have spent a decent amount of time reviewing art on these sites and checking out possible collaborators, but it's a pretty random and off-putting process that is not altogether unlike internet dating. Without being able to meet face to face and really talk about the concepts and ideas, it's hard to judge whether an artist would be a good fit for the project or not, or whether they would be enthusiastic about the project or not. And when it comes to art for my stories I am a bit of a perfectionist; comics is a visual medium and thus the art makes or breaks a story. No matter how awesome my script may be, bad art -- or simply art or an artist that doesn't suit the story -- will invariably undermine it. If something is going to be submitted professionally with my name attached to it, then it has to be professional and the best effort that can be put forth.

In terms of finding an artist, then, this means basically one thing: pay. The only way to really be sure about what you're getting is to hire a professional who has samples to prove both their suitability and their professionalism itself. And, of course, many of the artists available even through these online meat markets are freelancers looking for pay as much as portfolio credits, so when you do find someone good, chances are they are going to want some action up front. While many Zuda contestants have back end arrangements with their artists (i.e., if it gets accepted, then they get paid), that's not going to fly with your better, more experienced and more desirable artists.

So where does that leave me? Well, for now, I'm still looking for artists, but I'm also concentrating on making some money so that when I do find an artist I can actually pay them for their work. This has meant a bit of a break from actively pursuing comics work as I get other, paying jobs, but in thelong run I think it will pay off once I can find that elusive artist. And in order to do that I am currently exploring membership in the Comic Book Artists Guild, which will likely be opening a Boston chapter early next year; it is designed specifically as a networking organization to help up and coming creators develop their works and skills, so hopefully it will be a good way to meet a like-minded artist.

Until then, I will likely be sitting on my hands more or less. But that's okay. In the meantime I can still read comics, study Zuda and hone my craft until the time when I can actually take the next step and work with an honest-to-god, living, breathing artist.

And when that -- or any other development -- happens, you, my beloved readers, will be the first to know.

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Breaking the Fourth Wall: Episode 9

Last week we took a look at the webcomics engine Zuda Comics, where every month a new group of ten comics competes for a contract with DC. While some critics have issues with this sort of American Idol mentality in comics (either because of concern over creators rights being exploited or because of squeamishness over the idea of art being a competitive process), most creators rightly view Zuda as perhaps the single best means of breaking into the business today. Even if you don't win the competition, merely being accepted as a competitor guarantees widespread exposure within the comics community and tens of thousands of new eyes on your material.

In this episode of Breaking the Fourth Wall, then, we'll take a look at just what goes into crafting a successful Zuda submission. Of course, as I have yet to submit anything to Zuda, by definition this will be more theory than practice. However, some of my observations about the structure have been reinforced by my interview with pro writer and current Zuda competitor Tony Lee, so for another look at this topic you may want to check it out if you haven't already.

So what is the key to a successful Zuda entry? Well, in broad terms, it's the same thing that is key to crafting a successful story for any medium, which is this: write for the structure. Every format of story, whether it's the novel, epic poem or mainstream comics, has a specific and unique structure that determines how the story is told and, perhaps more importantly, how the story is read. We've already discussed in previous episodes some of the specifics of writing for comics, but even though Zuda may seem at first to be a straightforward comic medium, it actually has some specific quirks that can greatly affect the success of your submission. And the first of these is actually the structure of the competition itself.

Eight pages isn't a lot to work with, but because of the nature of the competition, you meed to fit a lot of specific information into those pages while also maintaining readability and pacing. Your goal here isn't just to create something compelling to read; it's to create something that will compel the reader to want to read more. In effect, you have to do everything a mainstream comics writer has to do, but with only one third of the space to do it in. Crafting a satisfying Zuda submission, then, requires focus on three things: the hook, the setup and the tease.


The Hook

Back in the Golden Age, comics used a symbolic splash page to draw readers in -- it acted almost as a second cover, teasing what was going to happen later in the story, which would then actually start on page two. During the Silver Age, Marvel perfected the technique of opening right in the middle of the action with an action-packed splash and then filling readers in on how they got there. Today, comics often start with a tease: the first page of pages will be a slow build, hinting at what is to come, and then the payoff will come with a big reveal a few pages in.

While I don't think the symbolic splash will work for Zuda, either the Silver Age or Modern Age hooks can be done effectively at Zuda. From this months entries, for instance, Impure Blood is a pretty good Silver Age style opening, with the reader jumping right into a massive gladiator battle right on the first page. Doc Monster uses the more Modern approach, with two slow build pages teasing the reader's curiosity and then the third page being a big blowout sequence, with a flying saucers erupting from the ground.

For my money, though, the most effective opening this month is Where Evils Dare, which is more in the Modern style as well. Page one shows some Nazis standing around talking, one of them is Dracula, it's kind of intriguing -- and then the second page is a full splash with hordes of Nazi zombie vampire dudes swarming forward. It's effective and visceral, but it also has another important quality: it's short. Just as the writer has fewer pages to work with, so too does the reader have fewer pages to get invested. A highly unscientific survey of comments on the Zuda boards indicates that a lot of readers just check out the first couple pages and if they don't like them they don't bother reading the rest of the entry. Even though eight pages doesn't seem like an overwhelming time commitment, it seems to me that on Zuda you probably only have two pages to hook your reader; as much as I enjoyed Doc Monster, I think it might have been better served by getting to the flying saucer a page earlier.

Whether you go with a Silver or Modern Age approach, though, the lesson here is the same: craft a good hook and get the readers involved right away, because even if you have the greatest page four in comics history, chances are if your page two isn't awesome, nobody will ever get that far. (For examples of this month's entries that I don't think had effective openings, I think Old Cthulhu's On the Rise took a little too long to get to the hook -- the fisherman guy didn't show up until page five).


The Setup

Even in a short, eight page tease like this, you should look at the submission in terms of classic story structure, with a beginning, a middle and an end. Usually, this can be roughly described as setting up the conflict, exploring the conflict and resovling the conflict. In the case of a Zuda entry, though, the whole eight pages is part of the beginning of a longer story, so the "middle" here is where you set up the conflict that you will explore if you happen to win.

That means a couple specific things. Firstly, you need to introduce your characters or, if they appeared during the hook, you need to show the reader why they are the main character and why the reader should care. And secondly, you need to present the premise of the series: what the story is about, who is in it and how you as a creator are going to tell it.

In terms of examples from this month, Doc Monster and Where Evils Dare take slightly different tacks with this. Where Evils Dare uses a fairly straightforward, classic style of comics storytelling; in the setting of a wartime mission briefing, we are introduced one by one to all of the characters and the premise of the series is literally spelled out by the officer giving the briefing. Doc Monster, on the other hand, presents the information through the use of narrative captions; while the characters are battling aliens in an action sequence, one of them gives an internal monologue commenting on the action and, more importantly, his co-star. The result is that the story doesn't bog down with exposition, as the reader is carried along by the action, but at the same time we still get an idea about what both characters are like and what the series is going to be about. While I think Where Evils Dare is a well crafted submission, in this case I think Doc Monster comes out slightly ahead and will be more readable for many modern readers.

(For an example of a current Zuda entry that did not have a proper Setup, A Polar Nightmare is probably the clearest example. After eight pages I'm still not really sure what the story is about other than there's an evil Santa involved somehow)


The Tease

And, of course, you have to go out with a bang in order to get your readers wondering what's going to happen on the next page. The cliffhanger is one of the oldest elements of serialized storytelling in literary tradition, so it's no wonder that most of the entries on Zuda do a pretty good job with it; even submissions that otherwise aren't particularly well crafted usually manage to end on a tease for future pages.

The main mistake Zuda creators seem to make is treating the entire eight pages eight pages as the tease. In a meta sense, as I've already discussed, this is true; but what ends up happening in many entries is that the first seven pages are slow buildup to the cliffhanger on page eight and, for reasons I've gone over, this doesn't work because most readers won't get to page eight if you do this. Impure Blood, Doc Monster, Where Evils Dare and Pluck all end on solid teases this month, while A Polar Nightmare is an example of an entry where the entire story seems to be a tease.

I also wanted to mention Blitz, which runs into a less common issue at Zuda, which is a story that doesn't seem to have been specifically crafted for the Zuda format. In this case, the tease at the end almost seems tacked on at the last minute, with one of the characters randomly finding a newspaper in the last panel that tells them some shocking information. This is part of why I think it's important to create a story specifically for Zuda, because if you don't take into consideration the specific structure requirements of the competition you may end up with a story that is well written and well drawn but that still fails because it was intended for a different format.


Page Structure

I know what you're thinking: you're not done yet? Well, I do have a couple more things to mention about the unique challenges presented by Zuda. But these are more nuts and bolts comments about the technical details of working with something that has befuddled and irritated thousands of people over the last two years: the Zuda page viewer.

Not that there's anything wrong with it; I happen to find it intuitive and perfectly functional. But it also has a couple minor details about it that might at first slip by without notice but which can be very important to writing a successful submission, the first and most important being the shape of the page.

When I asked Where Evils Dare writer Tony Lee about this, he deferred to his artist, Stefano Martino. And if you are a successful artist or are working with a someone experienced in layout, this will be less of an issue. Even so, as a writer, when you are planning sequences within your story you need to always be aware of just how this will be portrayed visually on the page. And that's a bit tricky on Zuda because of the horizontal page shape for two reasons. Firstly, as a comics reader, we've simply been trained over however many years to think of comic books in terms of a vertical page, so figuring out panel sequences in a horizontal setting can prove challenging. Secondly, though, and more subtly, the horizontal structure isn't necessarily as conducive to action simply because the human form is vertical in nature. If you have people running or jumping or fighting, being able to show them in a vertical panel is simply more natural than trying to fit a vertical shape into a horizontal panel, because their body will basically bisect the frame.

I won't get into it too much here, but I wanted to mention this difficulty because I think the creator needs to be thinking about this from the moment they begin crafting a Zuda submission. The structure has to come first and in this case you will want to work very closely with your artist in planning page layouts and choreographing action sequences; or if you are drawing it yourself, you'll need to be careful figuring out how to make the sory flow not just between panels, but in this case within panels as well.

Lastly, the Zuda viewer also presents a slightly different experience form a traditional comic book because it only shows one page at a time, whereas comics sometimes show two. Sure, you're only reading on at a time in a comic book, but for a writer this is important because of a technique I haven't had a chance to discuss much yet, which is the last panel tease. Basically, when you're writing a story and you get to a page break -- where the reader has to literally turn the page to get to the next part -- it's a good idea to put a small tease, such as a mini-cliffhanger or perhaps an interrupted dialgoe balloon (where the sentence is completed on the following page) in order to get the reader to turn the page instead of putting down the comic. Zuda, though, only shows one page at a time, meaning you need to always be aware of every page ending. With many readers only giving these submissions a brief test before even reading eight pages, it's especially important that every page end with a lead into the next page in order to convince them to hit the Next arrow and keep reading. It means being somewhat more careful with pacing, but if you want to ensure readers stay engaged, it could be vital.

Conclusion

To sum up, then, to craft a successful Zuda submission you need to draw the readers in quickly, introduce the plot and concept of the series, show them who the characters are and why they should care, and end with a cliffhanger tease to get them wanting more. This needs to be done in eight pages, using unfamiliar page shapes, panel layouts and page counts. Because of this, when you write a story for Zuda, you need to do that: write it for Zuda specifically with Zuda's unique challenges in mind. Otherwise you risk crafting a story that may be great, but might never be read.

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Zuda Week Interview: Seven Questions with TONY LEE

All this week we've been looking at Zuda Comics and their smorgasbord of webcomic delights. To cap things off, then, we're happy to present an interview with pro comic writer and current Zuda contestant Tony Lee. Along with artist Stefano Martino, Tony is the power behind the supernatural war yarn Where Evils Dare, which has managed to rake in over 24,000 views in just the first four days of competition. As the writer of such comics as Doctor Who and Hope Falls, there's a ton we could have asked, but instead we decided to respect the theme and stick to our metaphorical Zuda guns.

Let's go the tape!


1. You currently have, along with artist Stefano Martino, a comic in competition at Zuda – Where Evils Dare. What can you tell us about this project and how did it come about?

Where Evils Dare is something I've had brewing about for a long time - to give you an idea how long, artist Sam Hart was looking to do a version of it back in 2005, before he took on the book that eventually became Outlaw: The Legend Of Robin Hood (out now, Candlewick Press). And after that an artist friend named Jim Boswell was going to do it, but took on a larger project as nothing seemed to be happening with this.

But then Stefano came along late last year - I'd been talking to Zuda at this point, David Gallaher had discussed the whole thing with me and suggested that Where Evils Dare might be a good fit - and I'd just done an issue of Doctor Who: The Forgotten with Stefano, thought he was a brilliant artist, and couldn't understand why he wasn't getting more work. So I spoke to him, explained what the situation was, that if we won we got the DC gig, but more importantly either way, he had a ton of exposure on his work. And so Stefano came on board. From there we just created the pages.


2. As a fan of war comics, particularly some of the more offbeat DC books from the 60’s and 70’s that often featured supernatural plot elements, this story was right in my wheelhouse. As the creator, what kind of influences prompted you to create this story and where are you hoping to take it in the future?

I've always had a fascination with Dracula - the fact that I have a book out in November that's an almost direct sequel to the book (From The Pages of Bram Stoker's 'Dracula': Harker, out November by AAM/Markosia) should show that - and War movies have always been a favourite, so putting the two together wasn't exactly an original idea, but I hope that establishing a solid link between this and Dracula is! Added to that we've added several more famous literary creations, like Frankenstein's Monster, shown in this as reanimated Nazi corpses... the list goes on. And if we won, we have a ton more along the same lines to bring in, including an Allied soldier named Jekyll...

But we've got a whole wealth of back matter to play with. We have Nosferatu, we have Golems, we have American Indian totems, we have demons, Werewolves that are dead that have been re-animated back to life, so yes - Zombie Werewolves, and a whole load of additional stuff we can tap. The thing with pulp genre is that it's there for everything you ever want. And we'll be using it all! Well, if we win...


3. One thing that stood out to me about Where Evils Dare was the pacing, which seemed to be specifically tailored to the eight page tease format that Zuda presents. How did you go about crafting your submission and how is it different from the longer form comics you’ve worked on in the past?

Most comics when they have an issue one start with the build up, explaining the characters - and I learned the hard way that this can be an issue - I wrote a series called Stalag 666 for 2000ad right before I started on this and it was a Great Escape style of story - and of course you have to guild up to the escape. I took a lot of criticisms for that, and I realised that I'd probably have done better starting with the escape and just leaping back, so when I started these eight pages, I knew I had to start with some action. But that said, I couldn't just go 'Boom! Here's a fight!' as that would just be confusing.

I knew I had to, in the first eight pages a) introduce the main baddies. (People like to see who the monsters are. And with Dracula and Von Frankenstein, we needed a page at least to introduce them. I also realised that a full page page 2 would steal space, but also give the reader a full view of the horrors the heroes faced) b) show the baddies at work - in this case a small pitched battle where we also introduce Helena, one of the three survivors - and the guide for the troop. She's bitter, injured - and a nice foil for the heroes. On that note c) we have to introduce the heroes in such a way that we know why they're here, what they're doing and how they're going to do it. Here we show the tidbits of the back story, that Captain Harker is of THAT family, etc etc, how he doesn't trust Renfield, etc etc - and then d) we need to end the story with a page that just screams 'read me! vote for me to read me more!'

I think it works, but the biggest difference between this and my usual comics is the end decider. In comics, it's an editor who decides, maybe even a publisher. But here it's thousands of readers. And each one needs to be excited enough by this to register an account and vote.


4. To follow up with another technical question, how important to you are the structure and format of the medium when crafting your stories? And how might this affect your story if you win the competition, where readers will be seeing new material in four page increments instead of traditional, longer forms?

I tried to keep the style to the same amount of beats, of panels that I would usually use. But yeah, the styling is different - having a half page wide screen isn't as 'square' as it is in a comic, it's wide yet short. This changes the angle you describe a scene. It's easier to have three panels along the top, it's not so easy to do a two by three grid. But I have to say, although I write it, Stefano takes the story and runs with it. Most of the layout design is all him. The guy's a genius.

As for how we'd continue? I'd have to check with Stefano. But I'd hate to be one of these 'page a week' comics. That would just kill me. I'd rather build a backlog and throw out four solid pages a week. But this is something I don't even have to think about until the end and, judging from my competition, maybe not even then!


5. One thing that I find is a challenge working with Zuda is trying to think in terms of a horizontal page layout instead of the vertical form comics have traditionally been printed in. Did this present you with any challenges, or was this something that your artist Stefano Martino dealt more with?

As I said above, I tried to keep my pages basic in design. allowing Stefano to 'do his thing'. He's an artist, I'm not. he knows the best way to lay out a page. If he didn't like the way something flowed, he'd look to make it better, and I'd just re-edit here and there when I did the lettering. Often it made a better comic.


6. Of course, beyond Zuda you’ve done quite a bit of work for various comics publishers like Marvel and IDW. What kind of feedback have you received regarding the idea of having established pros competing at Zuda, either from the fans or other pros?

People think I'm mad, and they don't understand why I did it. To most, Zuda is an almost ignored subject, they go 'sure, it's a DC Contract, but it's not a real DC contract' and I have to explain that no matter what they think, yes, it is. People think I'm in a lose / lose situation here. If I win, people go 'of course he did. he was a ringer'. If I lose, people go 'look at that guy. Lost to [insert name here] and he's supposed to be a name?' And yeah, they're right as I already get that a little.

I'm here because I was invited to have a play in the sandbox. I'm in the competition because I want to gain awareness for Stefano and for Zuda itself. We hit more views in three days than some previous winners did in the entire month. That's great news for Zuda, for DC and for Stefano, and more people see his work. Of course, it's great for me. And of course, I make a point of repeatedly pushing viewers to look at other strips and yes, I know I've lost votes because of that attitude - but I'm NOT going to be one of those douches who yells 'VOTE FOR ME' at everyone and badmouths my competition on public forums in an attempt to lose them votes, so it's great for the competition as they get more views and votes by default from the new people looking at their work.

If I win? Great. Because we always want to win. It's Human nature. But if I lose? Ah well. I did my best to build the brand and more people will visit Zuda every month, with luck.

But wait til the third week when I'm second and THAT close...


7. Finally, I like to close my interviews by asking every creator the following question: what’s one specific storytelling technique you use that you could share with new creators to help them hone their craft?

Letter your own comic. Even once. I know writers who put stupid amounts of words in a balloon and just expect the letterer to magically sort it. But when you letter your own page, you're that letterer. You gain a new respect to how words go on the page. You learn the flow of dialogue. And you'll learn the joys of brevity in a script!

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Breaking the Fourth Wall: Episode 8

Last time out I discussed how to craft a script sample for submission and briefly touched upon the importance of studying what techniques the pros are using in order to develop your own storytelling skills. Today, we're going to look at that idea a little further using an example from acclaimed (and currently unacclaimed) comics writer James Robinson. Yes, it's time to crack open the comics vault and pull out one of the most critically beloved series of all time, Starma... oh, wait. No, we're actually going to be looking at Firearm.

I know what you're thinking: what the F? Yes, that wasn't some sort of internet typing Tourette's, we're going to take a look at a Malibu comic book. While this may seem a bit counter-intuitive, in some ways Malibu is actually the perfect company to study when you want to learn writing tips, because they hired a lot of top talent but still published almost all of their books right at the height of the mid-90's bad art explosion. Because comics is such a visual medium, good art can often obscure good writing, making it more difficult to determine just which storytelling elements are being contributed by which collaborator. With Malibu this isn't so much of an issue, because there were top writers working on titles alongside artists who, even when they were talented, were being handcuffed by having to draw in this godawful 90's style (though to be fair, most of the art in Firearm is pretty solid). So when something comes out of it that's actually good, chances are you can figure out right away why: the writing.

Firearm is a particularly interesting case because they seemed to have trouble locking down a steady artist, meaning just about every issue is done by a different person; the only unifying voice throughout the series is that of Robinson. Moreover, the series is a direct antecedent to the series that would make him famous, Starman; indeed, the two series actually overlapped, with the final issue of Firearm (#18) being published at the same time as Starman #5. Because of this, many of the storytelling ideas and techniques that Robinson would go on to use to great acclaim in Starman can be seen germinating in his run on Firearm, including the one we're going to focus on today, which I like to call Contrapuntal Narration.

Okay, there's certainly some other term for this, but since I lent out my copy of Understanding Comics, you're going to have to bear with me. No, contrapuntal isn't some sort of dirty synonym for fellatio; it's actually a term I borrowed from the world of music. In the world of music, contrapuntal refers to "a style of musical composition employing two or more simultaneous but relatively independent melodic lines"; another definition is "of or pertaining to counterpoint". So how does this relate to comics? Here's my definition:

Contrapuntal Narrative is when narrative captions are telling a story that is unrelated to the art.

Now, "unrelated" is probably a bit too firm of a word here; what I mean by unrelated is simply that the narration is neither describing the scene nor an element of the scene. But while the content of the narrative may be separate from the art, the fact that it appears in the same space as the art creates a relationship between the two. This is similar in some ways to cinematic montage, a technique in motion pictures where unrelated images are flashed in sequence; this causes the viewer to unconsciously connect the dots between the images, producing an emotional response that is greater than and different from what either image alone would induce.

Sound familiar? It should, because it's the same basic idea behind comics. In cinematic montage, the time between the two images serves the same purpose as the gutter between panels does in comics (see, even though I lent it out I still remember some of what I read in Understanding Comics). But in Contrapuntal Narrative, there is neither space nor time separating the two story elements; instead, it is the difference between words and pictures that causes the split.

This, too, is perhaps the single central magic of comics: the fusion of words and images to create an artistic experience that is greater than what either alone can produce. You can forgive me, then, if I admit that Contrapuntal Narrative is one of my favorite writing techniques, because for me it captures all the magic of comics in one single panel; and because it is tied into the DNA of the form so closely, it can often be an especially powerful form of storytelling.

Of course, like any other technique, there are times to use it and times to use something else. In Firearm, the narrative captions are usually describing what the main character, P.I. Alec Swan, is thinking. And so for most of the series, simple, classic thought balloons would have sufficed instead of narrative boxes. However, occasionally what Swan is "thinking" about is so completely unrelated to what is going on that a thought balloon wouldn't make sense. Is a guy in a life or death firefight going to be contemplating the meaning of a dream he had a few days ago? Probably not. In fact, any kind of long form narration in the heat of the battle would feel jarring and unrealistic to the reader. By using narrative captions instead of word balloons, then, Robinson gets the best of both worlds, because the captions can function as either thought balloons directly explaining what Swan is doing in a particular scene; or they can diverge completely from the story to provide a larger, more meta commentary when called for.

In Firearm, Robinson uses this technique most often during fight sequences, which I think is appropriate; comic readers are so used to seeing battles that the visceral impact of them is usually lost or at least stunted by the repetition. By adding Contrapuntal Narrative -- dialogue that differs in content and tone from the images -- it forces the reader to engage the sequence more fully to understand what is going on. In addition, the text can often add a layer of meaning that enhances the story being told by the images without necessarily directly correlating to it.

Take as an example the panels accompanying this essay. These panels are all from Firearm #11; it is this specific sequence where I first recognized this technique as a younger reader. In the images, Alec Swan is engaging in a running gun battle with some assailants (all of which is taking place inside a virtual reality). The text, meanwhile, relays a seemingly unrelated story about a dream that Alec had where he was visited by Lord Byron. Here, Robinson does a couple interesting things. Firstly, after three pages we learn that the dream was about Byron prophesying Swan's death; thematically, then, the seemingly unrelated dream discussion dovetails with the art, because the closer Swan gets to the end of the dream -- his "death" -- the closer Swan seems to get to his actual death in the art. And secondly, this disparity -- between the death Byron had prophesied and the way Swan seems to actually die on page eight of this sequence -- not only creates tension through cognitive dissonance, but also ends up being foreshadowing for a multi-part storyline that begins in Firearm #12. At the time you read this sequence, then, the disparity between the narrative and the art ends up crating four distinct storylines: one told through text, one told through art, one created in the mind of the reader through the increasing synergy between the narrative and the art and a fourth that only become apparent when the next issue comes out and recasts the entire encounter in a different context.

Not half bad for one simple storytelling technique.


Tomorrow: Okay, so Robinson knows a few tricks. But are the stories actually, you know, cool? Tomorrow we leave theory behind and check out the actual results as I review Firearm #1-18. Check it out!

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Voices from Artists Alley: TYLER JAMES part 2

We wrap up our week of conversations with the self-publishing set with the second half of our talk with writer and artist Tyler James. In case you missed yesterday's segment, where Tyler talked about his own projects, now is the time to read it. DO IT. Okay, back? Good, then let'stake a look at the second half of our interview, where Tyler discusses a topic near and dear to my heart: how to break into comics. But while I've been talking to you guys about how to submit within the system, Tyler focuses more on how to create your own system to get your ideas seen.

Let's go to the tape!


Scott Harris: I’m not too familiar yet with web comics, but I’m curious just what the business model is. You publish your stories and you’re building your readership, but just how do you make this financially viable? Do you have sponsors that advertise on your site? Or is there some other way?

Tyler: You know, there are a number of different business models. I’m also a two time competitor on Zuda Comics, Super Seed was a competitor on Zuda. There, it’s owned by DC Comics, their business model is they’re looking for comics properties. They post them online for free and then they’ll eventually collect them in a trade and sell those, and also look to exploit them into other media. So that’s what the big DC/Warner Brother model is, that’s their apparatus.

A different business model, and really the self-publishing model, is something that’s been around for the last ten years or so, and that’s comics like PVP. The web comic world is huge. Basically what you do is, you put your comic up for free and support yourself by posting ads for other sites, by selling things like collections of your book at shows or online; and then other merchandise, T-shirts, buttons, bumper stickers, prints, and that’s the business model. And, you know, it’s tough because there’s a lot of stuff out there but on the flip side, some of my comics had more eyeballs on them than some of the lower selling Image titles in the last month. Simply because it’s online, free – it’s exposure.

And I really think, to work for Marvel and DC, the way to do that is not to just submit story after story of your take on Superman because if you look at everybody that’s working on big name comics, they’re bringing an audience with them when they get there. If you don’t have a web presence you’re shooting yourself in the foot nowadays. That’s just what I’ve been seeing. And as I’ve been putting up content on a regular basis, using social media, you find that you can really start to build a name for yourself.

I also teach a class. I’m from Newburyport on the North Shore and I teach a class on creating comics and writing for comics and graphic novels. And I write a column every Monday on the Comic Related website, it’s called Creating Comics: the Art and Craft.

This is something I'm personally interested in: how do you contact and form relationships with artists? Do you meet them at conventions, or do you usually contact artists online?

Sometimes. Chris Gibbs is around the corner; I started chatting with him at a show and he did a pin-up for CounterTERROR for me, which is cool. But there are a couple sites online – Digital Webbing is probably the most popular one, if you just post an ad and they have a section for collaborations and a section for paid work.

A project I’m working on is going to be trying to improve on that process, make it easier to match up artists with writers and writers with artists online. But for now, [it's] posting stuff on forums going on sites like Digital Webbing or Comics Space and just find an artist you like and contact him directly.

I teach a course on writing, and one of the things we do is we look at solicitations for artists. And there’s a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it, and you do see a lot of the wrong stuff out there.

I don’t know if you saw the announcement that Marvel did; in their open submissions for artists, they hadn’t actually picked anyone for five years. Very, very rare is the publisher that will see a script, love it so much that they say we got to get this guy and find an artist for it. The business just doesn’t support that.

So if you really want to write comics, you’ve gotta write comics and get them in comics form. I’d suggest starting with just short stories, five pages, eight pages, learn how to work with artists because that’s a big process. For me, I’m lucky that I have a modicum of artistic talent that I don’t necessarily need anyone to tell stories. Like [Super Seed], I did everything on that one, I did lettering, I did coloring, I did the production, I did everything.

But to do things at a higher level, I can’t do everything. So on Tears of the Dragon, this is gorgeous stuff, I have a colorist in Canada and the artist that I’m working with [in Indonesia]. And this is better than the last thing I did working with an artist.

I think it’s really frustrating to send stuff out and not hear anything back. [But] it’s well within your power to make books happen. And rather than sitting on the sidelines and hoping that someone else is going to make it happen, I’d just encourage you to take a shot at it. Do something small, especially since I assume you don’t have a huge war chest ready to throw at the top caliber artists. But there are people that are out there that will work for art supplies, that will work for credits as long as they know you’re going to be pushing forward with it.

Nobody’s going to sign up sight unseen for the deals of “you’ll get paid on the back end of it so draw my 70 page graphic novel”, because it just takes too long. You’re asking too much of someone’s time for that. But can you get someone to do a five page or eight page story for some art supplies and a little bit of beer money? Yeah. And if you’re willing to put in a little bit more, you can get guys that are really goo. I mean, this artist that I worked with here, he’s doing work for Boom! Studios now. He’s a year or two away from Marvel. He’s that good. And because I’ve had other work out there before, and I’ve worked with other artists, he was willing to give me a pretty good deal on a page rate. A lot less than he should be charging. But that’s because I have work out there.

Now, if you don’t have any work out there, an artist is going to give you, you know, 80 hours or 100 hours of work, so you just gotta think of it from that perspective.

But make it happen. Take control.

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Voices from Artists Alley

Everyone loves a comic book show. Sure, Comic-Con in San Diego gets all the big press, but for most fans, just heading down to the local hotel complex to browse through a hundred long boxes in the renovated dining hall provides just as big a thrill. And even if you can't afford the big back issues up on the display wall, just getting a look at them in the flesh -- seeing those crisp Golden Age Adventure and More Fun covers, for example -- is exciting enough.

But as nice as rifling through the bargain bin can be, the big draw at most conventions is the chance to meet the people who create these stories. After all, back issues you can get at your local store or online. But when was the last time you were able to buy a conversation with Walt Simonson on eBay? That's an experience that can only be found in one place on Earth, the most magical street this side of Diagon Alley: Artists Alley.

It's not just the big stars who show up at conventions to mingle and mix with the fans, though. Take a look around Artists Alley and you'll likely see a dozen or a hundred unknown faces, sitting at table after table promoting titles and characters you've never heard of. These are the up and comers, the dreamers and the people who work in comics not for fame or fortune but simply because they love the medium. And the sad thing is, while you line up behind forty other fans to have Geoff Johns sign three dozen copies of his latest crossover for some online auction, most of those independent creators on Artists Alley sit alone, ignored, talking mostly to each other while people with DC and Marvel in their eyes wander by in an oblivious fog.

Hey, I've done it too. But in our zest to meet the famous, we sometimes forget that those people once were unknowns too; and that the richest ideas don't come out of editorial decrees, but out of individual visions. As I've discussed before, I learned that myself purely by accident when I passed my time in line for some star by chatting with Alex Robinson, whose little indy book -- Box Office Poison -- went on to become one of the most acclaimed (and one of my favorite) comics of the decade.

So what other voices are out there right now, struggling on the convention circuit to find a few people willing to give their book a try? That's what I'm aiming to find out in my new feature, Voices from Artists Alley. In this (necessarily) sporadic feature, I'll be heading to comic conventions when I have the chance and conducting interviews -- not with the big stars, but with the creators in Artists Alley, the men and women who are chasing the dream. Not a dream of movie rights, action figures and Wizard promotions, but the ultimate dream: making good comics that tell good stories.

Starting tomorrow, then, I'll be presenting a series of interviews I conducted this past Sunday at the New England Comic Convention in Boston, where I had the opportunity to talk to six of these new voices in comics about their projects. I hope you'll give these interviews and these comics a try. And the next time you're at a show and you head down Artists Alley, take a minute to look around.

Because you never known who or what may be there, just waiting for you to find them.

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Breaking the Fourth Wall: Episode 7

Breaking news: I have just received my first official rejection letter. For those of you playing along at home, this was for the Dystopian pitch, which had been sent to Insomnia Publications. The rejection email I got was a pretty nice one, though, as it specifically said they weren't rejecting it because of the concept or the writing but rather because it doesn't fit their publishing format. You may recall that I discussed this very thing at length, so it's a bit funny that I still didn't quite get it right in my actual proposal; but I'm not surprised either. Essentially they publish complete one-volume trades and I submitted an ongoing (though finite) story that I tried to shoehorn into their format by pitching it as a series of trades. They rightly pointed out that this would not be doing the pacing of my story any favors, but they did say they'd be happy to review any other submissions I might send them, so that's good. Plus, the turnaround time was less than a month, which is brilliant. Overall, then, this was a fairly positive experience.

Prior to receiving that update, I had already written today's episode of Breaking the Fourth Wall, so here is what I originally had planned for today.



Last time out I discussed the proposals I have submitted and just how you go about tailoring your pitches for different publishers. That's all well and good, but today I'd like to take a look at a different side of the submission process: script samples.

Now, pretty much every publisher that still accepts writing submissions requires you to include a sample script, whether it's a full script of just the first few pages. And that's fine, especially because it allows you to really flesh out the proposal you are pitching. But there are some companies that actually want to see a sample of your scripting abilities before they will even take a look at the actual pitch. And that presents a quite different set of writing challenges than a regular pitch does.

Take a look, for example, at this submission requirement from Committed Comics:

"If you are interested in submitting to Committed Comics as a writer please write no more then a five (5) page story with a clear beginning, middle, and end. If you are going to use unknowns (your own creator owned characters) please ensure that there is enough description for our editorial staff to know the characters."

Now, by today's comic book standards, a complete five page story is akin to asking someone to translate the Dead Sea Scrolls into sign language. When mainstream megastars like Brian Michael Bendis are taking five pages to show a guy walking from his kitchen to his living room, the idea of having to actually craft an entire story of that length can seem amazing. Wherefore art thou, decompression?

Yet, it's far from an unusual or atypical request. Time Bomb Comics, for example, has essentially the same requirements (though they loosen it up a bit by making it 5-8 pages instead of just five), while Viper Comics... doesn't accept submissions. However, they did hold a writing contest over the summer that had almost the exact same requirements as Committed, except they specified that you had to use established characters rather than original properties (partially for legal reasons, I'm sure, but also because it would therefore be easier for the editors to gauge how good your characterization is). [note: I did not win that contest, as you can see from the link, but I haven't heard back from them either, so it's possible I was one of the runners-up they mentioned -- I'll let you know when I hear from them]

So, how do you go about putting together a viable five page sample using established characters? Hmm.

For me, I decided to do the obvious: if today's comics aren't publishing complete stories in that format, then why not look at comics from the past that did and emulate those? And there are plenty of examples to look at, because for decades, this kind of tight plotting and pacing was de rigueur for just about every publisher, especially when dealing with anthology books.

The most famous and probably most artistically successful stories ever done in this format were from EC Comics, but I personally don't have any of those lying around, so when preparing my five page story I instead turned to a somewhat easier source to procure: DC war comics. Luckily, I have lots of these stacked all over my bedroom, so pulling out a few gems from Bob Haney or Robert Kanigher wasn't a problem.

What stands out in these stories is the pacing, specifically contrasted to today's decompression. Where modern comics often try to emulate film and thus rely on multiple repeated frames to visually convey progression of time or emotion, in a five page story you just don't have that luxury. Instead, each panel becomes its own complete scene and the captions or dialogue become the key element to adding depth to the tale. In essence the pictures are the plot and the words are the heart; the shorter format places a higher premium on the writing to carry as much of a load as the art.

In addition, many of these stories do not have the space to fully develop a climax (and certainly not a denouement) so many rely on sudden, twist endings that recast everything that came before in a different light. This was a specialty of EC in particular, and it's one method of adding an emotional punch to a tale that otherwise might not have the breathing room to provide it (the most famous example being the ending to their classic story "Judgement Day", shown here).

These are just a couple techniques that I noticed when studying some of the classic short stories from the past; the point is that, as always, becoming familiar with the storytelling techniques that have been successful will in turn help you to become successful; and knowing the rules of the form is the only way you can successfully break the rules when you get proficient enough to do so. In my specific case, I decided to just go with a straight-up old school DC style war story for my submission: five pages, tight plotting, narrative captions, twist ending, etc. In order to satisfy the requirements of having an established character, I decided to go with Ben Grimm during his now forgotten (and retconned) tenure as a fighter pilot during World War II.

Whether or not this somewhat retro style of storytelling will pay off in terms of successful submissions, I'm not sure (I ended up sending slightly different versions of this same sample to all three of the companies I mentioned before), but the effort of studying and attempting to replicate the format certainly provided invaluable experience, so even if it doesn't lead to work it was worth the time.


Next time: Barring news from any of the other submissions I have out in the ether (that's two more pitches and three samples for those keeping track), our next episode of Breaking the Fourth Wall will discuss a specific storytelling technique I learned from the work of one of my favorite writers of the 90's, James Robinson. See you then!

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Breaking the Fourth Wall: Episode 6

Yesterday I discussed some strategies for developing properties and pitches. Which is great, but by now you’re probably wondering if I've actually been doing any of these things or if I'm just talking out my ass. Get to the point already, Mr. Writer Guy! God.

Very well then. As I mentioned yesterday, Antarctic Press is one of those companies I have identified that accepts writing proposals; there are a few others, but many of them have guidelines that require significantly more work that a standard proposal. To start out with, then, I’m going to focus on those three companies I’ve identified whose guidelines I find the simplest and most direct: Antarctic Press, Dark Horse Comics and Insomnia Publications.

One thing that is helping me is that, prior to the beginning of my research, I brainstormed about a dozen concepts for stories which could work either as finite or ongoing series. Once I identified my target publishers, then, it became a matter of figuring out which ideas suited each publisher best based on my research and then developing an appropriate pitch targeting that company.

For Antarctic, I actually had a pitch that I had originally developed some time ago that fit them perfectly. Not only was the subject matter similar to what they usually specialize in – i.e. manga and anime influenced adventure – the series itself was structured to being with a two-issue stand alone story. This is important because as I mentioned yesterday, Antarctic prefers to publish short tryout series before considering ongoing properties. So in order to tailor this existing pitch to Antarctic, basically I just had to write it up according to their guidelines and lop off everything except that first story; instead of a pitch for a series, it became a pitch for a two issue tryout. As we follow the progress of my various submissions, we’ll call this the Manga pitch and, like the other pitches I’m about to describe, I submitted it back on August 20.

The second publisher is Insomnia Publications. This one I had a little more trouble with, partially because I wasn’t familiar with their titles prior to beginning my research but also because of their formatting. As an independent British publisher, Insomnia targets the secondary market – i.e., they don’t put out monthly issues like most U. S. companies but instead specialize in graphic novels and book-size, complete stories. The problem I faced here is that, once I took a look at their library of titles, I realized that the story that was best suited for them from a content standpoint wasn’t one I could fit into their publication format; it was a finite story, but no matter how I finessed it, it was just too long. In the end I compromised and sent them a pitch for a series of graphic novels, as I think I could squeeze the entire story start to finish into 4 or 5 trades. It’s not optimal, and I’m working on another pitch for them that better fits what they want in total, but we’ll call this pitch the Dystopian pitch. One other side note about Insomnia: they accept submissions online, via email, which doesn’t necessarily cut down on the turnaround time but makes it a lot easier from my standpoint as someone submitting. So that’s a plus.

Lastly, we have Dark Horse. Dark Horse is, of course, one of the largest and most respected comic publishers. While their sales distantly trail Marvel and DC, Dark Horse has become kind of the HBO of comics, offering high quality alternative programming in a number of genres other than straight superheroics. They also have a fairly comprehensive set of submission guidelines, which is good; the more information you have about what the publisher wants, the easier it is to craft a presentation that will appeal to them. Overall, of the companies I have researched so far, I like Dark Horse’s format the best, as it encompasses most of the major details of a pitch without being ridiculously time consuming.

In general terms, they ask that you send in a series overview along with a plot summary for the first several issues (if it is an ongoing) and an eight page script sample that covers the beginning of the first issue (again, for ongoing series; they have different guidelines for other formats). While I spoke yesterday about the importance of crafting not just your pitch but the story itself for the specific publisher you are targeting, another viable option would be to craft your pitches as though they were going to Dark Horse and then alter it to fit different publishers. The reasons for this are that a) Dark Horse publishes a wide variety of genres, so whatever the story is they would be a reasonable destination and b) their submission guidelines are broad enough that they eclipse what most other companies require, meaning you can edit down from Dark Horse to meet other guidelines rather than having to add material. This may sound like it runs counter to my statement at the beginning that other publishers ask for more work than these three, but in most of those cases it’s in one specific area (for example, one publisher asks that you script the entire story before submitting it rather than just sending the beginning as a sample; the chances of them actually reading the entire script if they don’t like the beginning is exactly zero, so I’m not sure why this is necessary).

As I tend to prefer larger scale, ongoing stories rather than either mini-series or one shot graphic novels, I have to say that the pitch I sent to Dark Horse is my favorite of the three I submitted in August. It also is right in their wheelhouse in terms of the type of non-superhero adventure books they like to publish, so we’ll just call this one the Adventure pitch. One drawback of Dark Horse’s current submission policy is that they only respond to your pitch if they are going to buy it; they don’t send out rejection letters or anything else. This makes it a bit difficult to know when they have reviewed it, which is important for the purposes of submitting it to other publishers. I personally don’t like doing simultaneous submissions and I know most companies also frown on this, so this could potentially lead to problems. That would only happen if Dark Horse and a second publisher both wanted to buy the project, though, so in those terms the problems would be only positive in nature and I guess I’ll be happy to deal with that if it happens.

To recap, then: so far I've sent out three full scale submissions, one each to Dark Horse, Antarctic and Insomnia, which we'll refer to in the future as the Adventure pitch, the Manga pitch and the Dystopian pitch. My plan going forward is to continue developing new pitches to submit to these and other publishers; and if any of these get rejected, I'll simply reformat the pitch and submit it to one of the other publishers. The idea is to get as many plates spinning as possible and as soon as I hear back on any of these, you'll be the first to know, so feel free to play along at home. After all, we're in this together.


Next time: So, we’ve sent out our submissions. Now what? Well, there are some companies that take submissions from writers only after they’ve reviewed a writing sample. Next time we’ll discuss some of these publishers and just what goes into crafting a writing sample as opposed to a full pitch.

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Breaking the Fourth Wall: Episode 5

Over the past few weeks I’ve discussed some of the background behind my current attempt to break into the comic industry as a writer. Now, however, it’s time to get into the meat of it a little bit as I discuss how you go about getting published these days and where I am in my own efforts.

As I’ve mentioned before, there aren’t a lot of comic book publishers these days who look at writing submissions. One of the driving forces behind this trend is the internet. Thanks to both online comics and the way the internet has made self-publishing viable from both cost and time perspectives, many comics book publishers feel that there is a large pool of proven talent available; instead of having people send in samples to try to prove they can do comics, the idea is that you can prove it by actually doing comics. Plus, many publishers are just that – publishers. They are looking to print and distribute finished products rather than develop talent and create properties from scratch.

In other words, most publishers are putting the onus on the writer to become their own editor and producer, and once the comics are done, then the publisher will look at it and decide it they want to hire the writer or publish the comic themselves. This is perfectly reasonable from their point of view, but for writers who just want to concentrate on their writing it can be a bit of a hurdle.

It’s certainly not insurmountable, however. For the purposes of this exercise, then, we’re going to go ahead and ignore these other self-publishing options and focus on what opportunities there are for writers in the current market. In order to give yourself the best chance to break into the business as a writer there are two main things you need to do: research publishers and tailor your submission to fit their needs. Let’s take a look at what I mean and how I used these concepts to shape the actual submissions I have sent out so far.

Research Publishers

This seems pretty obvious, but the first step is to figure out which publishers accept submissions. I’ve heard a lot of editors saying they receive mounds of unsolicited submissions, even at companies that clearly state they don’t accept them, so even though this appears to be a no-brainer it’s not. When I decided to start sending out pitches, the first thing I did – before I even began working on any of my story ideas – was to go online and start visiting websites of various publishers in order to see what kind of submission guidelines they have.

I was prepared to share all this with you, my beloved readers – the fruits of my hours of hard labor – but then I discovered that someone else has already done the dirty work and posted it online. Had I known this I could have saved myself a lot of trouble, but now I am passing those savings on to you.

Optimistically titled “The Submission Guidelines for every Comic and Manga Publisher in the Universe”, the full listing – which can be found here – does, in fact, give a great deal of detail about submission guidelines for a lot of publishers and even more helpfully provides links to their websites. This is important, because as nice as this resource is, it does have one flaw – it was posted in March. You would think that it would be up to date – and it is, relatively speaking – but even just a few months later I’ve already found a few companies that have since changed their guidelines, usually for the worse as far as writers are concerned. For example, Penny-Farthing Press, which is listed here as accepting writing submissions (and whose website also states this), doesn’t actually accept writing submissions any more.

So this guide, while handy, should really be your starting point. Check out every website yourself and if you have any doubts, email the company for clarification. Once you know which companies accept writing submissions, you can start in on the second half of the research process:

Tailoring Your Submissions

There are two parts to tailoring your submission for a specific publisher. Firstly, research their line of comics to determine what kind of stories they publish; and second, format your submission according not only to their submission guidelines but also to their publishing preferences.

Often those last two are one and the same. A good example of what I mean is Antarctic Press, one of the few publishers who still accept unsolicited writing submissions. Antarctic Press includes a lot of important details in their submission guidelines. They point out that in today’s market, many retailers are wary of ordering new ongoing titles for unproven books. Because of this, Antarctic prefers to publish one shots or mini-series rather than ongoing series. The idea is that a retailer will take a flyer on a new product if it’s just a commitment of a couple months. Then, if the series takes off, an ongoing can be done to capitalize on this success. Essentially it’s a way to limit liability for both the publisher and the retailer and this should be kept in mind when crafting a pitch for Antarctic.

This is one of the main reasons I am trying to not work on a pitch without having a specific publisher in mind for it. Let’s say you have an idea for a space opera. Not knowing just who might be in the market for it, you sit down and come up with the greatest story ever imagined, a rousing, 100 issue epic that will blow the doors off the industry. Then, with this accomplished, you check out Antarctic’s submission guidelines and discover you’re totally boned. All of this could be avoided by simply not working out the details of your idea until you know the correct format to frame it in. I’m a big believer in the idea that structure determines story, and this is especially true in the world of mainstream comics, where you have a finite number of pages every issue to relay your story in; it’s not a novel where you can ramble around at your own pace, the pace is dictated in large part by the form.

So a better way to approach your idea would be this: you look up the submission guidelines, discover they want a 1-4 issue, self-contained story to test the market and then you craft your tale around this instead of the other way around. You can save yourself a lot of work and a lot of heartache this way.

And, of course, there's the other half of the equation: don't send horror comics to a romance publisher. In our example, Antarctic Press does publish a fairly wide array of comics, but for the most part the specialize in manga-inspired science fiction. That epic space opera may have a shot, but even if you follow their guidelines to the letter, a story about Archie Andrews is probably not going to go very far. I'm not suggesting you should pander to the publisher; writing what you think people want almost always ends up with bad writing. But you should be smart about which projects you pitch to which companies.

Conclusion

The submission process can be most succinctly summed up this way: creating a story to fit a market is much easier than creating a market to fit your story. Researching your publishers will not only tell you which stories you should write, but how you should go about writing them.

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