DC Conspiracy[dots pattern]

6.10.2005

Here's the Thing... # 1

My first attempt at making a comic was two years ago. It was this epic storyline involving Gods on earth. I had it all planned out, all of my characters and their challenges, voices and motivations. I had arcs upon arcs drafted up and prepared for scripting. I wrote the first 4 issues, designed as a mini-series lead in to an ongoing and my friend set about the task of illustrating it. She did one hell of a job, and I put together an impressive pitch complete with matching business cards, response postcards and website.

I never stood a chance.

I went to Wizard World Philly to pitch it, this was last year. I walked from booth to booth and got the smiles and the handshakes and the impressed faces. People were asking for copies of it and when they didn’t I just gave them a copy. I left that convention thinking I was on my way.

When I got home I sent out follow-up letters with the complete pitch-packet again, in case they left it at the convention or hotel room. And I sat back and waited for the green-light on my first comic project, knowing full well it was better than anything else these publishers have ever seen.

And then the response cards came back, sometimes an email. One rejection after the next. Thanks for submitting, we can’t accept this, keep supporting _______ Comics.

Now I do shows. Hoarse & Buggy is getting pretty big, Elk’s Run and Western Tales of Terror getting great reviews and feedback. We’ve been featured on major comic news' sites (including a front page review on Wizard.com), received praise for our books from some of the industries top creators and even got an “A” for Elk’s Run in Entertainment Weekly, a pretty significant feat for a small company with two books that just started about eight months ago. People come up to the booth at shows and hand me pitches, scripts, sample packets and resumes. And I take them and I smile and I shake their hand and I never hear from them again and they never hear from me (artists, of course, are different – this is geared more towards writers).

I didn’t want to be like this, you know? I always envisioned myself helping everybody out anyway I possibly can. The reason is two-fold. First, it’s good karma to help other people out. Second, that person may be in a position to help you out some day. It’s a win-win.

But here’s the deal. Comic books are quite possibly the only medium in which everyone who reads them, and can’t draw, not only wants to write them but thinks they can write them well. Helping everyone who wanted to be a comic creator would mean helping everyone who reads comics.

Don’t get me wrong – I help plenty of people out. A lot of people will attest to that. I’ve made friendships, hooked people up when I can and I’ve been known to give detailed feedback on scripts for people just because they asked nicely. But for every person I’ve helped out, there’re several people I said I would and then side-stepped. Additionally, there have been people that I wanted desperately to help but Indy comics are a bitch and sometimes circumstances make me break my promises (which I always make with stipulations, anyway, just in case).

I’m not even at any sort of point where I can do much for people yet. I still struggle to put my own stuff together and have to occasionally fight to put my own stories in the books I edit. But help is help, and even a little bit can make a world of a difference. And that’s what I’m going to try to do with this upcoming series of articles – I’m going to try and help as much as I can by being honest.

I’ll throw up a new article weekly until I run out of stuff to talk about. Next week I’m going to start out with my own story, focusing on the fact that you need to make your own way in, sometimes, and let people know that you’re worth taking a chance on.

Jason at 3:03 PM  |  link to this     

14 Comments

The thing is, you're right. Everyone thinks they can write. Most people have at least one story in them, but not all are writers. An editor's job, especially when talking to those trying to break in, is largely one of rejection and hand-holding, not necessarily in that order. Here's hoping this column helps a few of the people who have made it, are still waiting to make it, and those who never will.

Rob Levin at 6/10/2005 11:40 PM   

So why DOES everybody who reads comics think they can write them? People don't listen to CDs or watch movies and automatically think, "hell, *I* can do THAT." Maybe it's the (apparently) low barriers to entry--put words on a page, somebody else draws purty pictures, and there you go. The Internet hasn't helped--you can't chat with Brad and Angie, but you can post a question and get Bendis or Millar to respond--just like real people! Think about it for a future column, Jason--I'd love to hear your thoughts on it as a member of the editorial front lines.

Jay at 6/11/2005 9:09 AM   

Funny, Jake and I talked about something like this yesterday. If you really believe in your story--and you really enjoy the medium--then why not self-publish? There are many options available--go to Kinko's to print up digest-size books, go through ComiXpress for normal-size comics, publish on the Web. Shit you can even MAKE your own perfect-bound book with a ruler, razor and glue gun! If you really want to break into the biz and have aspirations of working for the industry biggies, small press is a great way to prove your meddle. If you can show your vision through making a great mini-comic, you're more likely to get noticed (instead of just sending scripts or a few sequential pages with no story). Great creators like David Mack, Farel Dalrymple and Eddie Campbell did mini-comics. If you've got talent and timing, you'll rise through the ranks; if not, well, it's a helluva lotta fun anyway!

Dembicki at 6/11/2005 9:40 AM   

You can also prove your "mettle" instead of proving you can "meddle!" ;)

Dembicki at 6/11/2005 9:44 AM   

I think you’re theory is pretty strong, Jay.

I have a couple of theories with absolutely no evidence but I know if I were writing this story and looking for motivation, I would use one of these:

1) It’s kind of like when you see movie and say, “That ending sucked. They should have done ______.” With monthly serialized comics that you’ve been reading for years you repeat that thought over and over and over again until you get to the point where you think you can do it better than the people doing it.

2 ) Superheroes. The fact that a lot of comics rely on fantasy, suspension of disbelief, defying laws of physics – all shit that we will never experience in real life and we begin to project ourselves onto these characters as a form of escapism. I’m 27 years old, don’t read a lot of superhero books, well adjusted and have a pretty damn good social life and job. I still fantasize about being a superhero every once and a while. I just catch myself day-dreaming about flying into a burning building and rescuing a family. No matter how good my life is – being an ideal (non-Alan Moore) superhero is almost always better.

With that thought process and no ability to keep it in check (or a need for extreme escapism), people might begin to feel like the superhero stories they’re reading are not for them – they’re not speaking to them. They’re not the fantasy that’s playing out in their head. That could lead to the need to try and write their own stories.

3) Dialog. When you read a comic you see pictures and dialog, the occasional overwrought caption box. If you don’t have a grasp on the elements of story, it looks easy. You don’t have to have perfect grammar, you don’t have to know any hard words – and you can use the caption boxes to drop some more poetic, deep thoughts. The good writers will look at a comic and realize how great the hook, flow, etc is. They’ll realize that the sequential storytelling and expressions on the characters faces are the highly detailed non-dialog portions in novels.

Someone actually called me on this theory recently. The thing is, everyone doesn’t try to write comics. Everyone thinks they can, though. You ask anyone you know “If you could write any comic book, who would it be?” Ask anyone you know who reads books, “If you can write any novel, what would it be?” Ask the latter and a lot of people would probably respond with an “I don’t know” or “I’m not a writer.” Ask the former and they’ll probably say “Spider-Man” or “Hulk”. And 95% of them will probably already have a story.

Jason at 6/11/2005 10:32 AM   

Rob -

I have an article planned that talks about rejection and hand-holding but I'll give a little piece now.

There's a decent market designed to focus on people that want to create comics but have no idea what they're doing. That's why there're a lot of bad books out there, a company can make mediocre stories but agree to give every person that talks to them some type of position. What ever happened to just telling good stories and getting the people to jive with it?

Jason at 6/11/2005 10:35 AM   

Matt -

Going your own way is the best way but some people just don't have the resources or motivation to do it. Maybe you can run a parallel column here on "fucking the system".

Jason at 6/11/2005 10:36 AM   

I second that. I'm as hungry to read about that as I am to read the perspective that Jason has been offering. Things like: what promotion works best for small press, what price makes sense, where to go, etc. Or even the pros and cons, without the specifics...

Deb at 6/11/2005 11:10 AM   

Everybody thinks that they can write comics - even me. Do I feel like a poseur, a phony, and a totally run-of-the-mill lousy wannabe writer because it’s normal to feel that way, or because I am one? Every time I read or hear someone talking about someone else's crappy book - even hear myself talking about it - I think that people probably talk that way about my stuff. "Poor Chris. So deluded. So oblivious." I walk around comic conventions feeling sorry and contemptuous for people peddling the mountains contrived pap, but are the stories I peddle any better? I don't know. Of course I think they're good because I wrote them. I'm not afraid of being exposed as a fraud and a phony and a wannabe. I'm afraid that I already have been and that everyone is laughing behind my back. Just thinking about this is making me feel crazy.

Chris Fabulous at 6/11/2005 3:43 PM   

Not everyone is going to like your work.

But you and I know that enough people like it to validate it. Dude, your shit is hot. But that's not even what this is about. You can be the best writer in the world - what are you going to do about it? That's what this is about.

Jason at 6/11/2005 3:48 PM   

Hopefully I am the best writer in the world. That would be pretty awesome, to be the best writer in the world.

Chris Fabulous at 6/11/2005 5:12 PM   

The best-writer-in-the-world line starts behind me, Fabulous.

But in all seriousness, I know EXACTLY what you're talking about. You see other dudes' Wolverine-versus-ninja tales and you think, "man, at least I'm better than THAT chump"--and you wonder if they're looking at you and thinking the exact same thing.

The whole con culture thing as it pertains to "job-seekers" is an interesting topic in itself. Shit, Jason, you've got enough material here for an Earth-2 Moose in the Closet. (Bizarro Moose? Moose with a goatee and a bad attitude? Days of Moose Past?)

Hell, it's late. Good start to this topic. Looking forward to more.

Jay at 6/11/2005 9:40 PM   

From Jay"
"You see other dudes' Wolverine-versus-ninja tales and you think, "man, at least I'm better than THAT chump"--and you wonder if they're looking at you and thinking the exact same thing."

Well said. That's EXACTLY what I was getting at.

Chris Fabulous at 6/12/2005 5:23 AM   

As a statistician, I am leery of anecdotal claims like "Everyone who reads comics wants to write them". It's a little too pat. From my own experience, it is more "I am a Reader who wants to be a Writer, so I hang out with RwtbW's". (Self-selection creates so many stereotypes.)

Certainly comics allow for a greater number of opportunities to say "I would have written that differently ( = better)", how many people who watch sitcoms or soap operas want to write them? And while dialog seems superficially easy, it doesn't explain why so many readers want to draw them as well. The idea that "Superheroes = Self-delusional fantasy life" strikes me as going out of it's way to be insulting. I am sure there are just as as large a percentage of RwtbW's for "Lucifer" or "Gloom Cookie" as "X-Force". But 1% of "X-Force" is a *much* bigger number...

In the end, I think it comes down to numbers. (Of course I do, I am a statistician.) Comics are such a narrow niche market that only the poeple that really, really like them know they exist. So the vast majority of Readers aren't just consumers, they are also Fans. Yes, a much smaller percentage of people leave the theatre, turn off the TV, or even put down a novel saying "Hey, I want to do that". But "everyone" who regularly reads poetry thinks themself a poet.

David Oakes at 7/04/2005 6:44 PM   

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