Here’s the best advice I’ve found for amateur comic writers mulling over the proper approach to pitching a new story to a publisher (namely, do you pitch the concept or the actual script):
You’re unpublished. Why would anyone listen to a pitch?
Stop wasting time and just write the fucking thing.
- Warren Ellis (as found on his message board, The Engine)
The best April Fool’s Day gag I’ve seen today: http://www.google.com/tisp/.
Not only do I have the utmost faith that Google could actually convince a decent chunk of the population to do this, but it’s a nice back-handed compliment to the droves of Internet content generators who truly are taking a shit (metaphorically speaking).
I’ve taken the last couple of weeks to let the death of Captain America really sink in. (That, and the fact that it took almost as long just to get my hands on a copy after the mad rush on retailers for the issue left the entire county dry.)
The commentary? Scathing. The timing? Flawless. But I think the metaphor is getting lost in the spectacle. The killing off the of only literal symbol of the American Dream in comics is not a warning of a coming storm or a writer’s choice to blur the lines of his role between artist and pundit. It is a eulogy to the heaping, hemoraging chunks of America that have already been torn free of the bone. We’re bleeding out people, make no mistake about it. Ed Brubaker was good enough to let us know that dreams and ideas are as fragile as flesh–just as vulnerable but also, in their absence, a potential source for new inspiration.
This is coming to you from my dining room table (as opposed to my office, from which these little written nuggets of perpetual wisdom typically come to you). I am changing the environment as an exercise in objectivity. As a writer, you simply cannot rely on safe havens in order to craft the news you intend to broadcast to the masses. Writing everyday at 7:00 p.m. from the same desk with the same bottle of whiskey or pain killers pilfered from your wife’s secret stash (you know who you are) cannot be depended upon to constantly give you what you need to get the brain juices flowing. No. You need to be upset. You need to have schedules reduced to things solely the concern of trains and schools and your weekly rat hunting get together. More simply–you need to be able to write anywhere.
This comes from a recent, one-week stint in Las Vegas fulfilling the contractual obligations to the day job I maintain so that I can afford said desks and dining rooms and whiskeys and write at you. Case in point, amidst the clamor of craps tables and slot machines, I walked away from Sin City down only $40 and with the poor realization that my writing on the road is no where near as strong as what I can put out in the safe little womb that is my office. I had pinned myself into a temporal prison unwavering in its restrictions. For bus drivers and gym nuts, this is fine. For a writer–death.
One should be able to write anything from anywhere at any time. Today’s technology can allow me to pen down my little mental spasms and beam them here, to my happy little corner of the universe, for all to see, and I can do it from the penny slots at the Plaza or a trendy club at the Wynn just as easily as I can from my desk here at home. Hemingway would’ve killed for this technology, if only to keep track of what Fitzgerald or Stein were really talking to him about through the veil of absinthe in the Paris streets. Kerouac would have returned from each sojourn with a book on the journey already completed, all notes and scripts sent back to his home or editor as they were actually happening. Verbatim prose. Instantaneous literature for the masses.
Despite what it is I’m trying to accomplish (outside of this blog, it’s comics, but that’s just me), there can be no retraints on how the work is coming through, especially in terms of geography or time of day. Everything you write is fodder for a project down the road, and there is no telling when a truly great idea squirms its way out of the gray matter to seduce you. You have to yeild to the ideas as they come. They cannot be locked away for retrieval during certain hours. Ideas are jealous and self-centered. They desire attention and, if they do not receive it, they will leave.
A perfect example of the write anywhere/anytime example is Warren Ellis’ ‘Bad Signal’ e-mail list. Always sent via mobile device, the Signal is not only a means of conveying news and goings on in Warren’s sad and twisted life, but the creation of a veritable goldmine of mental ramblings that are the true fertile ground of any good writer. So, go and send Uncle Warren yourheartfelt plea that you wish to be subjected to the advances of his sadistic synapses: WarrenE@aol.com.
After over two years, my first script, l.e.a.s.h., is finally getting a little graphic life kicked up its languishing ass. Go see more here, then come back and shower me with praises and a few fresh concubines as appreciation for my commitment to bring you good comics. And after this, the deluge…
As a creator or just plain lover of comics, there are some writers that you absolutely cannot afford to miss. From Eisner to Lee to Moore to Miller—through the decades there are voices that impress permanent echoes upon the medium. They don’t achieve this kind of endurance through sheer volume (though, more recently, it definitely does not work against you), but through a clear and precise understanding that comics not only serve as one of the most viable and palatable forms of pop culture, but are a viable platform for change.
Lasting and inspiring comic writers have never cowered in the shadows of more widely popular (and often more widely profitable) creative mediums. They have taken the time to observe the lay of the land and size up comics for what they truly are: a highly targeted weapon for exposing the ills of a generation just as equally as extolling the virtues of “right” and “wrong” through a more fantastical lens.
Today, we are in the midst of what has to be the highest concentration of impressing comic writers the industry has seen so far. Unhindered by the near-suffocating moral constraints of prior generations, and armed with near infinite means of communication, self-promotion and, for most, self publishing, they are delivering sermons panel-by-panel in ways that will, inevitably, not only affect sensibilities, but affect true change.
Bendis, Brubaker, Millar, Vaughn, and a countless sea of unknowns who are already sharpening their scripting teeth to ravage the burgeoning generations being primed on these writers, are taking comics into new territories. They are examining pop culture in real time, stripping away the one-dimensional facades of our childhood heroes and applying the traditional axiom of good vs. evil to a world permeated by perpetual shades of gray.
For the last few years, I’ve been focused on just one of these writers: Warren Ellis. As today’s science fiction increasingly and more rapidly becomes tomorrow’s reality, Ellis cannot be ignored as both visionary and, much more eerily, damn near prophetic herald of this world’s new fiction. Few writers can simultaneously entrench themselves so deeply in the archetypal traditions of the past while charting a clear course for the future of graphic fiction.
I read Ellis because, after picking up just one issue of Transmetropolitan on the tail end of the last millennium, the sheer gravity of his ideas have yet to dislodge their literary tendrils from my mind. In short, Ellis is pure comic crack for anyone with sense enough to see the potential and the impact of comics on today.
Now, go and read. I’m tired of telling you what you should already have figured out for yourself:
TRANSMETROPOLITAN: Another Cold Morning
FELL: the first story
JOHN CONSTANTINE, HELLBLAZER: Shoot
LAZARUS CHURCHYARD: Lucy’s Drowning
2006 went out by killing off a rock legend, a former president and the most hyped political dictator of the last decade all within a week. Can’t wait to see how 2007 plans to top that.
No resolutions or predictions here–just wishes for a happy New Year. Hope we all make it out the other side.
Received some old Seattle-sound goodness over Christmas. Whiskey is one album that delivers everything the title implies.
With the advent of ComicSpace.com (see prior post) and my meager participation in it, it looks as if there are a few people actually reading this blog. That being the case, I suppose I best finally start putting some real content and, seeing as most any new readership will likely be coming from the comics community, that’s primarily who I’ll be speaking to here.
ComicsSpace has opened up a truly necessary tool for communicating in our little corner of the world. And though it would seem to make our community a bit tighter knit, to the likes of me, the pond just got a bit bigger—a lot bigger, in fact.
For those of us who prefer our literature brought to us panel by panel, we fall into a unique category of fandom where participation is more active than most any other hobby or interest I know. Sure, sports fanatics will play their backyard pick-up games and buy their season tickets, but how many of them actually play the sport with the intent of doing it for a living? Same can be said for movie and music lovers who might beg, borrow and steal (literally) to get their fix, but seldom do they set out with the intent of actually becoming an actor, director, musician or producer based on their interest.
For comics fans, it’s different. The very thing that draws us into the medium is that, deep inside, we not only connect with the stories, but we have our own to tell as well. I guarantee you that if put to a vote, the percentage of us who think ourselves potential artists and writers who’re looking for their shot in biz compared to those who don’t would easily tip the scales in favor of the would-be creators.
In my case, I am a writer, and one that is fully aware of the weight that does (or more aptly, doesn’t) carry out in the world. Most everyone and their semi-mentally functioning half-step brother-in-law likes to think of themselves as a writer from time to time. In the comics community, the title has slightly more pull and, if you manage to wrestle your way to the top of the heap, can actually gain you a bit more respect than some of our best novelists. But, all in all, there’s a shitload of us writer types of us out there—a fact that won’t be changing any time soon.
As a writer looking to enter the comics field, there’s a particular quarry out there that supersedes a fat contract from a publisher: an artist. Let’s face it, Marvel will not come a knockin’ based on one script, or even dozens of them. I know this personally. In fact, they won’t come knockin’ for anything. They don’t need to. We have to come to them, and we have to do it through a proven track record of creating in the medium. For writers, that means finding an artist to help turn that script into, well, a comic. Problem is, all you artist types out there, there’s many more of us (writers) than there are of you.
According to the most recent stats on ComicSpace, there are currently 2,070 individuals in the community that label themselves as writers. Concurrently, there are only 1,648 who consider themselves artists. Breaking that down into specifics according to area of expertise (and yes, I do realize that “artist” encompasses many talents when it comes to comics) and the ratios are downright laughable: penciler (226), colorist (234), inker (317), letterer (108).
Unless you’re lucky enough as a writer to find some multi-talented artists to pull double duty, you’re looking at a headcount for each of these positions in order to develop your script into something you can at least self-publish or shop around. Now, compound this with the basic process for comic production—a writer can manage upwards of four or more monthly projects each month whereas an artist typically can only do one. Factor it all up and you’ve got one hell of a big pond teaming with severely limited artistic sustenance for the schools of hungry writers out there.
With this in mind, I’m setting the sites of my pellet gun of due response and consideration square at you artists and I’m looking for real and honest responses here, so please make with the comments on this one. I want to know what I need to do as a writer to get your attention as an artist. What is it that makes you chose one writer over another? What is it about a particular script that makes you decide it’s worth your time (and usually free time at that)? What are the key factors that play into your decision? Is it the script itself, or are there other variables like prior publishing experience or, dare I say it, cash? Drop any comment here you’d like. The parental controls are off and there’s no censorship, so don’t pull any punches. Any responses are being gathered solely as research and will not result in any solicitations by me unless you ask for it.
