• When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

My adventures in submitting my project to a comic publisher

Started by User 01001010,

92 posts in this topic

User 01001010

User 01001010

Posted
Posted

If anyone has any interest, I'm going to document what it has taken and what lies ahead in submitting a series to a major publisher (not Marvel or DC). Regardless what opinion you have of me (or no opinion), I thought that it'd be cool to share the experience.

 

One aspect I would be interested in is, with creators now on the boards, how much they had to go through to get their books published.

 

Coming up.....

 

Part 1

Why would I want to do comics?

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
User 01001010

User 01001010

Posted
  • Author
Posted

After writing a short in Tales From The Dead, I decided to focus on novels. Thiswas supported in conversations with Jim Valentino and Tim Seeley. They both asked why I would want to write comics when most comic writers want to write novels. Yes, they are more involved and take a lot longer to write, but I felt too constrained with the comic medium. I could write the story first and then adapt to comics in individual issues. It still was not something that I favored and to top it off, of the conventions I had attended, the only one that I wasn't a writing guest was a comic convention (Baltimore 2010), plus I was starting to make a name for myself as a (literary) writer.

 

So one day, I receive an email from an artist in Italy that I worked with briefly on a small project. He had some time between working on Heavy Metal and Blue Water Comics and wanted to read a book. He decided to get a copy of my bizarro/mondo book RED BAND!

 

This was the height of the book (so far), it was up to #55 on amazon, they also gave it a "hot new release" tag and things were happening. So it was fueling the fire to focus on the sequel and drop all other projects.

 

When Stefano was finished reading through he sent me an email. The email consisted of "you write the comic adaption and I draw the book". Thinking it over long and hard, I responded ten minutes later using my best hard negotiating skills with the counter offer of "yes".

 

I change all my plans (including the sequel) and sit down to write the first draft of the -script....

 

Next...

Part 2 This is giving me a headache

Link to comment
Share on other sites
User 01001010

User 01001010

Posted
  • Author
Posted

With the idea in place, next would be shoring up the creative team. The time was mid 2011.

 

I write, Stefano illustrates and (your name here) inks, colors and letters.

 

With that in mind, I ask a friend of mine who i've worked with before if he wanted to ink and possibly letter and color. Some artists are offended when they are asked to do anything but illustrate. Luckily he is not shortsighted and was more than happy to do what was needed to complete the project. He too read the book and thought it should be adapted.

 

O.k., now we have a creative team, we could move on to the design of the characters and other...art of the book.I had to now describe what had been floating in my mind for about a year. Two dayslater I received the first concept design of the main character Ritchey,

 

th_ritcheyredband.jpg

 

which turned into a finished piece (and limited poster)...

 

th_rbpromo.jpg

 

With that staring me in the face, I start on the -script for the first issue.

 

Now the point with the book was (and still is) to be a B-movie in print, so I have to figure out how to get away with some of the scenes that may...err...not be something that a mainstream publisher would want to print. So I have to go over and over in my head how to portray some of the more NC-17 scenes to rated R (Avatar only publishes "known" ie: popular artists, so I am not submitting to them). This is where the headache comes in, since I specialize in zombie and bizarro novels, I can do anything I want without having to self censor.

 

The first 3 pages of the -script took a pretty long time to write and format for the general "mature audience" and the other 21 pages took me 2 days, since it is the opening scene is what had to be changed to fit the medium.

 

With that now finished, it is sent off to Stefano for his review and thoughts. He just wanted to change the perspective on a few panels but everything else was good. Mark (the inker) concurs and we take the next step.

 

 

 

Next

Part 3: What could go wrong?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Mac Man

Mac Man

Posted
Posted

I'll be interested in following how this goes. I'm getting published in some indie anthologies, and my artist collaborator just informed me this AM via email that a small publisher wants to pick up our webcomic as a part of its all-ages line. But I can only image the challenge of pursuing one of the Big Two!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Ares

Ares

Posted
Posted
After writing a short in Tales From The Dead, I decided to focus on novels. Thiswas supported in conversations with Jim Valentino and Tim Seeley. They both asked why I would want to write comics when most comic writers want to write novels. Yes, they are more involved and take a lot longer to write, but I felt too constrained with the comic medium. I could write the story first and then adapt to comics in individual issues. It still was not something that I favored and to top it off, of the conventions I had attended, the only one that I wasn't a writing guest was a comic convention (Baltimore 2010), plus I was starting to make a name for myself as a (literary) writer.

 

So one day, I receive an email from an artist in Italy that I worked with briefly on a small project. He had some time between working on Heavy Metal and Blue Water Comics and wanted to read a book. He decided to get a copy of my bizarro/mondo book RED BAND!

 

This was the height of the book (so far), it was up to #55 on amazon, they also gave it a "hot new release" tag and things were happening. So it was fueling the fire to focus on the sequel and drop all other projects.

 

When Stefano was finished reading through he sent me an email. The email consisted of "you write the comic adaption and I draw the book". Thinking it over long and hard, I responded ten minutes later using my best hard negotiating skills with the counter offer of "yes".

 

I change all my plans (including the sequel) and sit down to write the first draft of the -script....

 

Next...

Part 2 This is giving me a headache

 

How do get the time to write. I hve ideas I want to put down but I cant seem to make the time with job search and child

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Go to topic listing