Welcome to the conclusion of my two-part series on short comics.
Last week we looked at the short comic from the creator’s perspective, and this week we’ll be looking at things from the other side of the table, so to speak. I’ve gotten the editors of four well-known anthologies to take some time out of their busy schedules and share their thoughts on short stories, anthologies in general, and their own anthologies in specific.
Hope Donovan is the editor of this year’s Rising Stars of Manga (the seventh), a talent search anthology hosted each year by TOKYOPOP, and the primary source for many of the creators behind their line of original manga.
Kazu Kibuishi is the editor of Flight, a beautiful full-color anthology showcasing the talents of numerous young animators or webcomics creators, as well as industry veterans. The fourth volume will be released this coming summer.
Joe Pruett is the editor of Negative Burn, a 64-page monthly anthology from Desperado Publishing and Image Comics. The series is a re-launch of the original Eagle, Eisner and Harvey nominated Negative Burn from Caliber Comics, which ran for a total of 50 issues from 1993-1998
Jason Rodriguez is the editor of Postcards, a 160-page anthology coming July 2007, where stories are inspired by actual postcards that were mailed in the early 1900s. The book features the work of Harvey Pekar, Phil Hester, Tom Beland, Stuart Moore, Michael Gaydos and Josh Fialkov, to name but a few.
If you are interested in writing comics, but are somehow unfamiliar with any of these books, I strongly recommend picking them up and getting educated.
On to the good stuff:
What makes a good short comic? What makes one stand out?
Hope Donovan: What stands out is always originality. It’s not so important in RSOM to showcase your technical prowess as to tell a story only you could tell. Most beginning manga-ka simply aren’t going to match the level of professionals that have been doing it for years. This is especially true with manga where many of the people who are fans or creators weren’t brought up in a manga style artistically. There’s a steep learning curve, and I’m continually amazed how well so many aspiring manga-ka craft their pieces. Particularly since some of the people now creating manga had no interest in sequential art before manga arrived, there’s lots and lots of novices.
Kazu Kibuishi: Hmm, it's difficult to define a good short comic, but I personally enjoy reading works that are heartfelt and told with a clear voice. The stories that feel as if the creator were trying to communicate something far beyond the medium itself are the ones that stand out most for me.
Joe Pruett: It needs to pull the reader in instantly. You need to know the "hook" on page 1. But most importantly, you have to have an ending. Too many stories submitted to me are scenes and not stories. There's no ending.
Jason Rodriguez: There’s no one story thing that anyone can point to, I don’t think. Looking at Postcards, you have Phil Hester’s “A Joyous Eastertide” and Joshua Fialkov and Micah Farritor’s “Homesick”. Both of these stories are amazing. They have completely different tones, different themes, different art styles, different paces and different storytelling techniques. "Eastertid e" is all narration whereas "Homesick" is all dialogs. "Eastertide" spans several decades whereas "Homesick" spans several minutes. Phil Hester was the sole creator on "Eastertide" whereas "Homesick" was the result of collaboration.
The only thing the two stories have in common is that Hester and Fialkov where both excited to start the project and were proud when their stories were finished. They put their all into this project. You have to love your story – you have to love what you’re doing – and you’ll make something other folks will also love most of the time.
Natural talent helps too, though.
In your opinion, what makes a good anthology?
Donovan: It’s all about balance. Besides strong entries, really having a diverse group of stories and styles is a way to make the anthology something more than the sum of its parts. The pieces are going to resonate or create dissonance with each other no matter what, so the more harmony you can create the better. Especially in Rising Stars, where there’s no theme, showcasing a diverse group of entries is desirable. It’s always a good feeling when you get to represent the total diversity of the entries you received. It makes me feel like we’re communicating the whole contest to the reader.
Kibuishi: One where the content is of a consistently high quality all the way throughout the book. It's what we strive for in Flight.
Pruett: Good stories. Good creators. It's almost impossible to put out an anthology where the reader will like every story in it, although that's our goal. I feel if a reader likes 80% (4 out of 5) than we've done a good job.
Rodriguez: Flight, Mome, the Project books, Negative Burn, 2000AD, 24/7, Solo, *ahem* POSTCARDS, etc, etc – these are all great anthologies. The only things they all have in common are: a) a great editor, and b) great talent. Some are prettier than others, some have stronger stories, some go in bookstores, some are in color, and some have incredibly high production values.
I can point to a lot of anthologies with a weak editor and/or uninspired talent. And, not surprisingly, those are the “bad” anthologies. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot that fall in the middle, but the great anthologies simply have a great editor that get their great talents to produce great stories. It’s really that simple.
And, yes, I realize I just referred to myself as a “great editor” several times. Great editors have great egos, as well.
 How did your particular anthology come to be?
Donovan: TOKYOPOP has always been the revolutionary of the manga market in the U.S. I wasn’t working for the company when the first RSOM came out in 2003. But considering how invested we are now in creating original manga, it’s pretty amazing when you look back at 2003 and can say, “Yeah, we were thinking seriously about OGM back then.”
Rising Stars has been incredibly important to our original manga development over the years. Just out of RSOM 2 there are four creators who have go on to do full length series with us—Lindsey Cibos (Peach Fuzz), Wes Abbott (Dogby Walks Alone), Marty LeGrow (Bizenghast), Bettina Kurkowski (My Cat Loki). And in RSOM 3 there are even more—Nathan Mauer (Atomic King Daidogan), Felipe Smith (MBQ), Irene Flores and Ashly Raiti (Mark of the Succubus), Re:Play (Christy Lijewski). I mean, I could go on and on. RSOM continues not only because it’s a very neat thing, but because it’s still the best place for us to scout new talent.
Kibuishi: It began as a small black and white book being put together by a group of friends for the Alternative Press Expo. Somewhere along the line, it just started snowballing into what it is now.
Pruett: It was early in my comics career (1993). I was actually waiting on an artist to finish up my first comics writing project and I had time to kill (he was taking a loooooong time). My brother, James, and I were talking about other comics related projects to do and he mentioned that we should do an anthology comic with a number of our friends. Liking the idea, I contacted another comics writer friend of ours, Charles Moore, who had done a number of DC projects and asked if he'd like to help me put the anthology together.
He said "yes." We both agreed on the title "Negative Burn" from a list of possible titles we had suggested (it was Charles' suggestion) and then we each contacted a number of our industry friends. He got Mike Wieringo to do one of the flip covers, while I got Andrew Robinson to do the other. He recruited Randy Green and a few others, while I went after Brian Bolland, Tim Bradstreet, Bob Burden, etc. Of course, the three of us "founders" all wrote a story for the first issue as well. Negative Burn was initially planned on being a one-shot, but I found I enjoyed recruiting talent and the next thing we knew we had a monthly series going. Charles helped out for the first few issues, but then I took it over completely. Gary Reed, publisher of Caliber Comics, was kind enough to publish it and Negative Burn went 50 issues from 1993-1998.
Rodriguez: My girlfriend, Robin, dragged me to an antique store where, in an attempt to keep me off her back, she informed me that there was a box of used postcards on the counter. I pulled out a random postcard and it was sent from a Private Earl Sheffer to his mother days before he was to be shipped out to fight in World War II. I started wondering what happened to Earl Sheffer and the idea for the book just popped into my head.
What do you think the advantages are in short-form comics over longer ones?
Donovan: In manga especially, there’s a tendency to pen long-running series. In RSOM you see what happens when manga-ka don’t have that option. So you get stories that actually resolve themselves! Personally, I still like the longer stories better, but since I’m a big fan of punchy and surprise endings I enjoy getting to read these short manga.
Kibuishi: The shorter comics give the creator a sense of completion very quickly. When working on graphic novels, that sense of accomplishment comes few and very far between, though the payoff feels proportionately bigger. I think comics' greatest strength is in the medium's ability to communicate large amounts of information very quickly in a relatively small amount of space. Many of my favorite comics are simply single newspaper strips that had a lasting impression on me.
Pruett: That you don't have to invest a lot of time and energy into being able to both read and create an interesting and entertaining story. You don't have to worry about "what came before" or find filler space to stretch a story out to its required length. It's short, simple and concise.
Rodriguez: Experimentation – folks can really play around with their style and sometimes the result is fantastic. One of my favorite examples of this was Scott Mills’ pages in Western Tales of Terror #5. Everyone involved with that book were huge fans of Scott’s style – we were thrilled to have him in the book. The pages he sent us were unlike anything we’ve ever seen from him before – they were sick. We weren’t expecting it at all and most people wouldn’t recognize it as Scott’s work but, at the end of the day, it worked well for the story and it looked great.
In Postcards we have a lot of young illustrators who really upped their game, they tried some new things, and delivered some amazing pages as a result. Seamus Heffernan, Gia-Bao Tran, Tony Fleecs, Joseph Bergin III – everyone’s going to want these guys after this book drops.
 Do you have any parting advice for writers interested in seeing their work published in anthologies?
Donovan: Make sure you follow the rules and the technical specifications. Even if you don’t make it in the book, if you demonstrate that you know how to read rules and follow guidelines we’ll be that much more interested in working with you in the future.
Entering your manga in the contest is also a way of showing us your portfolio. Don’t get too caught up in that fact and let it destroy your story, but remember that when you send that manga to TOKYOPOP in the mail, a bunch of editors will look over your work carefully. So even if you don’t get selected for the book, you’re still doing yourself a huge favor. Be proud.
Also, re-enter. Keep submitting until you get in. There's lots of variables that go into a contest's outcomes, and the winds may blow your way next year. Plus, you're showing the editors how you've improved.
Kibuishi: I think the interest should be in writing and drawing stories first and foremost. The anthologies should only exist to give that person a stage to play on. If the material is good, there are plenty of stages ready and waiting for it.
Pruett: Think of your ending first. Make sure you have one. If you don't have an ending then you're writing a scene. Make sure that we the reader know who the character is and what their motivations are very quickly. If you don't catch us on the first page, then the we are not going to read the second.
Rodriguez: Tell your story. Don’t tell what happened before your story or what happens after your story. Just focus on the moment and plug your reader into the story that you intended to tell. Too many people front-load their short stories with this unnecessary background because they feel it’s relevant. So you have the forward story going on in the art while some overwrought narration is explaining what happened before. Just push the reader into your world and tell your story. Assume your reader is moderately intelligent and that they’ll understand the story without you telling them what the story is.
And once you have told your story, share it with the editors that you’ve been routinely communicating with over email/IM/phone calls/convention appearances.
Hope, RSOM has been a grand prize, first prize, second prize, etc. contest in the past, but this year you've switched to genre categories, with one equal winner for each genre. Can you explain the reasons behind the change and what difference this might make for someone writing a comic to enter in Rising Stars?
Donovan: Since we’re always looking for a balanced book, being open about that will hopefully encourage people to submit stories in a variety of genres—as well as let people know that’s what our aim is.
We’ve done our best as a company to represent manga as the genre-defying phenomenon that it is. I think even though we’ve split up the genres, we’ll still find a lot of overlap. But we’re flexible—entrants can categorize their manga in as many categories as they find applicable.
I think the major difference will be the number of entrants who start thinking of their manga in terms of the genre, and we might see more conventional genre pieces (like “whodunit” mysteries) than before. In general, I think we’ll receive a lot of the same kinds of entries and have a similar book to what we’ve had in the past. So although it may seem a big departure, it's not.
Kazu, I've heard you say creators are using Flight to "grow" their graphic novels. Can you talk a little more about what such a process is like? Do you prefer this type of short comic to a stand-alone or one-off?
Kibuishi: Well, since the term "graphic novel" is often very loosely used to describe books full of comics, I think short form and serialized material are both in the same boat. I don't prefer one over the other, but I do prefer that the creators make every segment self-contained. As far as the process goes, it's very collaborative, since each artist essentially has a handful of editors making crits and comments on how to make their works stronger. In many cases, I think this can quickly become a nightmare, but with this group of people, it tends to stay very civilized and most everyone is up to the task of evolving their material. It all comes down to selecting the right kind of people to work with.
 Joe, Most of the anthologies represented here today are annual, or thereabouts, but your book is 64 pages on a monthly schedule. Why did you choose this format, how do you manage it, how does this set Negative Burn apart, and do you think this affects the creators at all?
Pruett: When I first started NB volume 1, I ended up having so much material that 48 pages seemed like the right size. With issue 3 we took it down to 32 pages for a little bit. But at that size I just never felt like you got enough for the money. Plus with an anthology, as I stated earlier, you're not going to please everyone with every story, so the odds of someone not finding something to their liking with a smaller issue grows. Therefore, I decided to increase the odds of the reader finding stories they liked by increasing the page count up to 40 pages...then to 48 pages...and then to 64 pages. We were getting so many submissions that it was easy to continue to grow in size. By the end of the series we jumped up to 80 pages and finally to 96 pages to help get rid of some of the inventory we had built up.
I liked the 96 page format of issue 50 (vol. 1) and so when I decided to bring NB back through Desperado/Image I thought that format on a quarterly basis would be the best way to go. Also the idea of doing it monthly again didn't appeal to me as it is soooooo much work. :-)
Then, after looking over the Desperado line I decided that I would like to have a regular monthly series presence to add some stability to the line. Of course, the logical choice was Negative Burn, so the monthly format at 64 pages was revived as I always believed that this was the best format for NB -- it's not too big and it's not too small and it also allows the creators to not have to worry about page count when they're working on their stories. They can finish their story at the natural stopping point that the story demands rather than trying to work within a limited amount of pages. Plus I also believe (and I could be wrong) that NB is the only monthly series out there right now. That alone makes it stand out and I like to stand out. :-)
It's tough to do it monthly, but by working far enough in advance and always having inventory on hand, the issues kind of put themselves together. For instance, if I find I've filled up 52 pages of a 64 page issue then I can look in my inventory for either a 12 page story or any number of stories that add up to 12 total pages. I like the flexibility.
Jason, are there plans for a second volume of Postcards, and if so have you learned anything putting together this first book that will change the way you do things for the next volume?
Rodriguez: Absolutely – I hope to start contacting creators in March or April. I have enough postcards to fill plenty of volumes so I plan on doing it until I’m not having fun anymore. Unless they make a lot of money – then I’ll totally “Chicken Soup for the Soul” sell out.
I learn something every day with this book. Right now I’m getting a crash course in book design. Going back to creators who delivered final files and asking for them at a higher resolution – that’s FUN!
What else have I learned? Never promise anything until it’s a sure shot. Don’t assume that people are listening; yell louder. Hungry artists and writers will bust their asses to turn in great work. If you pitch the idea to someone and their first response is to either a) spend three weeks checking their schedule to come back with a “I can probably do it,”, b) ask how much it pays, or c) say they’re not sure if it’s their thing, they’re probably not worth pursuing. “I’ll look into that,” means the same thing as, “no,” except it keeps people happy. Use the phone whenever you can. If someone spends a lot of time talking about how good they are it probably means they’ll be getting their stuff in late. If someone asks what the “hard deadline” is give them two months earlier than the “hard deadline” which is, of course, two months later than the deadline you originally gave them. Every negative comment should be accompanied by a positive unless the work REALLY sucks.
And, finally, don’t neglect your lady (or man) because if it wasn’t for her (or his) support you’d still be writing Spider-Man fan-fiction. Goddamn Epic line.
A big thank-you to these editors for letting me pick their brains! And all you readers be sure to stop by the Making Good discussion thread and share your own thoughts on short comics.
Ground Floor
Ground Floor is a column-within-a-column here at Making Good where I will be developing a brand new comic, from scratch to publication, right before your very eyes.
I'm afraid there's not a whole lot to report this week. I’ve sent an e-mail to the artist I’m interested in and I’ve developed a title and written a one-paragraph pitch for the story, both of which I’ll be sharing with you shortly. Probably next week. I’m still checking the legal side of things, but hope to have all that cleared up this week and start moving full-speed ahead.
Caleb Monroe bought Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #16 when he was 11 years old and it was all over after that. You can learn some more about him here.
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