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Well, DUH!
That, I predict, will be the reaction
of 99% of readers who aren't my Mom this week. Because what I'm about
to tell you seems so common-sense, so mundane, so “well, DUH!” to
me, that I can't believe I'm actually going to try to write an entire
column about it.
And yet, here we are, Dear Reader, Dear
Audience of One, aspiring comic book writer that you are, hoping to
learn the ropes (or something like them) from me.
This week's topic, (sort of) as
promised last week, is the Courtship Of An Artist.
For Those Skimming To See When
The Actual Column Starts, This Is It
When you're just starting out as an
aspiring comic book writer, there are three primary methods for
finding an artist. Let's call these: the guy you know, the cattle
call, and the courtship. I'll look at each method in turn, and then
tell you why the courtship is what you want to shoot for.
The Guy You Know
Everybody knows somebody who can draw
pretty well, or at least, better than they can. So, when you're an
aspiring writer trying to find an artist to work with to get a story
or submission together, it's natural to at some point think, “Hey,
I know a guy that draws pretty well. Maybe he'd like to work with me
on this and we'll break into the comic book bigtime together!”
It's possible that this has worked for
people, but I'd advise against it. It's a long shot at best that the
guy you know from school or church or work or whatever is going to be
able to (a) learn how to draw comics, starting from ground zero, and
(b) draw your comic, and do it well, in anything remotely resembling
the near future.
This assumes, obviously, that the guy
you know has not already spent a few years trying to draw comics. If
he's actually well down the road, posting things on Digital Webbing
and Penciljack for comments and critiques, and understands what it
takes to draw comics, then that's a different story.
The Cattle Call
This is probably the most common way
for an aspiring writer to seek out an artist. You go to a site like
Digital Webbing or Penciljack and post a “Writer Seeks Artist” ad
and then check your email inbox for the next several days as
responses from interested artists come in.
It's a real crapshoot, and the quantity
and quality of responses you receive will be determined by three
things: who you are, how good an ad you can write, and whether you're
offering actual money (as opposed to imaginary money, a.k.a. “profits
on the back end”).
If you're Robert Kirkman, you'll
probably get a decent turnout. If you're not, but you do have at
least some actual published work to your name, chances are you can
interest some artists looking for exposure. If you're unpublished,
the “who you are” angle isn't going to work so well for you.
How good an ad you can write plays a
huge role in your success or failure in finding an artist. If you're
an unpublished writer trying to interest an artist in working with
you, what do they have to go on in evaluating you, the aspiring
writer, as a potential collaborator? Your ad. That's it; there's
nothing else.
So, if you can craft an intelligent,
sincere, well-spoken ad that is not rife with attitude and
misspellings and bad grammar, you can show all the artists reading
that ad that you are at least capable of writing a decent Artist
Wanted ad. And if you can manage to sell yourself in the ad and give
an artist some insight into why you, of all other aspiring writers
out there, are the one they should work with... well, so much the
better.
If, on the other hand, you write an ad
along the lines of “Art monkey wanted for verbal degradation and
abuse” (which is taken from an actual ad), well, best of luck to
you.
Whether you're offering actual money is
quite possibly the paramount consideration. Offering actual money
will definitely increase the number of responses you get, but that's
not necessarily a good thing. What is necessarily good about
offering actual money is that it tells an actual good artist two
important things: (1) they will get actual money for working with
you, and (b) you're actually serious about writing comics – serious
enough to save up some of your hard-earned money and set it aside to
pay an artist with, rather than sinking it all into that hot new game
console.
(For those keeping count, I actually
used the word “actual” or “actually” an astounding SIX times
in that paragraph!)
The Courtship of an Artist
Courtship, as defined by
Dictionary.com, is “the wooing of one person by another.” And
that, Dear Reader, Dear Audience of One, is the Ecto's recommendation
for the best way to find an artist to work with.
Why, you ask? Because as an aspiring
writer, you don't just need an artist to draw your story or
submission pages – you need a good artist. Preferably one
who's a better, more experienced artist than you are a writer. Comics
are a visual medium after all (on three... 1... 2... 3... well,
DUH!). And while great art can elevate an average story, the opposite
is also true: average art (or worse, amateur art) can absolutely sink
a great story.
As an aspiring, young, or otherwise
just-starting-out writer, you want to marry up when it comes to the
artists you work with. There are a thousand good reasons for this, so
here's just one to prove my point.
In my story “Fall of the Triumvirate”
(originally published in Sequential
Suicide: Rottingwood Road), I made a classic newbie writer
mistake. I cut from a scene inside a house, to a scene inside a
school bus, without any transition whatsoever. If the artist (Juan
Romera) had drawn that page exactly as I'd written it, it would've
made for a confusing mess. But thankfully, he knew (and still knows!)
a lot more about visual storytelling than I do. And he saved me from
my own lack of experience by inserting an establishing shot of a
school bus driving down the road.
Check
out page 2 of “Fall of the Triumvirate,” and then imagine it
without that school bus panel. See? Juan saved my aspiring writer
butt right there, and this story went on to become my first published
work.
And now I'm not just an aspiring writer
anymore. I'm Elton Pruitt, a.k.a. the Ecto, recent accomplisher of
the fabled Negative Burn hat trick, columnist slash comic book writer
extraordinaire! (I exaggerate, of course, but it's only to prove my
point.)
So, learn from my experience. Don't
settle for the guy you went to high school with who spent entire
study halls drawing Wolverine over and over. And don't just place an
Artist Wanted ad somewhere and hope the right artist happens upon it
and is impressed enough with who you are, the quality of your ad,
and/or the actual money offered, to respond.
Instead, be proactive. Go out there and
find an artist, or two or three, whose work you like (or better yet,
love) and let the courting begin. Now, I could write an entire column
on the courtship of an artist – oh, right, this was actually
supposed to be that column – but it's getting late, and
there's actual comic bookical writing to be done.
So let me just leave you with this
example of how I began my courtship of Mario Cau, the artist on “By
The Southern Grace of God” (my newest story, coming soon to an
anthology near you!). And in a near-future column, we'll come back to
this topic of both courting and working with artists. Okay?
Mario,
Late last night on a whim I Googled
"Sequential Suicide" (because I've submitted a story for it
and was just curious to see what else might be out there from other
people submitting) and one of the first 10 links that came up was
your DeviantArt site. So I started looking through your gallery and I
was really impressed with your work!
I was particularly taken with "Pieces
– Gift for a friend" and "Pieces – The Rain." But
really all of your sequential pages show a real talent for visual
storytelling, which for me is what it's all about. You see a lot of
guys wanting to draw comics who spend all their time doing pinups of
muscle-bound superheroes and scantily clad women with impossibly
large breasts. And they're just missing the entire point, to me,
because it's about telling a story with words and pictures, the key
word there being story.
So, stumbling across your work as I
did, completely out of the blue, was a real breath of fresh air. I
love the Eisnerian sensibilities and influence evident in your
storytelling. It feels fresh and real and believable. Perhaps most of
all, I am impressed with the emotion you convey in your art. Facial
expressions and body language, hand gestures, all those things we use
every day to help us communicate with others – you're really good
at those things.
A little bit about
me: I'm a happily married father of one living in Little Rock,
Arkansas (USA), and I'm in the 2nd year of my grand 5-year
plan to become a successful comic book writer. I haven't been
published yet, but I'm hoping that Sequential Suicide will be
my first publication. Here's a link to the story I submitted for it
if you care to check it out.
I have a site at the aforementioned
EltonPruitt.com and a more up-to-date site at
www.myspace.com/EltonPruitt.
At the moment, I'm waiting on some feedback from a publisher on a
miniseries proposal and getting to work on an anthology book of my
own that I want to have ready by early summer. It'll feature four
stories written by me and drawn by different artists.
I don't know if you have any interest
in drawing stories other than your own, but if so, I'd definitely be
interested in working on a story with you one day. Because the kind
of stories I am most interested in writing would, I believe, mesh
quite well with your artistic sensibilities.
I noticed a discussion on some of
your comments on DA about self-publishing and the expense involved
with that. In case you are not aware of them, there are a couple of
print-on-demand outfits that make it very affordable to print small
quantities of comic books. http://ka-blam.com/
is one and also http://comixpress.com/.
I plan to use one of them for my anthology book in fact.
Anyway, I just wanted to introduce
myself to you and tell you how much I appreciate your art.
Best regards,
Elton Pruitt
Next Week in Running Up That
Hill:
My two favorite baseball teams are the St. Louis
Cardinals and New York Yankees. So why have I taken to wearing a
Boston Red Sox cap every time I sit down to write?
Learn the shocking truth in “My
magical mystical Boston Red Sox cap,” next week in Running Up
That Hill!
In The Weeks Ahead:
Look for
these (and other) columns in the coming weeks:
-
Dialogue Last: the best thing
ever?
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"By the Southern Grace of
God" actually IS a lovely and wonderful story, and how it got
that way (for Drew, who loves my long column titles!)
-
The power of being nice (a column
that Anthony Peruzzo, an artist I’d love to work with one day,
cannot wait to read!)
-
The ultimate Jason Aaron post-Marvel exclusive interview (I
hope… but I'm not promising anything)
-
The best artist you've never heard of
_________________________________________________________________
Elton Pruitt is a comic book writer in
Little Rock. He almost made it through an entire column without a
shoutout to Natural Ice.
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