Most comic book industry professionals suggest self-publishing as a good route to being noticed by the bigger giants.
Works for me. So I’ve been working on a comic book series for quite some time. The first two issues are now completely scripted, and ready for an artist to review.
Alas, here’s the rub. How does a writer, such as me-self, hook up with a potential artist with which to collaborate? Can this sort of thing be done with artists via e-mail? If so, how effective can that sort of thing really be?
So what’s a guy to do? Does anyone have any good resources for would-be comic artists, just waiting for the right script to come along?
You can e-mail them me if you like. I’m an artist working on his own comic, but also looking for writers to hook up with. The way I seen it work in colloborative scripts is in 2 ways.
1 - writer has clear idea of how a scene/panel should look, and tells artist so. Artist replies with yes, or i’ll have to make some changes so its feasible format wise. Rough drafts are sent, Compromises are reached til both are happy.
2 - writer trusts artist to come up with layout/panels/format etc, and then artist gets back with notes on how he sees it - they discuss via whatever - phone/e-mail/pub - compromise is reached over rough drafts (always a sensible idea)
All this is IMO. There’s probably other artists/writers on here that may work in different ways, but thats the 2 that make most sense to me. referencing what i’ve read from Neil Gaiman & Alan Moore discussing it.
My website - www.ditcb.co.uk
My e-mails in my profile, or on the website.
All the self-publishing I was ever involved with, the artist wrote their own stuff. I suppose we were more like comic strip artists in that regard. In fact, I was exactly that for a short while.
Having separate writer and artist seemed a bit too elaborate for the cheesy nonsense we tended to come up with.
There’s a company called Dime Store Productions which does publishing for independents, and their forums are frequented by writers and artists…maybe you can find a collaborator there.
(These are the folks who will be publishing a story by two friends of mine, who won a contest that I posted about back in July.)
I know several people in your position, writers AND artists, who have met through the internet and come together to collaborate on comics. Mark Millar, one of the biggest writers for Marvel Comics, runs an online community called Millarworld, where several up-and-coming self-publishers have met, traded ideas, and worked together on a variety of projects. Many of them have seen print, too!
Here is the Millarworld forum:
http://www.millarworld.net/index.php?act=idx
You would have to register to become a member and be able to post, but it is free, and possibly worth your while. There are some really great people there, some really talented ones, and some of them are even BOTH!
Also, with so many comics professionals from other countries these days, a lot of the time, writers and artists communicate via e-mail, phone, and fax much more than they do in person. A lot of the hottest writers are from England, Ireland, and Scotland–Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Warren Ellis, Grant Morrison, Mark Millar, and Garth Ennis, just to name a few–and they certainly aren’t meeting with their American artists in person very often! Great collaborations can be accomplished over great distances.