They’ve been an American artform for years. Whether it’s the familiar superheroes like Superman, Batman and Spider-Man or the more adult-oriented tales like Hellblazer and the Sandman, or the growing popularity of Japanese manga, we’re all familiar with them. But the one thing many people don’t take into account is how much work goes into publishing a comic book. And if you’re one of the many comic fans who would like to participate in this medium, the first step is understanding what the medium is all about and what can be done with that. For that, I highly recommend you pick up Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud.
A comic book has at least four but sometimes five stages of production — writing, pencilling, inking, coloring and lettering. I say at least four because not all comics are printed in color — black and white could save you an extra step if you wish to go that route. Also, with the increasing prevalence of computer technology, there are comics printed which have never been inked, the coloring just done over the pencils. It’s up to you to determine how you’ll proceed through these stages.
The first step is to determine what kind of story you want to tell. The average comic book runs about twenty-two pages. A limited series is a short run of a comic book, usually around six to twelve issues, but there have been series with fewer issues and ones with more. A limited series is essentially one story told over several issues. An ongoing series is a series without any concrete end in sight. Many of the most well-known comic books are ongoing series, such as the most famous superheroes. There’s also another format, the graphic novel. There are two types, a trade paperback (TPB) and an original graphic novel (OGN). A TPB is a collection of several issues, usually three to six issues. An OGN is a story that has been released as a graphic novel and never broken up in single issues.
In my opinion, your best bet if you’re going the self-publishing route is a limited series and four to six issues should be sufficient. So now you know what kind of series you’re going to create, the next step is to come up with a story. Depending on how you like to work, you may want to wait until you find an artist and set up more of a collaboration. Personally, I think this is a great method as it gets the artist psyched up about the project and it becomes their baby as well as yours. The time comes now to craft your story. I won’t go too much into the mechanics of writing a comic here, there are plenty of resources at Digital Webbing for that sort of thing. I also strongly recommend Story by Robert McKee. Although it’s principally a book about screenwriting, McKee’s principles of structure are beneficial for any kind of writing.
NOTE: I advise you to avoid superhero stories. Yes, if you’re a comic book fan, chances are you’re a superhero fan. But unless you have a unique take on superheroes, you’ll have a very tough sale on your hands. Do something that will set you apart from the crowd. Take a look at the other books on the market and think about what you can offer that those books don’t.
When you begin to lay out your story ideas, structure it so that each issue of your comic has enough in it to keep the reader entertained. Especially with the indie scene, you can’t afford to bore your readers with filler issues, so keep them intrigued and interested. A composition professor in college told me a paper should be like a skirt — long enough to cover everything but short enough to keep it interesting. He was referring to essays, but it’s a principle that works for comic books, too. You have twenty-two pages per issue, so make sure you have plenty of story to fill those pages.
Once you’ve got a plot outline for your series, you have two options for actually getting things down for the artist. There are two popular methods of writing comic books. One is the plot method or the Marvel method (named as such because it was developed by Stan Lee). In this method, you give your artist a one to two page outline of the story, hitting all the major beats and the artist will then draw twenty-two pages of artwork off of that. Then, you would go back and write the dialogue and captions. This method worked great for Stan and for many comic writers back in the day — it was efficient (Stan was writing Marvel’s entire line back then, so you’re talking several comics every month) and Stan was working with the likes of Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, some of the finest artists in the industry. Unless you and your artist have an excellent rapport, I do not recommend this method. Yes, it can work great, but it can also work horribly.
The other method is the method that’s become common for comics these days — full script. With this method, you create what resembles a script for a movie or play. You label each page and you say how many panels should be on each page and you describe what happens in each panel as well as including dialogue, captions, sound effects. This is my method of choice because it gives the writer more control over the story and how everything is presented. Here’s a rough example of a full script layout:
PAGE ONE
PANEL 1: Here’s where you describe what happens in the panel. Again, follow the skirt rule — long enough to cover everything, but short enough to keep it interesting. Remember, an artist is not a robot, (s)he’s got a creative voice that (s)he wants to execute, so describe what you want, but don’t be too rigid. I usually keep my descriptions around two or three sentences, leaving my artists enough room to play with things.
CHARACTER NAME
Here is where the character’s dialogue would go.
CHARACTER NAME (caption)
If there’s something in the parentheses, it’s used to indicate a special form of dialogue. For example, “caption” or “cap” would be a caption box instead of a word balloon.
PANEL 2: And then you just repeat the process. Since I’m familiar with film and directing, I’ll include camera directions in my script like high-angle shot, medium shot, close-up, etc. If you’re comfortable with this kind of storytelling, go with it. If not, leave it up to your artist but be as descriptive as possible without being too controlling.
SFX
This heading is used for sound effects.
CHARACTER NAME (off-panel)
This would be used to indicate a character speaking who doesn’t appear in the artwork. Same principle as a character in a movie who speaks off-camera.
CHARACTER NAME (thought)
This would be used for thought balloons to show what a character is thinking.
It can be difficult to get into the flow of writing a comic script, especially if you’re used to writing prose. But practice as it and you should be able to get it down. Also, be open to changes your artist might suggest.
Now, how to assemble the rest of your creative team. Not all of us are gifted with the ability to draw (myself included) or have the patience to learn (also including myself). And if you’re among this number, you have to find your own artist. The first place you might look is within your own sphere of influence — friends, family, co-workers, classmates, etc. This avenue has both pros and cons. Your nephew might be a great artist, but can he commit to drawing over a hundred pages of artwork? Does he understand panel layout? It can be difficult dealing with someone you’re close with on a project, because what if they don’t come through? What if they have to bail on you? These are questions you have to ask yourself before going with someone you’re close to.
Say you don’t know any artists. Do your friends know anyone? Or, go to a local college and post up a bulletin. There are a lot of art students who are trying to build up their portfolio and may even be willing to work for exposure and a share of the profits. You can also try the Internet. Again, Digital Webbing is a great place for independent creators and you can post ads in their forums seeking out artists. You can also find very talented artists by posting an ad on MySpace or Craig’s List. Another good place to find artists is deviantART, or just look on Internet message boards.
These tips also go for finding an inker, colorist and letterer. If you’re lucky, you might be able to find someone who can handle all four of those. If you have the means and the patience, I definitely recommend trying to learn one of these skills. For me, I took up lettering as I had a copy of Adobe Illustrator that came with the Adobe Creative Suite. I followed the tutorials on Ninja Lettering, downloaded all the free fonts from Blambot, and began practicing. Since then, I’ve actually gotten paid work in the industry as a letterer and it helped me a lot when writing. So I definitely recommend every writer at least try to learn more about lettering. I also took up coloring with Photoshop using tutorials found on Steel Dolphin.
So now you know where to find your creative team. So what should you do? If you’re going to post an ad, state the terms of the job to save yourself time. If you’re willing to negotiate a page rate, put that. If you can’t afford a page rate and just want to offer exposure and royalties, that’s what you should specify. If you have a set page rate, put it down. This will weed out a lot of people who aren’t interested in your terms and will save you time when answering e-mails. Some will still e-mail you anyway regardless of what your terms are — I once had an artist who would e-mail me every time I posted an ad. Although my ads always said no page rates just royalties and although I told him several times I can’t afford his rates, he would still e-mail me each and every time and tell me what his very high page rates were. It got to the point that I had to block his e-mail address, because he just didn’t get the message. Also in your ad, say a little about the series. Don’t give them the whole story but talk about the genre and the tone. Is it science fiction? Horror? Crime? Action? Is it light-hearted? Serious? Adult-oriented? Satirical? These are things that will help you determine what kind of artist you should go with. If you’re writing a very gritty crime story, someone with a very animated manga style of artwork probably wouldn’t be a good fit for your tone.
To summarize, these are the main points you should have in your ad: what type of series you’re writing (including the format — OGN, limited series, ongoing), what style of art you’re looking for, what you can offer the artist in terms of payment, whether you will self-publish it or will shop it around to other publishers, a request to see samples of the artist’s work and, most importantly, your e-mail address.
Don’t spam message boards with ads. If no one responds, just give it time. When I posted an ad on MySpace last year, I didn’t get very many responses in the first two weeks or so. But then I was flooded with messages and even a year later, I still get inquiries about the ad. When you’re communicating with your creative team, be very clear about what you can offer. Many artists will only work for a page rate and you may not be able to afford it. If this is the case, don’t take it personally — they’re just trying to make a living. Be polite and respectful if you find an artist you can’t work with. Although there’s sort of a code not to publically insult other creators, people do talk and if you’re a jackass, word will get around. Some artists may request an advance, again, don’t take it personally. There have been several conmen trolling these comic communities and artists will ask for advances to protect themselves. Once you’ve found your creative team, be sure to draw up a contract. Just get down the terms down in writing so that you have physical proof that everyone agreed to these terms.
Now comes what is the most difficult part of putting together a comic — the waiting. I’m a fast writer and I can churn out a script in about two hours. But it can take days to produce a single page of a comic book. So be patient. Especially if you aren’t offering any sort of rates, because that means the people you’ve hired most-likely have full-time jobs that they have to worry about as well. On the flipside, if two months have passed and you haven’t seen a single page, then you might want to consider finding someone else.
Sometimes, you might get screwed over. To date none of the jobs I’ve offered have involved advance payment so I’ve never lost money. However, I have lost a lot of time and effort trying to contact an artist who won’t answer e-mails. Once, an artist responded to one of my ads and I absolutely loved his style. Unfortunately, I had already found someone else. But because I liked this guy’s work so much, I told him I would come up with a new series and I would cater it to his style. I did just that and he loved it, came up with a few character sketches… and then vanished. He never answered another e-mail. It’s frustrating, but don’t let it get to you and don’t go around smearing people in public.
The way a comic book is put together is the pencils are done first. Now, with the wonders of computers, you can actually combine some of these next steps. You can scan in the artwork and send the digital files to your letterer so (s)he can get to work on the letters. Meanwhile, the inker can go to work on the pages. Once the pages are inked, send them off to the colorist (if applicable) and then take the colored (or black and white, depending on your preference) pages and send them to the letterer. What the letterer can then do is swap out the uninked pages he’s been working on for the finished artwork.
Okay, you’ve got your first issue finished and ready to go. So what’s next? If you want to shop it around to publishers first, then go ahead and do that. Digital Webbing again has links to publishers that accept submissions, so follow those guidelines and send your work in. If you don’t want to go that route or if you’ve been rejected, you can still self-publish.
With self-publishing, you have two options. Either you can go with an offset printer which will charge you to print a certain number of copies and then you can try and submit your book to Diamond Comic Distributors for distribution. Be warned, if you go with an offset printer and Diamond rejects your book, then you might be stuck with a garage full of unsold comic books. There’s another option which costs nothing upfront and that’s print on demand.
Print on demand (POD) has gotten a bit of a bad rap in the mainstream because of its similarity to vanity publishing. But if you’re an independent comic creator and you can’t afford offset or can’t get accepted by Diamond, it’s a great way to get your work out there. There are a few comic book POD services with ComiXpress and Ka-Blam being the big two. Of these, I recommend Ka-Blam as they don’t charge set-up fees, they give you a $25 credit if you’re new to the site, and you have the option of listing your comic through IndyPlanet, Ka-Blam’s distribution website.
These are the basics to publishing your own comic book. Certainly, there are more details involved in this process and I’m sure you all have questions. A lot of those questions can be answered on the Digital Webbing forums. Just be sure to do your research and to remain dedicated. Don’t lose sight of the goal, no matter how many setbacks you encounter (and you will encounter a lot). Stay positive and don’t get discouraged.
