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I'm glad to hear it's still getting published, All-Mighty Moderator, I thought maybe it was getting cancelled when I heard about Billy.
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Did I pass the test? Can you get me a writing gig for Alpha Flight now? ![[wink]](images/icons/wink.gif)
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Here's a tip, Disco. Until Northwood actually comes out, I would assume I'm not your best contact in the biz. I'm just a man who would feel much better with a contract at this point.
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I didn't mean immediately, of course. But I guarantee I'll be the next Steve T. Seagle... make of that what you will.
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you're going to make bad movies that only include nudity for a saving grace?
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...if it gets me a job in comics, yes.
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Disco and Dogg, the good news is, you guys don't need to wait around for me or any other connection. Comic book publishing is different than any other kind of publishing I can think of in that people who self-publish aren't considered vanity authors.
If you write novels and you can't get a book publisher to put them out, you can always self-publish, but you'll be a laughingstock. No one will take you seriously. This is called the vanity press.
But if you write comic books, all you have to do is (1) Find an artist who has some time to commit; (2) Interest this person in your project; (3) Maybe toss them a few bucks; (4) Promise them an equitable share of the profits (if any) on the back end; (5) Write your comic; (6) Have the artist draw your comic; (7) And photocopy it if you can't afford to print it. You are now a comic book writer.
Vanity press? Technically, I guess so, but the comic industry doesn't see it like this. In comics, self-publishing is just as viable a way in as working for the big companies. In fact, it's probably more viable. If your comic is any good, your self-publishing efforts will be applauded, romanticized even, not ridiculed. Think about it. The worst anyone says about Cerebus is that it is a work of genius that might be somewhat offensive to women.
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Excellent.
How exactly is Cerebus offensive to women? I never really read much of it.
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quote:
Originally posted by Disco Steve:
Excellent.
How exactly is Cerebus offensive to women? I never really read much of it.
You be the judge.
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Wow. What. A. Wanker.
Now I'm glad I never read it.
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The man's politics are not my own. But, as I say, he is a genius.
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I do like the idea of a Aardvark that becomes Pope, though. That's brilliant.
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Yeah, it's that whole "having the artist draw your comic" bit that always seems to trip me up. . .well, that and lack of funds. but I digress. . .
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Yeah, getting the right artist (or any artist) can be the weak part of the plan, but the Web makes it a little easier finding someone at least. If you do find somebody, you might try shooting them with a Hypno Ray to convince them to work on spec -- no money up front.
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That was always my problem... no artist.
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mmm. . .Hypno Ray. . . My general experience has been, meet somebody who says they want to draw comics, give them a script, they draw a little, I never hear from them again (oddly similar to my love life, but once again, I digress. . . ![[nyah hah]](images/icons/tongue.gif) ). It's pretty damn frustrating and makes you not even want to work on anything. I have considered that my writing could be part of the problem, and one of the reasons I started posting at HHQ is to work on that very thing. But also, I'm the kind of person, I don't really want to spend my life writing fifty, sixty year old characters. I really don't have anything to say with most of these characters. I don't want to write filler material for Spider-Man or X-Men books. (FUCK YOU, Marvel.) At most, I MIGHT have one decent JLA story in me. I want to write my own stuff. And while self publishing is considered good in comics, conversely, new characters/concepts are frequently looked down upon by the fanbase and publishers at large. I've seriously considered just attempting to do prose work for the most part recently. If I can get into that and make some money, then I may do comics later on, when I can afford to do what I'd like to do.
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Grimm and Disco, I know exactly how you feel. I've had the same problem with artists. I doubt your writing is at fault, Grimm. Artists flake out. They make it to the big time, and they still flake out.
I also don't have a burning desire to do superheroes in general or any characters other than my own. I have no desire whatsoever to appear in Spidey or X-Men Unlimited. I saw in Epic a vehicle to get some exposure, not really a stepping stone to a run on Thor. The truth be known, I don't know how many genuine Marvel Comics pitches I have in me.
I have also been in and out of prose phases as a workaround to comics. I think I shared my experience with this earlier in the thread, but it boiled down to prospective agents suggesting that my work would make a good comic book. Sigh. So much for my plan to get into comics through prose, eh? If comics are where I have to be creatively, then there's really no getting around it.
Grimm, I share your concerns about what the fan base and the major publishers want. But if you feel like you should be writing comics, then comics deserve your voice, not the voice that the industry thinks it wants. An industry is just a bunch of businesses, and businesses don't know what they want until you sell it to them. They're stupid this way.
Plus, you never know what will happen. There are flukes, strokes of good luck, happy coincidences, and other synchronistic signularities awaiting you in spacetime. Case in point: I would have never guessed that Marvel would have picked up Northwood Saga. It's mainstream, but it doesn't feel like a Marvel book in so many ways. My impression going in was that the industry in general and Marvel in particular wouldn't want it. I was wrong. So you never know.
I'm no font of sage advice, obviously. But my two cents: If what you really want to do is write comics, I think the best thing to do is to write comics. Write the comics you want to write. Don't give up hope looking for that artist. If you need to get a day job to support your work, then so be it, but keep in mind that breaking into prose circles can be just as hard. Given that there is a huge energy expenditure in front of you, you might as well expend that energy in the most direct channel.
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Disco, by the way, I thought you were holding off on comics until you got outta high school. Or maybe you were just holding off on Epic? From your scripts, it looked to me like you have been doing this for a while now.
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I appreciate the response here. I'll try to comment more on it later. You're a good man, Marc Campbell.
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quote:
Originally posted by Marc Campbell:
Disco, by the way, I thought you were holding off on comics until you got outta high school. Or maybe you were just holding off on Epic? From your scripts, it looked to me like you have been doing this for a while now.
I dunno... I'd like an artist to collaborate with, publishing or not. I'm sure there is someone else in my position, not necessarily ready to actually work, but willing to collaborate to fine tune his or her abilities.
I've been writing since I was 16... so about 2 years. I've only written like 10 scripts... only a few of them are unfinished, which pleases me. i always expect myself to not finish things.
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quote:
Originally posted by Grimm:
I appreciate the response here. I'll try to comment more on it later. You're a good man, Marc Campbell.
Thanks, Grimm, tho I'm not sure what I did! Anyway, I thought of ya the other day, and, no, not in the wet dream kind of way for once. I was reading this interview with Michael Chabon, Pulitzer Prize winner for Kavalier and Clay. He wants to work in television, and he can't seem to get steady work. Unreal. The guy has Pulitzer, and he's basically knocking on doors in Hollywood. So if prose was his ticket into TV, maybe he should have thought twice.
quote:
Originally posted by Disco Steve:
I dunno... I'd like an artist to collaborate with, publishing or not. I'm sure there is someone else in my position, not necessarily ready to actually work, but willing to collaborate to fine tune his or her abilities.
I'm sure there are thousands.
quote:
I've been writing since I was 16... so about 2 years. I've only written like 10 scripts... only a few of them are unfinished, which pleases me. i always expect myself to not finish things.
Well, Disco, I think you're a good writer. Keep honing those skills. Who knows? Someday you, too, might be living the penniless, solitary life of words!
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quote:
Originally posted by Marc Campbell:
quote:
Originally posted by Disco Steve:
I dunno... I'd like an artist to collaborate with, publishing or not. I'm sure there is someone else in my position, not necessarily ready to actually work, but willing to collaborate to fine tune his or her abilities.
I'm sure there are thousands.
I bet... just need to find them.
quote:
I've been writing since I was 16... so about 2 years. I've only written like 10 scripts... only a few of them are unfinished, which pleases me. i always expect myself to not finish things.
Well, Disco, I think you're a good writer. Keep honing those skills. Who knows? Someday you, too, might be living the penniless, solitary life of words! [/QB][/QUOTE]
Thank you. It's always been my dream. ![[biiiig grin]](images/icons/grin.gif)
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For the interested. Here's what I'm up to on ComiX-Fan... Under the Hood #2
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I have returned. More on that later. quote:
I was reading this interview with Michael Chabon, Pulitzer Prize winner for Kavalier and Clay. He wants to work in television, and he can't seem to get steady work. Unreal. The guy has Pulitzer, and he's basically knocking on doors in Hollywood. So if prose was his ticket into TV, maybe he should have thought twice.
Chabon is deluding himself if he thinks a Pulitzer will get him in the door in TV. The two media are very different. Incidentally, in order to improve his profile, Chabon has been doing the rounds of literary magazines (like Vanity Fair) and offering special commentary on other people's works.
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Dave! Welcome back!
Yeah, two different industries. What kind of world is it, though, when not even a Pulitzer opens a few doors? Seems to me that it would or at least it should sell itself to some extent.
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Look, I've no doubt it gets people to pay attention to his CV.
But Pulitzers are awarded to writers for artistic merit. Literary skill leading to a powerful work. None of which describes TV.
Its like me saying, Hey, I've got 10 years experience as a lawyer, hire me as a journalist. They're kind of similar, but not really.
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Well, they could slap that "Pulitzer Prize" label on anything that Chabon did, even little hand baskets made of straw, and I'd probably give them a second look. I suspect the Pulitzers and Nobels of the world are rigged and corrupt, just like everything else, but I'm still sufficiently impressed by them.
Notwithstanding, you're making my point to Grimm that the best route into comics is comics.
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For general consumption:
Things are...happening with Northwood Saga. I can't go into details. It is too soon for announcements. But things are definitely...happening.
So if this thread devolves into even less of a discussion about this comic and its path to publication in the near term, I hope it will be forgiven.
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quote:
Originally posted by Marc Campbell:
Well, they could slap that "Pulitzer Prize" label on anything that Chabon did, even little hand baskets made of straw, and I'd probably give them a second look. I suspect the Pulitzers and Nobels of the world are rigged and corrupt, just like everything else, but I'm still sufficiently impressed by them.
I doin't know about them being rigged...but it did occur to me that Chabon's book may have had a lot of appeal to judges. It dealt with the Holocaust (Maus won a Pulitzer on a similar theme), was set in New York, had a nostalgic art deco 1930s flavour to it, and had a sympathetic gay character.
I'm not suggesting that all the judges are gay Jewish New Yorkers with a penchant for art deco '30s literature, but then again maybe some of them are....
I liked Chabon's book, but I'm damned if I can work out how it won a Pulitzer.
quote:
Notwithstanding, you're making my point to Grimm that the best route into comics is comics.
Yes. Although if you read any interviews with John Ostrander or Mark Waid, you'd wonder why exactly you'd want to do that. That takes nothing away from your success so far, Marc, but it sounds like a hard industry.
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quote:
Originally posted by Dave:
I liked Chabon's book, but I'm damned if I can work out how it won a Pulitzer.
It's rigged, I tell you! They're all out to get me!
quote:
Yes. Although if you read any interviews with John Ostrander or Mark Waid, you'd wonder why exactly you'd want to do that. That takes nothing away from your success so far, Marc, but it sounds like a hard industry.
Well, the Epic thing is or was certainly a fluke. For most people, getting into comics amounts to kicking in some cash and self-publishing or landing an editorial job -- although don't go in by the Web department. As I've said many times before, the people at DC wouldn't look at my stuff even when I was working for them. As for me, I think the jury is still out on the success part of the equation.
And for those who care, here is a new Under the Hood.
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quote:
Originally posted by Marc Campbell:
don't go in by the Web department. As I've said many times before, the people at DC wouldn't look at my stuff even when I was working for them.
and how!
quote:
Originally posted by Marc Campbell:
And for those who care, here is a new Under the Hood.
dug this very much. specifically the 5 dollar tip.
good work, campbell!
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quote:
Originally posted by Rob Kamphausen:
quote:
Originally posted by Marc Campbell:
don't go in by the Web department. As I've said many times before, the people at DC wouldn't look at my stuff even when I was working for them.
and how!
Astonishing that you work/ed with them and they wouldn't even look at your ideas.
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quote:
Originally posted by Rob Kamphausen:
good work, campbell!
Hey, thanks, Kamphausen! By the way, your boards were down over the weekend. FYI.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave:
Astonishing that you work/ed with them and they wouldn't even look at your ideas.
Yeah, it's a very exlusive club. I was down on the third floor, and comic editorial was on the sixth and seventh floors. Screwy as it sounds, your floor was very important. My next-door neighbor and colleague did a lot more campaigning and hard-selling than I did, and she eventually got a Batman fill-in ish during No Man's Land. I don't think she's done anything else at DC since then. Too bad, because she's really good.
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So it's Batman #569, "I Cover the Waterfront."
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quote:
Originally posted by Marc Campbell:
quote:
Originally posted by Rob Kamphausen:
good work, campbell!
Hey, thanks, Kamphausen! By the way, your boards were down over the weekend. FYI.
You saved me the task of telling him.
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave:
Astonishing that you work/ed with them and they wouldn't even look at your ideas.
Yeah, it's a very exlusive club. I was down on the third floor, and comic editorial was on the sixth and seventh floors. Screwy as it sounds, your floor was very important. My next-door neighbor and colleague did a lot more campaigning and hard-selling than I did, and she eventually got a Batman fill-in ish during No Man's Land. I don't think she's done anything else at DC since then. Too bad, because she's really good.
I guess that's a reflection of the highly competitive nature of the industry.
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