Last night I had a nice chat with a friend of mine. This friend works at Kinda-Big Comic Book Publisher. He's pretty important, as he reviews submissions when they come through the mail, gives them consideration and passes them off to a couple of other important guys. Our conversation didn't turn into a pitch so much as one of those "I've been thinking about doing this kind of story..." things. Important Guy liked my idea, and what I'd been doing with my artwork these days enough to offer me some advice on the matter (even though the company he worked for wasn't the one I'd necessarily be seeking out for this endeavor -- how rare is that?):
"I think you need to make it a series. At least a few books."
The only problem with that of course, is that I was fully intending only to do a one-shot.
Everything I know about pitching a comic book revolves around the idea of getting it done with as much quality and as few pages as possible. One-shots offer a complete story in a single go, are a better bet for the publisher when it comes to consistency of work within, and are less a risk for them to take on, in general. A series, even a miniseries, has the potential to fail right off the bat for the simple fact that its story can't be told in a single sitting. A series contract is offered only to people with insanely good ideas that have the lowest chance of a miss. Have I therefore officially made it and wasn't told?
Nah, that would be delusional. What my friend meant was, that the story I have to tell, would probably be marketed best as a series -- hence I need to rework a few things if I'm going to have a shot at producing my one-shot. And believe me, a series would be great but with the schedule I keep, I really only want to do one... at least for now.
"But Dawn!" You say, "Why cut your success like that?"
Well first of all, what publisher in his right mind would let me have a series straight off the bat like that? Were that the case, I'd suspect brain damage. More to the point, as far as my interest goes at least, I think the reason comes down to love. I love these characters, but I don't love the story I'm intending for them... yet. In order to do that, I have to get through model sheets and plot timelines and probably a good dozen pages before I really get excited over it all. Love is the reason I do comics, and it is in my opinion, the best reason to do anything. When I have the love, I'll have a series. Until then, I have a potential pilot.
I read a forum post, a very OLD forum post, just yesterday. Some guy, who apparently was banned from the forum later on, was asking people (some of whom had several successful titles under their belts) how much money he could expect to make on his comic book. His wife was apparently worried that maybe he couldn't bring in the $3,000 a month ditching his old job to do comics full time had cost him, and he apparently had the best idea in the world and was looking to set up his accounting in preparation for the great success, he was sure, was just around the corner.
I give the people on that board credit. All of them were nice, and some of them even went so far as to provide their best guesstimates in best and worst case scenarios, yet none of them were sufficient for this guy. Only when a major editor from a major company stepped in and said, "Look man, if you're not doing it because you want to do it, no amount of money is going to make this right for you." did the guy shut up.
And thank God he did. Comics is expensive. I'm lucky to break even on VARULV at this point -- very lucky, I think. The books cost me money to produce and I pay for my own copies and promotions with their sales, but even that isn't the norm. If you do work for one of the big 4, I'm going to guess you've seen a healthy paycheck come your way, now and again, and I'm also going to guess you don't solely make your cash on the comics you produce for that company.
When I was first getting started, I heard someone say that if you expect to get rich overnight you'll almost always be disappointed. If you expect nothing, you'll be more than pleasantly surprised and well rewarded for the insane amount of effort that goes into producing a book. And that's true. A series, a one-shot -- no matter what it is, all comics take tons of effort. And I have to say that just finishing one of them is a big part of that reward. Which brings me back to my series and its impending pitch...
Anyway, I'm definitely reading too far into this, from all angles. If I find the love, then maybe I do a series, but not before. I suspect the love, if it should come, will be here sometime before the year's out, and before I start anything. Because as Matt told me this morning, you gotta believe in your work before you ever do any of it. He always has a way of making me think.
Either way, it's nice to get solid critique, and equally encouraging to get praise. My friend minced no words during our talk last night and told me to take that most dreaded of plunges; to change up the characters too... make them a little more animated, tweak some backstory, and hit the boards.
To that end, here's (what could become) part of a model sheet for the new Nita Nirvana...
More to come...
"I think you need to make it a series. At least a few books."
The only problem with that of course, is that I was fully intending only to do a one-shot.
Everything I know about pitching a comic book revolves around the idea of getting it done with as much quality and as few pages as possible. One-shots offer a complete story in a single go, are a better bet for the publisher when it comes to consistency of work within, and are less a risk for them to take on, in general. A series, even a miniseries, has the potential to fail right off the bat for the simple fact that its story can't be told in a single sitting. A series contract is offered only to people with insanely good ideas that have the lowest chance of a miss. Have I therefore officially made it and wasn't told?
Nah, that would be delusional. What my friend meant was, that the story I have to tell, would probably be marketed best as a series -- hence I need to rework a few things if I'm going to have a shot at producing my one-shot. And believe me, a series would be great but with the schedule I keep, I really only want to do one... at least for now.
"But Dawn!" You say, "Why cut your success like that?"
Well first of all, what publisher in his right mind would let me have a series straight off the bat like that? Were that the case, I'd suspect brain damage. More to the point, as far as my interest goes at least, I think the reason comes down to love. I love these characters, but I don't love the story I'm intending for them... yet. In order to do that, I have to get through model sheets and plot timelines and probably a good dozen pages before I really get excited over it all. Love is the reason I do comics, and it is in my opinion, the best reason to do anything. When I have the love, I'll have a series. Until then, I have a potential pilot.
I read a forum post, a very OLD forum post, just yesterday. Some guy, who apparently was banned from the forum later on, was asking people (some of whom had several successful titles under their belts) how much money he could expect to make on his comic book. His wife was apparently worried that maybe he couldn't bring in the $3,000 a month ditching his old job to do comics full time had cost him, and he apparently had the best idea in the world and was looking to set up his accounting in preparation for the great success, he was sure, was just around the corner.
I give the people on that board credit. All of them were nice, and some of them even went so far as to provide their best guesstimates in best and worst case scenarios, yet none of them were sufficient for this guy. Only when a major editor from a major company stepped in and said, "Look man, if you're not doing it because you want to do it, no amount of money is going to make this right for you." did the guy shut up.
And thank God he did. Comics is expensive. I'm lucky to break even on VARULV at this point -- very lucky, I think. The books cost me money to produce and I pay for my own copies and promotions with their sales, but even that isn't the norm. If you do work for one of the big 4, I'm going to guess you've seen a healthy paycheck come your way, now and again, and I'm also going to guess you don't solely make your cash on the comics you produce for that company.
When I was first getting started, I heard someone say that if you expect to get rich overnight you'll almost always be disappointed. If you expect nothing, you'll be more than pleasantly surprised and well rewarded for the insane amount of effort that goes into producing a book. And that's true. A series, a one-shot -- no matter what it is, all comics take tons of effort. And I have to say that just finishing one of them is a big part of that reward. Which brings me back to my series and its impending pitch...
Anyway, I'm definitely reading too far into this, from all angles. If I find the love, then maybe I do a series, but not before. I suspect the love, if it should come, will be here sometime before the year's out, and before I start anything. Because as Matt told me this morning, you gotta believe in your work before you ever do any of it. He always has a way of making me think.
Either way, it's nice to get solid critique, and equally encouraging to get praise. My friend minced no words during our talk last night and told me to take that most dreaded of plunges; to change up the characters too... make them a little more animated, tweak some backstory, and hit the boards.
To that end, here's (what could become) part of a model sheet for the new Nita Nirvana...
More to come...
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