The insider’s guide to creating comics and graphic novels

Getting started in the comics industry isn’t easy, but it’s not as confusing and mystifying as many would have you believe. Like most industries, a lot of your success will come from connections you make, friendships you forge and being in the right place at the right time. All these are factors you have some control over. I have three rules of thumb for connecting in the comics industry.

Comic-Con The convention circuit is a fantastic place to meet other creators, editors, publishers, agents and fans. Heck, you even meet legends from time to time.

The first is be confident. Don’t go overboard to the point where you’re arrogant, but speak from a place of success. “Did you draw these pages?” “Yes, I did. You’ll notice that I opted for an ink wash here to emphasize the growing storm…” That’s a good answer. “Yes, I did. I’m new at this, so they’re pretty weak, but I’m working on it…” is not a great answer. How you carry yourself and how you present your work means a lot to fans, editors and publishers.

Go to conventions if you can, meet up with people on the Internet, email and call on the phone to get people to notice you. Most of this won’t produce direct results, but you’re getting your name and your work in front of people, and that means you’re starting to have a conversation with the industry, as I like to put it. You’re saying to the industry, “Here I am. I’m ready to take you on, and I’m not going anywhere.” And staying in the industry eye carries weight. The longer your name keeps floating around, the more likely you are to start picking up work.

There are schools with courses in comics illustration and design. My business is called Comics Experience and you can find it at www.comicsexperience.com, where I offer courses on art and writing for comics as well as seminars on various other topics. The Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art has a long history of training artists to work in the comics industry. And many, many colleges and art schools offer courses on comics.

Lastly, be nice. It’s really as simple as that. When you meet people, be respectful of their time and thank them for talking with you. They’re under no obligation to speak with you or look at your work. Take any critique you get with a smile and really try to see what the person is saying to you. Opinions may vary and it’s up to you to decide who is right and who is wrong, but if you think you’re right all the time and everyone else is wrong, you might want to look again—but I digress. Be nice to people. Editors and publishers don’t like working with jerks.

INSIDER VOICE
Neal Adams on Freelance Fee Negotiation

You’re gonna go for a job and show your work and they say, “We’d like to use you.” Now, the question is what are they going to pay you? The first scenario is: They tell you how much they’re going to pay you, “We pay this for this.” Nine times out of ten that’s not what happens. What happens is they say: “We want to use you, how much do you charge?” You have to be smart. You could say something really stupid like, “What do you want to pay me?” or “What can I get?” or name some low price in hopes that they’ll say “Yes.” Don’t do that.

What you do is: Think about the number you would like to get, not the number you would be satisfied to get. Let’s say you would be satisfied to get $600, but you’d like to get $2,000 dollars.

What you say is, “The last time I did a job like this I got $4,000”—double the number you would like to get—“I got $4,000. But I want to work on this job so I’d like find out what you guys are willing to pay or what’s in your budget.”

Now, what’s gonna happen as a result of that? First of all, they can’t pay you $4,000 dollars. The question is what could they pay you, what’s in their budget? They have some idea what they can pay, so they will either say to you, “OK” or “Oh golly, that’s kind of steep for us, I wasn’t thinking of anything more than like $2,500,” or “I’ll pay you $1,000.” You say “I want to work with you, that’s fine.”

The guarantee is your fee will never be $600.