A Writer In Search of His Artist

Although the masters makes the rules  For the wise men and the fools I got nothing, Ma, to live up to:

To put it bluntly, to be a writer trying to break into comics without an artist sucks.  Trying to break into comics as a writer without an artist is next to impossible.  An editor can look at a portfolio of an artists' work at a convention and make a decision in minutes.  A writer handing the same editor a script is lucky if he takes it with a promise of not throwing it away as soon as the writer's back is turned.  It's not that the editor is being a jerk, it's just a lot harder to evaluate a script and most editors don't have the time to do so from unknowns. 

So if you want to break into comics as a writer it helps to find an artist to work with.  As a team you can create a proposal that an editor will be glad to look at.  As a team you can create a comic book and take the finished project to an editor.

Which all leads to one important question.  Where do you find artists?  Where did I find the artists that I was fortunate to work with?

To discover that answer we'll have to jump into the Way-Back Machine and take a trip back in the past to a time where the internet was just a glint in Al Gore's eye and Diamond was just one of many distributors that delivered your weekly comics to their shops.

I know now it might be hard to believe but once upon a time there actually was more than just one magazine out there about comics.  Wizard's first issue wasn't even being assembled yet.  One of these magazines was Comic Scene, published by the same people that put out the science fiction magazine Starlog.  They ran an article about a group called Interfan.  Interfan was a organization that provided a link between fledging writers and artists.  At this point I was awash with ideas and plots and even scripts, but had no idea what to do with all this outpouring.  Like I mentioned this was before the Internet, as hard as it might be for you to believe such a time existed, so I actually put stamps on an envelope and letter in the envelope and mailed it to InterFan.  (And to farther confuse those that are only conversed in email I included a SASE.  No, this isn't a foreign language, it means Self Addressed Stamped Envelope.  What this was for was so they could mail me back the list without them having to use their money for a stamp or envelope.)

And for what at a time without Instant Messaging seemed quick I received a reply.  I don't remember how long the list was or most of the names on it.  I'm sure that there were more writers than artists.  Everyone thinks writing is easy.  I do remember two names on the list that I was soon to get in contact with.  Both lived in California.  Dave Garcia and Sam Kieth.  Not too bad for a first try.  Dave was even than working on Panda Khan and would later go on to work on the Tick as well as many other comics.  Sam was working on some giant bunny strip and had a character called the Is that he kept trying to work into something.  He later went on to a few memorable characters, including the Maxx and Wolverine, Batman and a host of other books.

After a letter to both artists I was soon opening packages from both of them that included samples of their artwork.  Up to this point you have to realize that all my writing had been done pretty much solo with no real interaction with any of my peers.  I'm sure that I wrote and received some art samples back from artists that I decided not to work with, but today the only ones I remember are Sam and Dave.  To start off with two artists that are so good, even at that time in their career, was inspiring.  I still remember looking at their artwork and just marveling at the fact that these guys wanted to work with me.  Even today I get chills just thinking about it.

A few more letters back and forth, some phone calls and before long we were all working on new creations.  One of these early creations with Sam ended up being a character called Agatha Moore who went on to star in an issue of Amazing Comics Presents.  None of the series that Dave and I created ever made it to the published stage, but we did collaborate on some short comic stories that ended up in such publications as Kitchen Sinks'  Death Rattle and other places.

Even after getting the luck of the draw and working with these two talented artists I was still looking for artists.  Another source of discovering talented artists was the Comic Buyer's Guide.  The Buyer's Guide, or at it was affectionately known as CBG, started life as an ad paper, where fans basically ran ads to sell or trade their comics.  Eventually it morphed into more of a trade paper, where the news of the industry was first published and professionals wrote letters and debated issues.   Before the instant arrival of news with the web today a weekly provided fast service.  In the back they had a classified section where you could advertise for just about anything.  So I did.  I ran a classified looking for  artists.  I ran it for a month, four issues. 

I was surprised by the reaction.  I started getting replies within the first week.  And every week I got more.  I don't remember how many I ended up receiving, but it was a lot more than I ever expected.  Yes, a lot of them weren't at a professional level yet, but I was still surprised by the amount that were quite good.  Some of these artists I ended up working with and others due to time issues or we just couldn't figure out something we both agreed on I ended up not working with, but still thought the world of their artwork.

One of these artists was a guy named Ron Wilber.  Ron ended up being one of my greatest artist collaborators.  I sent Ron the script for a short story about a future where the main characters were walking talking Lizards.  It actually was a story that Sam Kieth and I had batted around a bit, but never ended up doing anything with.  The story ended up being the series Lizard and we published around a dozen stories in Fantagraphics'  Critters anthology comic and a single stand alone issue of Lizards Summer Fun Special. 

I would duplicate that ad in the back of CBG a few more times.  Another person that wrote into answer my ad was Brian Clifton.  Outside of Ron, Brian became my most constant artist companion.  Brian was one of the most talented artists I have ever had the privilege of working with.  (And after you've seen the names of the artists I've worked with that's pretty impressive.)   With Brian we created Diebold.  With this comic it was a true collaboration from the very get-go.  I didn't just send Brian a script or idea, he sent me sketches and we went from there.  I'm not going to go into a lot of detail over the creation of the comic here, because that's not the point of this week's column and I intend to write about that subject in the future. 

One point I want to mention here is that the art that accompanies this week's column is by Brian Clifton.  The art for the logo for this column is the first issue cover of Diebold by Sam Kieth.

So in today's world with instant communication and messaging just a click away you would think it would be even easier to find artists to work with.  Maybe it is, maybe I just haven't stumbled across the secret yet.  There are some sites where they advertise a section with artists and writers looking for each other, but so far I have had nowhere near the success that I had back in the day pre-Internet.  Now this isn't a rant for a less tech savy world, I love the Internet and my computer. 

One site I had some luck with was Digital Webbing.  I found some really excellent artists, but for one reason or another have had no luck in connecting with a story or character.  And than there are the artists that reply back with samples and a price list for their services.   Whatever I say here is going to come off wrong, like I don't think artists should be paid for their work, and nothing could be farther from the truth.  I believe artists should be paid for their work.  But and this is my big but of the matter, they should be paid from the publisher or even the writer if he's hiring an artist to illustrate his creations to help sell his work as a solo creator.  But if a writer is working with an artist to create something that they can pitch together than I don't see the point of the writer paying the artist.  It's a collaboration.  If the proposal is picked up than the writer and artist are both hired.  And they both get paid.  None of these artists that I worked with and got published with asked for money to illustrate my words.  We were in it together, as a team, to sell our concept. 

There's lot of sites out there that cater to comics.  Comic Space is a My Space like site that acts as portal for writers, artists, letterers, colorists, publishers, fans, anyone that has any interest in comic books.  Deviant Art is another site where artists advertise their talent. 

Somewhere out there is someone that is going to create a site that is made specifically for talent to connect and it's going to be a smash. 

All this has actually been a preamble to the main purpose of this week's column.  The weekend of April  24^th and 25^th NOLA Con comes back to Metairie.  I'll be there, sitting behind one of the tables, hawking my books and talking to anyone that comes by and wants to talk.  And any artists out there that are looking for a writer, come find me and let's talk.  I'm actively looking for artists to work on all sorts of proposals.  I've already have a small black and white publisher interested in a storyline, but I need an artist.  I really want to experiment with web comics, but I need an artist.  I have a couple story lines that I think would really be great, some super heroes, some thrillers, one set in New Orleans that would create a lot of notice, but (you know what I'm going to say) I need an artist.

Like the great piece of art that Brian drew that illustrates this week's column “I Need An Artist.”

So if you're in the area stop by and say hi.

RIP: Brian Clifton

Sometimes it seems the universe takes a perverse pleasure in balancing the bad with the good.  I just came home tonight from the Wizard World New Orleans Con and sat down at my computer to see an email from Mike Zeck.  Mike and Brian Clifton are old friends from the days before either of them were in comics.  He was writing to tell me that Brian had died this past Friday.  Brian had a rare form of thyroid cancer called medullary thyroid cancer and has been battling if for the past few years.  As Mike said it in his email
“a good man died young, and that always seems somehow unfair.”

I met Brian back in the nineties when I put an ad in the classified section of the than weekly Comic Buyers Guide.  I was looking for artists to collaborate with and Brian was looking for writers.  It was a great match.  We hit it off immediately.  Brian sent me pages and pages from his sketch book and from that Diebold grew.  The stories I could tell about what we went through getting this comic out would curl your hair.  We went through three different publishers before we decided to self publish it ourself.   We met up at conventions in Florida, Philadelphia and even San Diego.  Thanks to the wonderful folks at Einstein’s Comics we were part of their independent comic booth in San Diego.  I’m terrible with years, so I’m not going to try and pinpoint the exact ones.

Brian was a few years older than I was.  I would show up at these Cons in a t shirt, sandals and that was when I was sporting a small pony tail.  Brian would always be so much better dressed than I was, always in a sports coat.  Another constant with Brian was his wonderful wife Barbara.  If Brian was there she was too.  She traveled to all the Cons with him.  Getting to know Brian I got to know Barbara also and she was a special person.

We had such hopes for the future of Diebold.  Sam Kieth and Mike Zeck provided us covers.  Drew Hayes promised us one in the future.  After the first issue came out all the comic magazines at the time, and this was when there were quite a few, gave us good reviews.  Hero Illustrated did a page on it.  Even Wizard plugged it with praise.

When we decided to self publish Diebold we both knew we were going to need a source of money, neither of us had money laying around gathering dust.  Brian came up with an inventive way to raise the money.  He pre-sold the pages of artwork from the first issue.  The buyer had their name put in the comic under the artwork that they had purchased as well as the original page of artwork.  It worked.  He sold out of all the artwork and we were able to publish the comic.

Somehow we only ended up doing only two issues of Diebold.  I think if we had stuck with it we could have made a go of it, but for both of us other concerns of life interfered with our plans for the book and we never made it to a third issue.  And as we didn’t have the comic to keep us connected we started to lose touch with each other.  We’d manage an email and than forget for awhile.  About a year back I emailed him and we’ve been corresponding on a somewhat regular basis.  My last email to him was in November of the past year and he told me had just gotten back from the hospital and a new round of medical tests.

There’s a lot more I could say about Brian.  He was an avid EC Comics fan.  In one of his emails he mentioned that he had a drawing of his in the old EC comic Creepy and that it had been reprinted in Volume 5 of the reprint series.  As Brian got sick he found it difficult to hold a pencil to draw with.  Some of the medicine he was taking made his hands and feet swell up and he had trouble holding a pen.  But when he could he would still doodle.  And he would send me some of those doodles.  Brian was an amazing artist and to the end he lost none of that talent.  The picture with this post is of one of his last doodles to me.  I love it.

Brian and Barbara were able to go to DragonCon in Atlanta this past year.  They asked me if I could make it, but I wasn’t able to.  I wish I had been able to now.  Like I said I could say a lot about Brian.  But mostly I want to say he was a wonderful husband and father and a great friend.  He will be missed.