Howdy, folks!

Welcome to Sequential Parts, my new column here at Blog@Newsarama!

My name is Randal C. Jarrell and I am the Managing Editor of Oni Press, an independent comic book publisher based out of Portland, OR. Oni Press was established in 1997 with an emphasis on publishing creator-owned works. We have published over 200 graphic novels and trade paperbacks from almost every genre and for every age group. My job at Oni Press brings me in contact with every aspect of the business of comic book production.  In a nutshell, I work at the intersection of creative development, commerce, and logistics. I am regularly involved in portfolio reviews, conventions, appearances, looking for talent, approving pitches, reading scripts, scanning art, digital production and clean up, prepress, and whatever other stages are involved in getting a project completed, printed, and distributed. The fact that I have worked in virtually every aspect of comic book production gives me a relatively rare perspective on many elements to this business.

In this series of columns, I hope to educate some readers about the behind-the-scenes aspects of the comics industry. I’d like this to be an informative and educational resource for anybody aspiring to work in comics. Even if you don’t have any desire to work in comics, I would hope what I intend to write will give you an added sense of appreciation for the books you read and all the hard work that goes into nurturing a project from a simple idea all the way to a physical copy of a book you can hold in your hands.

The first few columns will focus on some of the topics I cover in a series of panels I give at comic conventions called How Not to Break Into Comics. These panel discussions focus less on the how to’s and more on all the goofy mistakes people make when pitching comics or trying to get work in this industry.

For our initial column, I’d like to address one of the biggest mistakes new talent often make when pitching comics – being overly ambitious in your pitch format.

I would say that on average, we receive about a thousand pitches a year for new projects. Most of these pitches are coming from creators who we do not have any publishing history with us and the vast majority of those are from people with no publishing history at all.

When you are new and trying to break in, your best bet is to start small. Don’t pitch a 70-issue space epic. NOBODY is going to green light such a mammoth project until you have become a proven commodity that can be trusted to meet the strenuous deadlines involved with an ongoing series. It would be idiotic for any publisher to green light such an ambitious undertaking from an unproven creator.

Bryan Lee O’Malley would be a good example for this. Bryan is most known for his Scott Pilgrim series of original graphic novels. But if this had been the first thing he had come to us with, we probably wouldn’t have approved the project. Bryan’s first project with us was some inking on the second arc of Queen & Country. He then illustrated a 4-issue Hopeless Savages miniseries. After performing admirably and professionally on these two projects, Bryan then pitched Lost at Sea, his first original graphic novel that he would also write. It was after Lost at Sea that he pitched us the 6-volume Scott Pilgrim series. As you can see, each project got a bit more ambitious but he started small and his ability was both proven and strengthened at every step of the way.

We once got a 250 page pitch from an unpublished writer. 250 pages of pitch material. This was going to be the creator’s sci-fi space-viking magnum opus. The pitch had detailed histories of alien species, schematics from spaceships, excerpts from “historical” documents, and page after page after page of star charts.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to create such a large epic. It probably just won’t be your first project out of the gate. Start small. Do some shorts in anthologies. Produce a mini-comic or two. Pitch a miniseries or an original graphic novel. Heck… if you want, pitch it so that if your miniseries does gangbusters, it can be the first volume in your multi-volume epic. Everyone has to start somewhere and if you start small, each of these little projects can help build up your resume. Then, when it comes time to publishing your epic, you will hopefully have a proven track record and a built-in fan base to buy, read, and appreciate your work. That is something every publisher is looking for.

And on the theme of starting small… that’s all I have for you today.

Till next time,

Randal C. Jarrell

I’M THE GODDAM MANAGING EDITOR.

www.onipress.com

If you are going to be at the New York Comic-Con, come visit me at my panel:

How Not To Break Into Comics

Saturday, February 7^th – Panel Room 10 (1A21) – 11:00am-12:00pm

There have been countless articles and panels on how to break into comics, but very few on how not to. Come join Randal C. Jarrell (Managing Editor at Oni Press) and other industry insiders as we discuss the common and often hilarious mistakes people often make when trying to pitch or get work in the comics industry. This unique inside perspective will help any prospective creator learn how to navigate the potential pitfalls that doom far too many in their attempts to break in to comics. If you want to work in comics, you do not want to miss this panel!

This entry was posted on Monday, February 2nd, 2009 at 3:48 pm and is filed under Features, Oni Press, Sequential Parts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.