This has been only slightly dramatized.

Maybe these projects are some sort of indicators of the zeitgeist. If you were a thirteen-year-old boy during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, I could see how you could get the impression that receiving oral sex can instigate a dramatic turn in your life. So perhaps I have President Clinton to thank for the several submissions I got like these this year. Or maybe that impression has always been there, lurking in the male psyche, and President Clinton’s antics merely confirmed it. And we all know that if something lurks in the male psyche, the comic book is the natural outlet for it.

So thank you, President Clinton.

And that’s really all I can think of to say about that.

Last month at Comic-Con International in San Diego, Randal Jarrell from Oni Press and I hosted a panel called “How Not to Break into Comics.” We talked about the common and often unintentionally hilarious mistakes people make in their efforts to get their comics published. This is one of them.

I didn’t mention the overly-taped-and-bubble-wrapped glitter-filled submission specifically at the panel, but it fits into the category of one of the common problems we see: style over substance. Elaborate packaging, “cute” details like glitter confetti, “bonus” material like T-shirts and stickers — these are not what editors care about. This extends into the work itself — flashy coloring won’t cover up basic drawing problems or poor writing and a slick cover letter and pitch (which often are not a slick as you think they are) won’t make up for a lackluster project.

Simplicity in approach and an ability to follow directions will get you farther than gimmicks when it comes to breaking into comics. Here’s a little step-by-step for the submitting life:

1. Research comics companies. Know what they’re publishing, their submission guidelines, and who their editors are. Read their comics. Look for interviews with their editors and current artists.

2. Honestly assess your work. Your submission lives or dies by, more than anything else, what the editor thinks about your art and writing. How does your work compare to other comics being published by the companies you plan on submitting to? Hone your skills until you feel your work is ready. Don’t fall into beating yourself up, but don’t be cocky, either.

3. Write a cover letter and put together a package that is customized for each publisher. We can tell if you’re sending the same submission package to every publisher you submit to, especially if you accidentally don’t change the company name in the letter. (I get cover letters that are addressed to Image Comics and Dark Horse Comics pretty regularly.) Publishers all have different requirements and different priorities. You can find the former in submission guidelines and learn enough about a company for the latter through that research you did.

4. If you’re rejected, don’t immediately become defensive or self-pitying. Neither will get you any closer to getting published. And they’re not attractive personality traits. If you received feedback with the rejection, think about what it says, and use it or don’t use it as you see fit.

And for goodness’ sake; your submission isn’t the Holy Grail. A sealed envelope will keep it plenty safe enough.

The saying goes, “Never meet your idols.” This is, presumably, because the people whom you admire the most will inevitably disappoint you with their mere humanity. But let me tell you, this was not the case with Neil Gaiman. When I gave him a Dr. Radium print after he spoke at my university, he invited me to lunch with him and some of the university faculty. He was gracious and charming, and he sat in a Japanese restaurant with the light from the window behind him glowing around his head like a halo. Seriously.

Me? I had unwittingly inspired the devotion of a small boy who was along with us, and spent most of lunch trying to juggle playing a game of Hangman with this boy and approximating intelligent adult conversation. Then, small boy finally gone, I found myself walking down the street next to Neil Gaiman.

You have to understand: Like 99% of comics-reading women my age with all-black wardrobes, I first fell in love with a comic when I read The Sandman. Neil Gaiman and his creation is, as my agonized thought balloon tells you, the reason I work in comics. (And not just because of the work itself — seeing women at the editing and art helms informed me of possibilities.)

So I was walking down the street with Neil Gaiman in a hero-worship-induced state of utter stupidity, and, yes, those are the words that escaped from my lips. And he was gracious and charming enough to still talk to me after that.

Oh god.

First, I apologize for the lateness of this column and for the fourth panel. Brian and I didn’t mean to get all autobio-comix-lurid on you, but we’re just reporting True Events, you know?

One of the uplifting mantras I have about working in comics is “Remember, to most people, comics do not matter.” In fact, if you Google my name, you’ll find a comment I posted on Heidi MacDonald’s Publishers Weekly column The Beat saying just this. (I am sorry for repeating myself, but that’s what you do with mantras, isn’t it?) In the spectrum of invocations of humility, it doesn’t rank with “memento mori” (”remember you are mortal”), which a slave whispered in the ear of Roman conquerers during their triumphs, but for my purposes, it does the job. And my purposes as a comics editor are these: 1. Make sure good comics get published. 2. Make sure people know about these comics.

So if I remind myself that for most people, comics are nowhere near their radius of consciousness, it makes me work harder. And it makes me kind of depressed.

Hello, Blog@Newsarama readers. This is the first of a new monthly feature, the new “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now,” a series of cartoons and short essays about life in independent comics. My life, specifically. I’m the editor-in-chief of the independent comics publisher Slave Labor Graphics (SLG, as we prefer). That company, founded by the gentleman pictured in panel two (images are courtesy of my husband, artist Brian Belew), has been around for more than twenty years. I’ve been around — at least as far as comics are concerned — for seven years. This is my introduction, my “origin story,” of sorts.

A lot of people ask me how to get a job in comics, and I really don’t have a helpful answer to that question. Though it was a relatively easy process for me, I didn’t get to the position I’m in now on purpose. I began as an editorial assistant at SLG, scanning art, laying out comics and writing press releases. By the sheer force of my showing up regularly and doing what I was supposed to, I was promoted to editor-in-chief a year and a half later. It occurs to me that the “in chief” part of my title is mostly an honorary formality, since I’m the only editor at the company, but it still looks impressive on a business card. What do I do? I help find new projects, work with artists to develop the those we are publishing, and, well, I still lay out comics and write press releases, too. I try not to scan artwork anymore — like everybody everywhere I hate scanning artwork — but sometimes it still falls to me.

My job in comics is some sort of cosmic rebalancing, I think. In a previous life, I must have made too much money in a soul-deadening industry, maybe in petrochemicals or a company that makes the little plastic things that keep pizzas from sticking to the top of the delivery box. But the joke’s on karma, if that’s the case. Sure, working in the comic book industry means you have an even chance of being poor, suffering from a defensive inferiority complex, and taking up the drink, but that’s probably true of any profession. At least I’m having fun. For now, anyway.

By the way, now that I’ve gotten to know Dan, the Oscar Wilde comment doesn’t exactly make sense, but it’s a lot less baffling than it was at the time.

(Lyrics in this cartoon are from the song by The Smiths from which I’ve taken the title.)