Let me be clear: This website isn’t just a place where I try to tell you about my work and try to convince you to buy it. (It is those things also, but it’s not the point.)
I want you know more about who I am. I want you to learn something about breaking into comic book writing, if that’s your thing.
I could tell you about where I got the idea for All Fall Down, but that story’s elsewhere on the interwebs already. I want you to know how I actually got started:
I didn’t know squat.
All I knew was that I wanted to know how to write a comic book. So I went to a book store and I bought a book: Dennis O’Neal’s The DC Guide to Writing Comics. I devoured it. If you want one place to start learning how to write for comics, this is it. It tells you everything you need to know about format, technique, pacing, story structure, character building. The works.
After I’d gotten that more or less down, I also sought the work of another master. It had less to say about technique (a lot less) but was invaluable in terms of theory. (I’ll warn you: Moore is a genius, and he knows it. So he doesn’t censor himself at all and goes on for pages and pages sometimes. It’s how he does.)
Once I had a working first draft of a script for All Fall Down (back then it was to be twelve issues instead of six), I sought out artists. I found them at Digital Webbing. There’s a wide range of talent to be found there– some of them suck. But, if you’re willing to pay for good work, you’d be hard-pressed to find better freelancers who are just starting out.
So. A few hundred bucks later, I had twelve pages of issue one. Done and dusted.
This next part was pretty nerve-wracking: sending it out for submissions. I went online and assembled a grocery list of comic publishers that accepted unsolicited submissions, and then I wrote them all. All of them. I emailed them files, I sent physical packets. (I got one acceptance letter, but they wanted to change the ending so drastically as to completely demolish the point.)
Then, in 2007, I went to New York Comic-Con. This is Mecca for nerds of every stripe. (But if you’re reading this, you know that already.) I went in to Comic-Con armed w/ more submission packets, and went through my pitch at every table that would listen. They all said they’d think about it and get back to me. (Total lie, btw. They were just being polite.)
Finally, it happened. I wandered past Arcana Studio’s table. There I met Sean O’Reilly, who took a look and said two of the most beautiful sentences I ever heard. “This looks pretty cool. Can you come back tomorrow to talk about it?”
After I stopped laughing like a jackass, I said “Sure thing.” We shook hands. The next day, we started talking about contracts. The ball officially started rolling. I was in.
That wasn’t all there was to it, but that does hopefully give you a general idea of the work you’ve gotta do to be ready to stick your foot in the door.
Ciao for now.
