How to Be a Comic Book Artist

Prepare a Portfolio

• If you've ever applied for a job in graphics or design before, then you know the importance of a portfolio. Ideally, your portfolio should showcase the range of skills a potential hiring editor will look for in an up-and-coming artist. There are five basic things you need to do to prepare a proper portfolio to really wow the publishing houses:

  1. Know what comic book editors are looking for

  2. Know your specialty

  3. Gather your materials

  4. Prepare your samples

  5. Be original

Apply for a Job at a Comic Book Publishing House

• If you've always dreamed of drawing your childhood favorites (characters like Batman, Spawn or the X-Men), then your goal is to get hired by one of the major companies (the "Big Two" are Marvel and DC). Other large independent companies include Image and Dark Horse. In order to make it to the promised land of mainstream comics, you'll have to contact editors at the major companies and introduce them to your work. This is a trying process that requires iron resolve, stubborn determination and incessant phone calls. There are five standard steps:

  1. Request submission guidelines

  2. Apply

  3. Deal with positive feedback

  4. Deal with rejection

  5. Remember the small press

Meet Comic Book Editors

• A face-to-face meeting with an editor precludes the possibility of your submission getting "lost" in the pile of mail that currently swamps her office and guarantees that your work is seen. In this way, editors can also provide immediate turnaround in terms of feedback and criticism. Given the hectic day-to-day activities of a typical comic book editor, setting up a personal interview is a fairly difficult proposition. Your best bet is a chance encounter. Comic book conventions are large annual events that attract comic book dealers, publishers and thousands of fans from all over the world. More importantly, they attract editors from all the major companies. This makes conventions the perfect place for artists to peddle their work to editors. Editors often hold portfolio review sessions during the course of the convention, giving humble up-and-comers the chance to receive constructive criticism directly from their idols. A few points to keep in mind once you're in convention land: Conventions are certainly the best way to meet editors in person, but you'll have to fight to make yourself stand out. If you've followed our portfolio tips, you should be well on your way to making a good first impression. Be polite when introducing yourself and your work, and be attentive during your editor's review. When you're done, be sure to give her your contact information. If the meeting went smoothly, send the editor a follow-up letter after a week or so, along with copies of your samples and another copy of your contact information. This serves as a reminder of your existence.

Consider Self-Publishing

• If you can't secure a job at a comic book publishing house or have been turned away by several editors, consider self-publishing. Self-publishing involves many non-creative aspects of comic book production, and it also requires a decent amount of start-up capital. Opting to create your own book means shifting many of the responsibilities of production (typically associated with the business side of the industry) onto the creative team. In other words, if you're planning on self-publishing, you'll have to do a lot of legwork.

  Before you can even think about drawing your own book, you have to come up with a feasible concept. If you've been bouncing a cool character or story around in your head for a while, start fleshing it out. If you don't have an idea handy, think back to all those wild superhero designs and make-believe situations that you concocted as a kid. The key is finding a concept that's unique, interesting and never been done before.

  Consider getting help from others. As diligent and hardworking as you may be, nobody can go it completely alone in this industry. Here are possible helper roles: A writer (if you're not much of a scribe yourself), an inker (if you don't ink your own stuff), a colorist, a letterer (if your budget permits you that luxury), an accountant to handle the financial matters and a lawyer to tackle legal issues like copyrights and contracts. All of this is contingent on the size of your budget.

  Once your support personnel are in place, you can go about creating your book. From a purely artistic point of view, this means you'll have to translate your writer's script into 32 pages of fluid, coherent artwork. Plot out each page and work your penciling magic. Then, send them to your letterer, who will fill the captions and word balloons with dialogue. The letterer will then pass the pages on to the inker, who solidifies your pencil lines and prepares the pages for color. The colorist then applies the final treatment. Put all the completed pages together, and you've got yourself a comic book.

  Finding printers and distributors falls on the more technical side of things--you'll have to make many important decisions, including how big a print run you want to have (10,000 copies is a standard size for a small, black-and-white book), what kind of distribution option you want (direct market vs. newsstand distribution) and how much you're willing to pay for everything.