Working With An Artist

I started my writing career in 5th grade. We were given a weekend writing assignment to write a one page story, and I came back to class with a short, 35 page novella, complete with characters, an introduction, and plot. I credit my teacher, Ms. Elliot, for developing my passion for writing. After the initial shock of having a 5th grader hand her a stack of papers, she set me aside and had me do writing exercises and read books on style, character, voice, and outlining. Writing became my world and English class was always my favorite subject, even in college.

On the other hand, I have no artistic ability. My greatest visual creation was a stack of post-it notes with two stick figures fighting each other if you happen to flip the pages rapidly enough. I tried making my own comic book as a kid and it didn't look very good. So when I set out to produce JMK, I knew I had to find an artist. But who should I pick? Today, I'm going to talk about my experiences working with artists, and the kinds of things you should be aware of if you're producing your own comic book.

Do you and your artist interpret your characters the same way?

I talked to many artists before deciding on one to work with me on Journey to the Middle Kingdom. In the initial stages of the project, I quickly found out that there are huge differences between artists that I never appreciated. I'm not just talking about skill level. Each artist has their own style, that I knew, but I also didn't realize how much of an effect that would have on interpretation of scenes and characters. 

When I was trying out artists for JMK, I gave them the first page of my script, and a character description of Jason, the main character of JMK. I thought "I've given them a physical description of the character, as well as the background, so the result between artists should be similar." Nothing could have been further from the truth.

 This is the first page of JMK Issue #1 "Legend of the White Snake Maiden," drawn by Dimas Yuli. I don't like playing coy with the reader, so I made sure the reader is introduced to the phoenix early. I wanted the magical world to encroach upon the real world as soon as possible. Dimas does a good job with facial expressions. His interpretation of Jason is more subdued. Jason comes off as focused and hard working in the opening scene.

Compare Dimas' Jason to this Jason. In this opening scene, Jason is wild and unrestrained. He has a more vibrant, confident energy surrounding him. He looks like he'd be fun to be around. He looks like he lives his life according to what his heart wants. Same scene, but wildly different interpretation of the same character!

 

The many faces of Jason Xia!

I chose Dimas because his vision of Jason, Sabrina, and Michelle were mostly in line with my interpretation of the characters. Was it 100%? No, but Dimas' style and my writing have fused together to make organic characters with personality that flies off the page. My writing has even shifted somewhat because now I have firm visions of the main characters, and the way they behave is now based off of that.

My advice is to do a similar test with an artist you might plan on working with, to see if you really are on the same wavelength. Take your time. If the artist can make you say "Wow, that's the character, right there!" Then you know you've found your person.

Lessons from my first Comic Expo!

Well, maybe not my absolute first. I just released Journey to the Middle Kingdom this year, and recently had my second successful Kickstarter. I decided it was time to hit the comic book show circuit and start selling issues. I've been to comics expos as a buyer, but never as a seller. I recently became a vendor at the Great Lakes Comic Expo which was held on Dec. 11th in Clinton Township, MI. Here are the 5 tips to selling  your comic at a show.

#1 Have a Professional Display

My first display looked utterly unprofessional. It had a number of things that made it so people knew I was an independent creator right off the bat:

The show didn't provide any tablecloth, just a run of the mill brown card table. 

All my items were laid flat. That meant the person had to lean over to see what my comic was about.

There were no eye catching displays, nothing to say "Hey, stop what you're doing and come see me!"

Luckily, I met a fellow creator at the expo by the name of Tom Savage, and his display made it look like he had an actual publisher. He had beautiful tablecloth, forward facing displays with art printed on foam board, and even a video trailer for the board game he was selling! I took notes.

 I bought a custom tablecloth, ordered some acrylic book stands, and printed out signage on a foam board and used Velcro to stick it to the back of the book stand. I even got a pop-up display, and made sure to wear a T-shirt using the same artwork. 

As you can see, my display was a LOT better. I still need to make improvements, but I got a much better reception from folks.

Before

 

After

#2 Have Samples

Another big change from my first show was this time I set aside two issues to serve as samples. I'm an unknown author with an unknown product, so it's important that people get to take a look at the comic. I marked two issues as samples and invited passerby's to read. It got me a few sales. It really didn't cost me anything to do this, and this one small gesture was actually pretty effective.

#3 Be available but not pushy

When I was a kid my mother owned a dollar store and sometimes I helped out. I learned that as the store keep, you want to be available, but you have to know when to step in, and when to let the customer have their space. People can feel like you're guilting them into buying something they don't actually want.

I stood for most of the comic expo while others sat down. This allowed me to strike up conversations with the people that wanted it. Some people were looking to network with me because of my comic, whereas others were genuinely curious as to what it was about (thank you forward facing displays!). Standing up and being present, letting them take the lead, was crucial.

#4 Practice that elevator pitch!

I'm not a natural salesman. I'm an introverted, reserved person, so selling my work is hard. It takes time for me to mentally get in the groove of launching into my elevator pitch in a calm, natural manner. I probably missed a sale or two by not giving my elevator pitch because it felt awkward. I had to force myself to give it, and I noticed that if done right, it can really lead to sales because no one knows my work. "3 teenagers are sent back in time with magical brushes, that when you write Chinese in the air, it becomes real." The general response was "Cool!" I spent the day crafting each word in the pitch so it was neither too long or too short, and had all the relevant information to tug at the prospective customer's heart strings.

#5 Your work isn't for everyone, don't take it personally

There were some people who excitedly heard my elevator pitch and forked over money for their issue. There were some people who looked at the sample, perused a few pages, and politely said they would be back around later. Fine. Journey to the Middle Kingdom is a young ages comic. It's for children. Parents loved buying it, but others showed no interest. It hurt at first, because getting the comic from concept to reality required a lot of blood sweat and tears. But if we're being honest with ourselves, an adult who doesn't really like anime style comics, and who is into more adult themes isn't going to be interested in JMK. And that's alright!

I hope this list helped! Check back to the blog later as I record more of my thoughts and my experiences with being an indie comic creator!