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The Reality Of Trying To Break Into Comics, By Top Cow's Matt Hawkins
Recently, Bleeding Cool ran an article by Marc Lewis about failing to break into comics. It caused considerable discussion. Today, Top Cow President/COO Matt Hawkins also wanted to talk about the reality of breaking into comic books, and gave Bleeding Cool permission to reprint his walkthrough. He writes,
There are a lot of people that ask me about getting into comics any way possible. Let me sort of spell out the reality:
1) artists – if you're good and can do a professional schedule (page a day or so) then you're likely to find work fairly easily just by showing your portfolio to editors and publishers. If you're not finding work then either a) you need to get better/faster or b) you're not showing the right people your work.
2) cover artists — without a massive following it is insanely rare for someone to hire you as a cover artist.
3) writers –you need to self publish or get any actual work out there. So many good writers never get anywhere so if you're good you have to be persistent and lucky. Sorry but that's the truth. Webcomics is the name of the game these days. Find an artist and do it with them.
4) editors — good luck. Very few slots for these ever open and the last time I did an open call for editorial resumes I got thousands.
5) production/graphic design — this is a combination of artists and writers where you have to be good but also lucky to get these jobs.
So yes who you know matters and luck helps. I also call luck good timing. You can't get lucky though if you aren't playing the game.
Comics is a small industry and people hit me up a lot because I'm accessible but I have very few opportunities to hand out given our size and business model. I try and help and I'll tell you the truth in a nice way, but reality is reality.
Having said that it is possible and people do it all the time! So why not give it a shot. People ask me sometimes when they should quit trying and I don't have an answer for that.
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