Indy Comics Writer

I don’t mean to bash artists. Not at all. It takes incredible skill to pencil, ink or color a comic. Think of each panel as a separate painting. Multiply that by six panels on 22 to 32 pages. That’s a whole lot of work for an artist.

Finding a good comics artist to work with, though — even if you’re paying page rates — is one tough job. To me, it’s been the most frustrating part of trying to make a go of it in writing for comics.

Here’s what’s happened to me in the last three weeks: I’ve had one artist who was interested in collaborating with me drop completely out of sight. Granted, she came up with the story idea and asked me for some ideas on how I would script it out. I sent her my ideas and, then, heard nothing. I’ve worked as a freelance writer for long enough to know that silence = “no.” So I’ve moved on.

My second artist replied to an ad I took out a while ago on Digital Webbing. He was interested in collaborating with me on a science fiction/comedy comic. Things started out OK, with the artist sending me character sketches. Then, suddenly, he disappeared. He finally resurfaced earlier this week to tell me that he’s decided he’s not ready yet to work on full comics. Fine.

I found a third artist after responding to his call looking for a writer. If you’ve ever frequented comics community forums, you know the “artist seeking writer” thread is the rarest of all. (It’s almost always the reverse of this.) So I was excited when the artist selected me as his writing partner. He gave me his story, I wrote it and he loved it. He then produced character sketches, which looked great. He went so far as to create thumbnail sketches of the first few pages and, then, decided he had too much other work and wouldn’t be able to devote enough time to the comic. All my work, then, was for nothing.

This is frustrating. But it happens. I try to keep an open mind: I know that drawing characters and panels takes far more time than does my writing of a comic script. I know that I’d be able to solve all my problems if I had the talent to draw. I don’t, though, and that’s what makes artists so special: They can do something most other people can’t.

I’m still hunting for that one great artist to collaborate with. I have worked with one artist in the past who was as reliable and talented as she promoted herself to be. But, of course, she charges page rates, which she has every right to do. I’m currently saving money so that I can hire her to draw a 10-page script I’ve recently finished. The script is worth it, and so is the artist.

If you do find an artist who keeps promises, is talented and meets deadline, hold on to him or her. And if they want page rates, save up until you can afford to give them. It’ll save you a world of headaches later.

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