Indy Comics Writer

I got my start in freelance writing at a local community newspaper in the neighborhood in which I grew up. The editors there had me writing police reports, obituaries and feature stories. I covered high school and, even, elementary school sports. My first assignment was covering the local elementary school’s science fair. Scintillating stuff, all of it.

But I learned a lot at that little paper. And one of the most important lessons I learned was how important it is to proofread your work, no matter how confident you are that you haven’t made a mistake.

The newspaper publisher was writing a caption once, one that was supposed to go under a group photo of a local business opening its doors. My publisher knew everyone’s name except for one man. He wrote “Joe Blow” for the man’s name, to gauge how long the completed caption would be, and then said he’d find out the man’s real name and slip it in.

You guessed it: He forgot. The paper went to press with “Joe Blow” proudly celebrating the opening of his family’s business.

Needless to day, Mr. Blow was not pleased when he read the caption.

Mistakes can be simple, or they can be embarrassing. That one was embarrassing. As I was proofing a page of comic art from a story in development now, I noticed that a dialogue balloon was attached to the wrong character. Another character mistakenly referred to herself as a “Mr.” instead of a “Ms.”

Those mistakes were just mistakes. But, if they would have gone to print, they would have taken the reader out of the flow of the story. The readers would have paused to say, “Why does that lady think she’s a man?”

Proofreading may be boring. It may be tiresome and, at times, mind-numbing. But don’t skimp on it. You’ll be glad.

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