Indy Comics Writer

If you’ve never stopped by the Absolute Write forums, you owe yourself a visit. The online community is home to writers of all experience levels and genres. Absolute Write features message boards devoted to writers who specialize in short fiction, trade-magazine writing, blogging, magazine writing, erotic writing and anything else you can think of. Comic-book writing, too, of course.

It’s here that I came across this interesting thread. It’s a mini-debate of sorts about whether agents know how to market graphic novels. It’s a fair question. One poster relays how one agent he worked with said he’d pitch his original graphic novel to Marvel and DC. We all know, of course, that the odds of either Marvel or DC taking on a graphic novel not filled with Spider-Man, the Hulk or their friends are extremely small. The agent, unfortunately, didn’t.

There do seem to be a growing number of agents, though, who are seeking graphic novels to represent. This isn’t surprising. Graphic novels are hot right now, especially among younger readers. Most of the major publishing houses have their own graphic novel divisions. Everyone’s trying to catch onto this trend.

The agent question is an important one to me. I’ve written a lengthy script for my own graphic novel, Morgan Underground. I’ve pitched it a bit myself. Two publishers said they wanted the script. But they weren’t willing to pay anything up front. Instead, they wanted me and my artist to bring the 140-some pages to them complete. Unfortunately, my artist, rightly so, doesn’t want to draw 140-odd pages for free. Can’t blame her for that.

This led me to think that I needed to send my script to mainstream publishers with deeper pockets than comics publishers have. Problem is, it’s hard to get anything going at these publishers without an agent. So last Friday, for the first time ever, I submitted my story to two different agents. My plan now is to keep refining the story and its pitch letter — which is the key to getting both agents and publishers interested in a work — and sending out queries to agents. Some days I think that Morgan Underground will never be published. But other days I feel it needs to see print. I’m proud of the story. I’m proud, too, of the lead character, a strong, assertive female without watermelon-sized breasts. So I can’t give up on this one.

I’ve posted a sample page, drawn by artist Claudia Cangini, to this post. Let me know what you think. Does this have a future?

Trackback URI | Comments RSS