Don't know if I'm allowed to post this here... I guess Dragonchilde can take it down if not. I don't think its commercial or advertising...
This is an excerpt of an article taken from myspace comics books, and any of you can go take a look at the whole article there. There's nothing up there stating that permission is needed to repost this info, so here goes...
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WEEK 15 April 17, 2009
MyCup o' Joe is the weekly communiqué from Marvel Comics Editor in Chief Joe Quesada to the legion of Mighty Marvelites Assembled! Every Friday, Joe will sit down with journalist Jim McLauchlin to answer questions on the pressing issues of the day at Marvel and throughout comics.
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JM: There was quite a response to your advice to artists on portfolio-building a couple weeks ago. A lot of readers are asking if there’s a nickel’s worth of free advice for writers. So, I know it’s tougher to qualify, but…is there?
JQ: Actually…yeah. It is tougher, but again, last week I was on Twitter and gave a few short pointers for writers looking to break in. And again, same as artists, I always tell writers you gotta keep your pitch simple.
Now let me preface this by saying that at this point, Marvel is not accepting open submissions for writers. The stack we have to get through is seemingly a mile high—I mean, it’s complete and total overload. We need to come up with a new system to get through this material, make the process simpler and cleaner, and respond to people in an appropriate manner. But I think this is decent advice for when we do accept open submissions again, or maybe if you want to pitch to DC, Dark Horse, whomever. But again, and I can’t stress this enough—keep it simple, keep it brief, and keep it entertaining. So many people hand an editor a 40-page document, and…you’re lucky if it ever gets read. Editors have hundreds of other pages of stuff they have to get through as part of their day-to-day job on books that have to get out, that it’s hard to find the time to digest 40 more pages. So short and simple.
First thing I suggest is to keep in mind that you have to walk before you run. I get so many people, new writers, cold submission guys, who will say, “I have this great idea for the Silver Surfer that totally revamps the character, totally revises his origin and totally puts him in a new place!” Or, “I have the greatest idea for your next big Marvel crossover event like Secret Invasion!” Well…we need to see if you can write, first.
So my suggestion to those guys is always, “Keep it basic. If your character is the Silver Surfer, then write a Silver Surfer, but keep it basic, the way he is now in his current incarnation. Don’t give me the reinvention yet. We’ll see what you can do first in the current boundaries that we have, in the current continuity.” And I think a lot of people miss the fact that 90% of the stuff our writers are working on today is not reinvention—it’s writing the character in the status quo. That’s what we do for the bulk of the job, so that’s the starting point. And don’t worry about a five-issue story arc at this point. Just a single, done-in-one, 22-page comic.
JM: So in a practical sense, how does one do that?
JQ: Well, I like to see someone propose the high concept. And by that I mean, present what the story is about in one sentence, maybe two. And it’s much harder than it sounds! But chances are if you can do that, and make it interesting and make it compelling in a sentence, then you’ve got something to build on there. I always think of Brian Vaughan and Runaways: A group of kids discover they are the children supervillains, run away from home. Discovering that they have powers they set out to thwart their parents evil deeds.” Brilliant. And linear. Chances are if you can’t express your story in 1-2 sentences, you need to go back and come up with something less complicated to start.
JM: O-tay. So what’s step two?
JQ: Well, I’d say you present that high concept as an opener. Next thing, break it down into the three acts of your story, and give us a paragraph or two on each act. So you’re still only at a few paragraphs, and we can absorb it easily, and you can check it yourself to make sure you’re coherent, linear, and not veering off into 12 different directions.
Then…please don’t give us a script for the full 22 pages of comic book at that point. Just a scene or two, maybe three to five pages of actual comic book, and give us that script, showing us what you can do and how your dialogue works. And once you complete those three simple steps, you’ve got a pretty nice little sample package of what you can do: High concept, one-page outline or breakdown, and maybe five pages of sample script.
Now if you want to replicate that idea in the same way that I gave the portfolio advice, that’s cool. Maybe one single-character pitch like a Spider-Man, and a team like an X-Men. Even with a couple different pitches, it’s digestible enough where you could catch an editor with some downtime, and get it read.
JM: So here’s the proof question: Does it work?
JQ: Yeah, it does. And here’s another idea: Maybe just a sheet of high concepts. We had a writer who gave us a sheet with 20 high concepts, literally 20 ideas of one sentence each on a page. And there was some great variety: A Spider-Man idea, three Thor ideas, five Avengers ideas. And he got hired! Some of those ideas were just wonderful!
JM: Who’s the guy?
JQ: Ah…I don’t want to mention his name without asking him first. Maybe next week. But he’s done a lot of work for us. And what he showed, from our point of view, us was not so much practical and in-the-moment relevance—because we’re often plotting one year ahead of where we are today in the books—but that this guy could come up with ideas, and ideas for anything. He’s very, very creative, and great at coming up with stuff on the fly.
JM: So following this kind of plan, how tough is it still to get picked up on a cold submission?
JQ: Well, it’s still tough. I think it’s way tougher for a writer to break in than an artist. But of course, if you do get work as a writer, the bright side is that you can do very well in this business in making an income with wider opportunities. That’s just the speed of typing versus the speed of having to sit down and draw it with a pencil on paper.
JM: Now, Marvel is not taking open submissions currently, but I assume you are always looking for new writers. Where are you looking? Is it, say, from Image Comics or other smaller publishers?
JQ: We look everywhere. Literally. There is no corner unsearched, no stone unturned. We look everywhere, and the editors are always looking and getting second opinions, passing stuff back and forth and saying, “Hey, read this comic. Hey, read this novel.” Time permitting, we do the best we can to search, and if we find someone we like, we do our best to bring ’em in.
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