Jason Aaron’s Where the Hell am I?: I loved this column, especially the earlier editions. It dives into the basics of being a comic writer and how it works, and deals a lot with what that means outside of the actual writing and creating (although it deals with that, too).

Sean Murphy’s Five Year Plan: This is a new article about artists having a focus for their work and not just waiting around for one of the Big Two to notice you. Equally applicable to writers, as well.

Jason Brubaker’s Making Graphic Novels: These are straight forward articles about the practicals of making comics and how to go about it in an efficient, effective way and what does and doesn’t work.

CB Cebulski’s Tweets: This is a collection of tweets Marvel editor and talent scout CB Cebulski has put out. A lot of them are simple, helpful hints.

Steve Niles’ Creator-Owned Call to Arms: This a great blog post about the benefits of creator-owned work and why a lot of writers and artists are missing out, and also speaks to why new creators shouldn’t be afraid to make their own comics.

The typical story goes something like this: I come up with an idea for a story that intrigues me and I know I would want to read myself. I write and outline for the next few weeks or months until I feel I have the story I want almost completely outlined and I feel I have enough done to try and find an artist before I go any further. I then search the internet and email many artists I feel are talented and suited for the story, and email previous artists I’ve worked with in the past to see if any of them are possibly interested. I also try to contact people I’ve met locally to see if anyone’s willing to give it a shot.

And here’s where the trouble starts. There are lots of artists, and there are lots of good artists. Most of them know they are good, and even the not so good ones usually think they are good. So the responses I hear about 90% or more of the time are either “I’m really busy with xzy so I can’t take any more projects unless it’s paid” or “I would love to work with you but I’ll need some compensation.”

Compensation. This makes total sense to me. By looking at their art, it is obvious that they are talented and probably do get paid for commissions or small illustration jobs. Not only that, they probably have been emailed about drawing people comics before, thus making my pitch even less appealing. And I know comics take a lot of time and work to draw. So my email gets scanned quickly, and a polite response declining my pitch gets sent back to me.

As a student and writer still beginning in the industry, I can’t afford to compensate. Even at a ridiculously low page rate of something like $15 per page, that means a 22 page issue would cost me $330, which is around how much I pay for rent. I’m not denying that an artist deserves his wages, but looking at it realistically this isn’t going to be able to happen in my situation or anytime in the near future for me.

So a large problem comes about: I write stories that don’t get drawn. Even if my stories are possibly the next greatest thing ever to happen to comics, they won’t see the light of day with a dilemma like this. I’m not saying my stories are the best thing anyone’s ever read, but I would sure still like to see them come to life.

And in fact, artists and writers alike suffer from this situation. Writers write what could be amazing stories that never see daylight, and artists are forced to get paid close to nothing or not work in comics at all. Both have legitimate reasons to be upset at how to start making comics. Beyond that, without sacrifice and hard work for potentially no turn out at all, comic creators don’t have a chance to even begin thinking about creating comics for a living.

So where’s the solution? How can this be turned around? After all, people are beginning to create comics, people are getting published, and people are making a living off of comics. But how to start? The answer is risks. It’s knowing that hard work does pay off, even if it’s not in cash. If you love comics and it’s what you want to do, you should know that you need to let every ounce of hard work refine your craft and improve your skills, no matter how successful the project is. Every comic you create can lead improvement, and every bad project can be a step to a great one.

I want to write comics for a living. I don’t care if the odds are against me, because I love making comics. That means I make them whether I find success or not. This is a call to people like me, who want to write comics. To take risks and to work hard. If you’re an artist, to give writers like me a chance and have some fun making comics with them. If you’re a writer, to not give up and to keep going, because someone out there will like your story. Keep comics alive, and keep creating.

it’s all at badnewskids.com

also, about six months or so i started getting into the moped scene. after working on my own bike a lot, i realized mopeds are really fun! i made a blog just to show off cool bikes as well, you can check it out at pedShow.wordpress.com. go now!

here’s a picture of my bike:

and a formspring question:

Will Bad News Kids be in black and white only? and if it is are you worried that people will group it in the same category as manga?
Yes it will be in only black and white. I don’t know if I’m worried it’ll be considered manga. Hillmon’s art style seems quite a mix of manga and traditional comic book art to me, and I don’t think it looks like we’re trying to make a manga comic. Even so, I’m not particularly concerned what genres or styles people label our book under as much as I just want it to be a great story that people are excited about reading. I’ve often heard that you should never put out a book you wouldn’t buy yourself, and I really feel like Bad News Kids is a book I would honestly buy and enjoy, and I hope that anyone who reads it feels the same.

in other news, unfortunately my project with annamaria titled Regret, Rewind is no longer in production. once i find another artist it will get going again, but until then anna has decided that she won’t be drawing it. i would explain more, but i already did in a formspring question, so you can just read on. and there’s another question that was asked recently as well.

How are your projects going?
They’re going pretty good. Unfortunately, due to AnnaMaria’s new webcomic coming out amongst other things, she’s decided that she won’t be able to draw Regret, Rewind. It is disappointing, but she was very professional about everything and I wish her the best. And hopefully I can find another artist soon :)

As for Bad News Kids, it’s going really great. Hillmon has really starting pumping out pages and every time I see one it gets me more excited about this project. I’ve started scripting the rest of the first book (which will be three chapters) and I’m just really happy to be working on this right now.

And of coarse, I’m beginning to write some other stories as well, but they are all in the early stages so no news about them quite yet.

Are you sad that in the upcoming Spider Man comic book, he dies?
Well, it is the Ultimate Universe and not the canon 616. I read it and it was a pretty good story and that’s what the Ultimate Universe is for, in my opinion. It’s there to tell stories that Marvel never would in the 616 universe. They would never kill the 616 Spider-Man (permanently, that is). At the same time, because of that it doesn’t carry quite as much weight for me. I didn’t feel emotionally attached to the story, I just want to see what’s going to happen next.

hey everyone! thats me on the left getting down. i have fun playing live music.

i know its been a while, but rest assured thats not because nothings been happening! only because no big announcements or anything have popped up. my one-shot pseudo-thriller with AnnaMaria Bryant is still going strong, we’re set to wrap up by august. Bad News Kids is looking really, really good. i’m really excited. and i’m getting some new ideas for new stories which i’m also excited about.

today i watched twilight zone pretty much all day. that show started in 1959 and it still rocks my world! its really good. its on netflix now so i may be watching one or two episodes everyday from here on out. no, i dont pay for netflix my roomate has it on his xbox ;) so if you aren’t fan of that show, you need to watch it and see why its so great. and its definitely a gigantic fountain of writing inspiration as well, which is good for me.

with that, another formspring question:

Favorite characters from Marvel and DC?
As cliche and popular as they are, it’s Spider-Man and Batman. I love Spider-Man, he’s been my favorite since I was a kid and I’ve been reading his comics for years and years. I’m not a big DC fan, but a good Batman story can be one of my favorite things to read.

Do you guys plan on going Digital with a place like graphic.ly that does support independents?
For Bad News Kids? I’m not sure. Maybe in the future, but for now the plan is to just release it through the internet for free. As in, you’ll be able to go to http://badnewskids.com/ and read the whole story as it comes out absolutely free. We may put out hardcopy trades in the future, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

How did you manage to get such talented artists to draw your stuff?
I met almost all the artists I’ve worked with online, except for Kyle Springer who I’ve been friends with since I was a kid. It takes hours of work and sending messages on comic book forum websites and deviantart to find a great artist to work with, but it pays off to see your stories come to life in beautiful ways.

A lot of things are incorporated when it comes to finding a great artist for my stories, but maybe the biggest thing is finding artists that actually are willing to do the work. I’ve struck gold with Hillmon, who’s doing an amazing job with Bad News Kids, and we’ve developed a great relationship through online and texting, as well as some phone calls. He does a great job of getting things done and his enthusiasm for his work shows through his art. It’s also been a priveledge and a blessing to have artists who want to draw my stories, like AnnaMaria and Rafael, and have them do such a great job.

and at that, i’ll let you know you need to check out annamaria’s new webcomic, coming out in august, called Adler’s Watch. check out that preview page and try to tell me she’s not going pro. i’m looking forward to it.