"A Conspiracy of One, Part Two"

Last installment, this column took a long look at the various factors that kept beginning comics creators from seeing their work in print. Due to space concerns, the most important factor was left out, so now it's time to focus on the one main reason why so many beginning comics writers and artists never receive the fame to which they feel they are due.

Now, it's true that politics are just as prevalent in the comics industry as in any other business, and that editors are much more likely to stick with an established creative team than to take a chance on someone new. This point, of wanting a break, is a major irritant to many beginning artists and writers: we all want to get our big opportunity, and we all know that we'd shine if simply given a chance. To that end, any comics convention is full of beginner artists with portfolios full of pencil and ink samples, and the hopeful writers line up to tag any editor who might give them the time of day. Most of the people at the San Diego ComiCon, in fact, seem to be people looking for that magic secret entrance into the business.

Excluding the people who have no idea what they'd write or draw until they get the go-ahead from an editor, the business is crowded enough as is. Comics allow much more product to get out than the movies (rent the film The Player and pay careful attention to the little comment about how a typical movie studio receives hundreds of thousands of scripts every year but only has the finances to make at most 250 films in that same timeframe), but comic publishers are still limited by the market. For every artist or writer wanting to break in, we have at least two to three previously published creators looking for more work in their chosen profession, and with the cutbacks at Marvel, a lot of artists who used to depend upon Marvel to pay the rent are having to move to different fields. (Last summer, Herb Trimpe wrote a wonderful article for the "New York Times Magazine" on how he had to reinvent himself and his career because of the Marvel implosion, and while I was never particularly a fan of his work, I'm honestly and legitimately glad that everything worked out for him.) The speculation boom of the early Nineties has already revealed itself as the Ponzi scheme it was, and the big guys simply don't have the capability of giving everyone a chance any more.

(Coming from the science fiction field, I see a lot of folks who have their One Great Idea that they want to turn into a short story or novel, and comics has a lot of that, too. The problem they have is that One Great Idea usually isn't enough to support a comic, even a single issue, without a lot of Other Great Ideas to back it up. People who obviously never became writers constantly yammer about building that One Great Idea into a story, but seeing as how comics require lots of ideas, concepts, and themes to keep them going, what happens to these characters when they shoot their One Great Wad and then have nothing for a follow-up?)

The most important thing to consider, though, comes with talent, both perceived and real. For every beginner who takes rejections in stride, or who figures that self-publishing is the way to go, I end up running across three bitter types who mumble into their Ovaltine about how "They" won't give them a chance. These characters know that their work is great, but they're regularly being snubbed by the industry for various nefarious reasons. A lot of them grumble in the corner that the business isn't ready for their genius yet, or any number of other excuses why editors and other comics professionals keep putting them down. Some of these answers may even be correct (c'mon: do you honestly think that DC would have known what to do with something like Preacher or Deadenders back in the Sixties?), but they still skirt a basic question that everyone receiving rejections should be asking. Since I'm a heartless bastard who loves crushing the spirits of innocent souls who hope to put out the next Power Pack or Atari Force, I'll bring it up: Have you considered that the people rejecting you have a very good reason for saying "No"?

This isn't intended as a cruel or malicious gesture: this is a question that everyone should be asking if they want to work in a creative venue. Are you being rejected due to politics or various pettinesses, or is it because you're no damn good?

By way of example, I've seen some really bad comics in my time that in a more humane universe would strike the creators with sterility in their sheer awfulness. I was once attacked at a Dallas Fantasy Fair by a guy who was trying to pitch his idea of a great comedic comic, which fused an episode of H.R. Puff-n-Stuff with a standard porn comic, and he couldn't understand why the crowd was responding with utter horror and loathing instead of the mountains of laughs he dreamed of getting. (The fact that the whole comic looked like it had been drawn with a dissecting needle on used cocktail napkins may have had something to do with it, but that's blaming the medium instead of what was put on it.) My personal favorite example of Clueus Nonesuchus, though, was an attempted entry into the big Black-and-White Boom of 1986, and that was a comic called Jontar.

Those too young to remember the B&W Boom should haunt any used bookstore that sells older comics, because studying Boom entries is instructive. The Boom started for the right reasons (the number of creators tired of the restrictions on content followed the lead set by Cerebus and Elfquest and started self-publishing as an alternative) and quickly went to hell after the surprise success of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Suddenly, everybody was publishing a B&W title, mostly ripoffs and "homages" to TMNT, and comic shops were snagging damn near anything sold as a B&W in the hopes of getting the one hot comic that everyone else wanted. Yes, some interesting or at least entertaining material came out of the boom, but the speculation frenzy eclipsed worthwhile and important titles like TrollLords in favor of "parodies" of any hot comic on the market at the time. When the first issue of the completely unreadable Adolescent Radioactive Blackbelt Hamsters went in speculation value from $2 to $60 in a week, the shops were really going crazy, and the comic shop I frequented at the time got one lone copy of Jontar.

I misplaced my copy (and so far as I know, one of the few copies in existence) during my last move three years ago, but the owner of my comic store gave it to me for free because even he knew that he couldn't give that sucker away with a free keg of Budweiser. Featuring the subtitle "Dead Elves And A Streetwise Barbarian", it was about 22 pages on standard 11x17 copier paper with a slightly more robust cover. This isn't a complaint, but the art was: referring to it as "terrible" is inadequate for expressing the sheer Lovecraftian horror of looking at more than one page. Others may give tips on how to spot Really Bad Comics, but I can top them all: any comic that requires an errata sheet in the back, letting readers know that one character was inadvertently placed in a panel and that they should supplant that character for another one, is a sign of truly Really, Really, REALLY Bad Comics.

The worst part is that the artist of Jontar isn't alone. Now that online comics allow wannabe creators to push their brainchildren upon the world without the costs of printing, I see any number of "creations" that would be rejected out of hand by printers, not just editors. We're not talking just about the third-rate South Park ripoffs whose creators wonder why they aren't getting Hollywood deals: we're talking about projects where everyone involved should have known that having competence in PhotoShop or Flash doesn't mean that they needed to post their idle scribblings on the Web. This is in addition to the usual number of self-published print comics that manage to sneak past the Quality Stormtroopers at Diamond Distribution.

This isn't intended to be a general rant on bad comics: honest. This isn't intended to be a tirade about how wannabes should stay out of the business. I want to do wonderful things in the comics business, too, but I also know my limitations. I'd love to do the art for my own comic, but I also know that I can't draw worth a damn, and I have no intention of subjecting people to that particular bad trip, so I stick with what I know I can do.

The problem is in understanding the difference between enthusiasm and delusion. If Ed Wood had stuck with his strengths, he'd probably be best known as a pretty successful Hollywood producer: he knew how to keep a film under budget, he knew how to wring every last penny out of available materials, and he knew the importance of keeping up morale among the cast and crew. He had an undeniable love of film, and he was willing to do anything necessary to finish a production. Unfortunately, he also thought he could act, write, and direct, and we saw what that got him. Sure, he's famous now, but that fame came far too late for it to do him any good while he was alive, and his name is now firmly ensconced with those of Vanilla Ice and Pauly Shore as a joke and an insult. Just refer to any beginning director as "the next Ed Wood" and don't look surprised if said director doesn't haul off and punch you in the mouth, because you'd deserve it.

And this is the problem with a lot of beginning comics projects. You can't fault the creators for their enthusiasm (with the exception of those who slapped together a project solely because they assumed they'd get rich from their Great Idea; they deserve nothing but derision), but maybe they just aren't cut out for that aspect of the comics business. Established and talented novelists try to write screenplays, and they fail, so they stick with writing novels. In my line of work, I see lots of skilled programmers who assume that typing skills equate to writing ability, and their failure as writers doesn't reflect poorly on their programming ability: it just reflects on the fact that they don't have the ability to write yet. Lots of artists assume that they can write, and lots of writers assume they can draw, and they should be encouraged to stick with their aptitudes. Pixar followed the right lesson when hiring animators for the first Toy Story: instead of hiring people who knew how to operate the software, the company hired previously established animators, on the logic that teaching an animator how to use a new tool was a lot easier and more practical than trying to teach an application operator how to be creative.

With this said, more wannabe comics creators should be discouraged from creating comics…if their skills will accomplish so much more elsewhere in the field. We already have plenty of artists and writers competing for the few available positions around, but we need a lot more publicists. We need people who understand how to promote comics. We need the people who can design the infrastructure for online comics Web sites, so good comics don't get buried in GeoCities-level Web pages. We need people with the organizational skills for running good conventions, and for running conventions that might attract new readers to comics. We need people who can tell artists the best way to convert their art into camera-ready print, or how to use the latest tools for online publication. We need people who know how journalism works, if only to attract the reporters who will give the business a fair shake and to repel the bastards who only want to write "Look At The Freaks" stories for the Saturday edition. We need people with valid alternatives to the current direct-market fiasco the market is stuck in, and we need people who can protect comic shops and creators from overzealous or corrupt police harassment. By concentrating on their real skills, many of these folks may not turn their One Big Idea into their dream project, but they'll be doing their best to have a comics industry to come back to if and when they get the skills to present that Idea.

Paul T. Riddell isn't anywhere near as clever as he thinks he is, so explore the vast barren waste pits of "The Healing Power of Obnoxiousness" at http://www.hpoo.com for proof.

http://www.hpoo.com - The Healing Power of Obnoxiousness, Paul T. Riddell's page of brilliant things.
PopImage Forum - Discuss this message at the PopImage forum.