From: Steve Lieber <[72674 2012] at [CompuServe.COM]>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.alternative
Subject: Re: Writer needs advice!! Please help!!
Date: 13 Apr 1995 00:28:09 GMT

Here, reprinted with permission, is Mark Evanier on breaking into comics as
a writer:  

"...the first thing that oughta be said is that it ain't easy; that breaking into
comic book writing is not something one should attempt as an aside in one's
"real" career.  You're competing with folks who are devoting their entire lives
to the business so you should be prepared to do likewise. (Later, after you're
established, it's possible to diversify and do other things, like I do...but
not at first.)

There are basically three ways to break into comic book writing.  One is to
attempt to ingratiate yourself with existing publishers and editors.  You write
up some samples, submit to editors, meet them at comic conventions, hope to get
them to look over your work.  By staying close to the grapevine, you may hear
that a certain ongoing comic is looking for fill-in writers and you hurry and
submit outlines/premises for that book.  Or you hear of other openings and
strive to get something submitted to the right person at the right time.  A lot
of people are trying to crack the market on this basis and the odds are not
wonderful...but when there's an opening for a new writer, as there occasionally
is, SOMEONE may get a break.

The second method is to take a back-door approach to getting into a
company...being hired on staff in some low-paying editorial or office job. This
has obvious geographic problems if you don't live where the companies are...and
beginning pay can be VERY low with no guarantee of advancement. But it gets you
"inside" and perhaps better positioned to meet editors, get them to read your
work, hear about openings such as described above, etc.. This is probably the
way most new writers have taken in the last few years.

Lastly, a third method is to go to the small publishers...the ones who pay
poorly (if at all) and put out cheap comics.  But most of them do publish and
if you can do something outstanding in that venue, it is not unlikely to be
noticed by the big publishers.  Several of the best writers who've joined DC or
Marvel in the last few years have been "discovered" working for small
publishers...and a published sample of your work usually impresses editors more
than an over-the-transom, unpublished sample.  The problem with this method, of
course, is that you're working for a cheap publisher.  You may have to turn
"packager" (i.e., find your own artist, supervise the lettering and editing) in
order to get any sort of professionalism onto the printed pages.

I think that if I were starting out now to get into comics, I would personally
go the third route.  I'd create some innovative new characters and find artists
to draw them and small publishers to publish them.  I wouldn't worry about
making money off this work (though I'd be certain to retain the copyrights to
everything); I would use it as a loss leader to get the big companies to go,
"Hey, who's this new kid making noise?"  But that's just the way I'd do it.

I'm sorry if this isn't more encouraging but, based on your other areas of
endeavor, I'm sure you understand that some jobs have fifty times as many
applicants as openings...so it becomes difficult for anyone to get in. Writing
comic books is one of those fields.  Good luck."