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Comic Con

Ask the Right Questions

by Palle Schmidt 4 Comments

Going to conventions is one of the best way to learn about the industry, meet new people and get advice from peers and pros. But often wannabe creators will waste the opportunity to learn by talking about themselves or asking the wrong questions.

“How do I break into comics?” is one of the questions I hear a lot by aspiring creators. The question is not easy to answer in a meaningful manner – and it certainly won’t be a short answer (my best and shortest possible answer is this podcast episode). It also requires a lot of background information on the person asking the question.
When not asking impossible questions like the one above, these creators will try and impress whoever they are talking to, pitch their comics ideas, tell rambling stories about their journey and aspirations – instead of using the opportunity to gain new insights and valuable knowledge. I’ve certainly been guilty of this myself. Becoming a better listener and asking smarter questions is something I would like to improve. So you could say this post is just as much for me as it is for you.
So instead of asking “how do I break into comics?” here is a list of smarter questions you may ask peers and pros alike, when you get a few minutes of face time at a convention or pin them down in a Twitter conversation:
  • What areas of my art do you see needs improvement?
  • What are your favorite cons to go to and why?
  • Who do you think I should meet while I’m here?
  • What is one thing people get wrong about the way the business works?
  • Is there any resource you can point me towards that could help me learn more about X?
  • What’s a mistake you see a lot of beginners make?
And then I also recommend taking notes! Either during the conversation or directly after. You can’t even memorize your Mom’s phone number so I’m willing to bet you can’t remember a key insight from a conversation a week later. It’s one thing to ask better questions but you also need to actually listen to the answers.
—
If you have a question for me, leave a comment below!

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Comic Con, Comics conventions, comics industry, creativity, improving as an artist, learning, mistakes, pro tips

Con Checklist

by Palle Schmidt Leave a Comment

I’m just back from Munich, where I had a table at the Munich Comics Festival alongside other talented Danish creators. This was my second visit and I thoroughly enjoyed both times. Two years ago I made a lot of mistakes though – the main one being not bringing any books for sale! For some reason I’d missed the fact we had a table and only brought copies to show to potential publishers and had to send many interested readers away empty-handed. Instead of selling books I started doing little sketch cards that I sold for 2 euros each. Live and learn, right?

This time around I had made a checklist and came well prepared. I even sent a box of books ahead, so I could avoid lugging too much weight and fly hand luggage only. I LOVE just getting off a plane and whizzing past everyone waiting for their suitcases! 

As I’m sure many of you go to conventions from time to time, I thought I’d share my ideas for packing with you. You can download my one-sheet comic con checklist here:

Let me know if there’s anything I missed, I’m always looking to improve!


Related posts:
https://comicsforbeginners.com/bonus-vid-lucy-bellwood-and-her-100-demons/
http://palleschmidt.dk/top-10-travelling-tips

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Comic Con, Comics conventions, Comics Festival Munich, comics industry, con fatigue, freelance life, on the move, on-the-go, packing tips, pro tips, tips for art tables, tips for conventions, travel, travel hacks

My book STILLETO released in the US today!

by Palle Schmidt Leave a Comment

When my book The Devil’s Concubine came out from IDW in 2011 I was obviously super excited. Having a book out in the US was a decade-long dream of mine and now it was finally happening!

All fired up from going to Comic Con and doing signings in San Francisco and LA, I could not wait to present the follow-up to my editor. STILETTO was/is in my mind a much better book, more weighty in subject matter and more solid in the artwork. I really poured my heart and soul into it.

And they turned it down.

You hear a lot about “breaking in” to the US comics scene. Well, I thought I was in and it turned out it was a revolving door!

In the years after I always carried a copy of the Danish graphic novel (a beautiful hardcover edition) with me everywhere I went. I’ve shown it to editors at restaurants, in bars and at shows both in the US, Canada, France and Germany – never finding a home for it. Frustrating when you know you have a great book and for whatever reason no publisher picks it up. I really want people to be able to read STILETTO, regardless of their nationality.

And guess what? TODAY YOU CAN!!!!

STILETTO issue #1: Officer Down is out today from Lion Forge and you should be able to order it through your local comics store.

Here’s what the editor, Greg Tumbarello, says about the book:

[quote]Palle Schmidt is one of those visionary writer/artist combos you rarely see… His artistry and storytelling pull you into an intricate underworld that engulfs the senses and blurs the line between reality and fiction, making you feel like you’re there on a ride-along with our detectives as they desperately search for a cop-killer. Stiletto weaves a thrilling mystery that flips the entire crime genre on its head and keeps you guessing until the pulse-pounding conclusion.[/quote]

To read the full press release and download an 11-page sample, go to palleschmidt.com/STILETTO

Thanks for letting me tell (part) of this story. Hope you’ll give STILETTO a chance too.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: career, Comic Con, Comics conventions, crime noir, graphic novel, Greg Tumbarello, Lion Forge, making comics, Palle Schmidt, STILETTO

Making Comics with Patrick Yurick – Comics for Beginners Podcast episode

by Palle Schmidt Leave a Comment


“I find that art is 90 percent fear!”

Artist, teacher and CEO of MakingComics.com, Patrick Yurick, visited Copenhagen and I got to show him the better parts of the city. We also managed to record a podcast on his view on the craft, career, his experiences with teaching comics to teens, his zombie buddy comedy Hipster Picnic and the future of making comics.

Links to stuff mentioned on this episode:

My video on lessons I learned from working on Thomas Alsop

GutterTalk podcast interview

ThomasAlsop.com

Webcomics Underdogs

TheHeadComic.Com

@patrickyurick

MakingComics.com

StoryForgeProductions.com

Patrick-Yurick-in-Copenhagen
CEO of MakingComics.com Patrick Yurick (left) hanging out in Copenhagen with Palle Schmidt.

Filed Under: Podcast, Pro Tips Tagged With: Adam Greenfield, Anime, art, artists, Comic Con, comics industry, cosplay, craft, DC comics, fear, Gutter Talk, Hipter Picnic, Illustrator, Little Fish, making comics.com, Manga, Marvel Comics, online, overwhelm, Patrick Yurick, Photoshop, podcast, publishing, reference, social media, StoryForge, storytelling, talent, teaching comics, Thomas Alsop, webcomics

San Diego Comic Con 2014

by Palle Schmidt Leave a Comment

Left to right; Palle Schmidt, Chris Miskiewicz, Bryce Carlson, Vanesa R. Del Rey. Image courtesy of Bleeding Cool.
Left to right; Palle Schmidt, Chris Miskiwicz, Bryce Carlson, Vanesa R. Del Rey. Image courtesy of Bleeding Cool.

SDCC is so much more fun, when you have a book on the shelves!

My partner Chris Miskiewicz and I pitched Thomas Alsop to several publishers at SDCC 2013, and now only a year later, BOOM! Studios has published the two first issues of the series. Crazy times.

I got invited on two panels this year, both the Breaking Into Comics Right Now panel hosted by BOOM! and the Uniting the Worldwide #makecomics Community panel, hosted by my friends over at Making Comics (In case you missed the podcast interview they did with me, click here) starring Mark Waid, Jim Zub, Christy Blanch, Rachel Beck and Andy Schmidt. The talk was recorded and will probably go online soon.

I could tell you stories… But most of them are unrelated to the process of making comics, which is what this site is about. So I’ll just share a few quick things I learned:

  • Publishers are not just the evil people who turn down your book proposals. They can be wonderfully supportive, generous people. Thanks to the people at BOOM! for a warm welcome. I have the greatest respect for your line of books, your work ethic and your mind set.
  • Monthly books beat graphic novels any day, in terms of audience and interest. Most people I met had either heard of Thomas Alsop or were already fans. I have a feeling this will continue to build.
  • Introductions by other creators is still the best way to meet people. If you’re with a trusted friend of a publisher, he’s much more likely to give you the time of day than if you go at it alone.
  • What goes around comes around. Helping friends make new connections is an even greater joy than being helped.
  • Never go out without your books, portfolio or business cards.
  • Always pack above items in your hand luggage. My bag was lost at LAX and I was left with very little to show for the first few days.

The next few weeks I’ll be working out of Periscope Studios in Portland, Oregon, making new contacts and slow progress on the next issue of Thomas Alsop. Stay tuned…

 

Filed Under: News, Pro Tips Tagged With: #SDCC, Bleeding Cool, BOOM! Studios, Bryce Carlson, career, Chris Miskiewicz, collaboration, Comic Con, Comics conventions, comics industry, Jim Zub, making comics, Mark Waid, Periscope Studios, Portland, San Diego, SDCC 2014, Thomas Alsop, Vanesa R. Del Rey, workflow

ProFile: Joshua Dysart

by Palle Schmidt Leave a Comment

ProFile-Joshua-Dysart

Joshua Dysart is a multiple Eisner Award nominated, Glyph award-winning, New York Times Bestselling comic book writer and graphic novelist whose work has been reviewed and discussed by the BBC, CNBC Africa, The New York Times, the Huffington Post and elsewhere. He has collaborated with Mike Mignola, Richard Corben, John Totleben, Igor Kordey, Enrique Breccia, Rick Veitch, Fábio Moon & Gabriel Bá and Eric Powell, among others. He wrote a two year stint of the legendary Swamp Thing and has also worked on Conan, Hellboy and the Hellboy spinoff, B.P.R.D. He’s currently writing the relaunch of Harbinger for Valiant Entertainment and has been called one of the key architects of their universe.

From 2008 to 2010 he wrote a revamp of The Unknown Soldier for Vertigo. The storyline took place in Acholiland, Uganda in 2002 during the war between the Lord’s Resistance Army and the Ugandan People’s Defence Force. Dysart spent a month in Northern Uganda conducting interviews with child soldiers and others affected by the war to research the book.

What made you decide to work in the medium of comics?

It started out as an accident, sort of. I mean, I’ve always loved and read comics. They have always spoken to me. But I never thought of a career in them save for a few attempts at a young age to con artist friends into doing books with me. If I’d been really driven to do it at a young age, I imagine I would’ve also been driven to learn how to draw as well. As it stands my lack of artistic skill is my greatest flaw as a comic book writer. So it was life that made this happen, not me.

I’d done some script supervising work for a very small, struggling movie production company in Los Angeles in my early twenties. The company was run by a friend of mine, Jan Utstien. A few years after I’d stepped down from that gig and gone back to writing for myself (unpublished short stories, poetry, essays, etc.) she phoned me and said that she had fallen in love with a comic book artist. They wanted to self-publish something together but they needed a writer. I wasn’t very enamored with the first pitch they sent my way, so I ended up going to Mexico for a little under a year. Just to knock around down there, check out the Chiapas revolution, go to Guatemala and Belize, that sort of thing. When I got back I was flat broke and really needed something to dig in to. I went back to waiting tables and working in book stores and in my spare time I worked on this comic for Jan and, by then, her husband Bill O’Neal. That book ended up being a black and white self-published book called Violent Messiahs.

This was 1997 and the comics industry was crashing fast. Thousands of stores were closing a year. It was a terrible time to self publish a black and white. But, inversely, the Hollywood gold rush on comics was really starting to escalate. For better or for worse, they saved the comics industry by subsidizing us through that era. Anyway, that very first issue (there was never an issue #2) got passed around LA and I kept flying out from Texas to go to meetings. In 1998 I just figured I should make a go of it. I didn’t really have anything else going on in my life. So I moved to LA and slept on Jan and Bill’s couch and we republish Violent Messiahs in color with a different artist, Tone Rodriguez, at Image. It was here in LA, creating comics everyday all day and being dead, dead broke as I approached thirty, that I started to fall in love with idea of becoming as good as I possibly could at making comics. I spent the next four years sleeping on couches, refusing day jobs (save for the very brief and rare exceptions) living hand-to-mouth and making, mostly shitty, comics every single day. I’ve spent the rest of my life since struggling to understand how to create a great comic. I’ve succeeded a few times, but not as much as I would like.

What part of the process is the most challenging or frustrating to you?

Believing in myself. Writing is a Sisyphean struggle, and Sisyphus knows that you’ve got to get some momentum, some traction on a project, before that stone starts to move. But when you’re at the base of the mountain, only personal faith in yourself will get the stone going. Belief that the ideas will come, that your voice matters, that there’s a reason why you do this awesome job and others don’t, that’s the only thing that’s going to get you started. And you have to find that belief at the start of every single new project. It’s gotten easier over the years for me, of course. Success breeds faith in yourself, but that doubt has never really gone away, and it makes the inception moment of any project extremely difficult. Hell, even just the inception of any single issue comic is pretty hard for me. I would also argue that a certain amount of doubt breeds a kind of perfectionism that has an energy all its own. But the trick is to not let the doubt cripple you. To manage it. To keep the stone rolling. Total faith in yourself will result in unexamined work and halt growth. But total lack of faith will resort in creative paralyses. As with all things, the middle path is the way.

Secondarily, I always have a problem picking my next project. I’m a person that can have a new idea every single day, and that breeds a kind of inactivity. That’s why you don’t see a lot of creator owned stuff from me. If I don’t have an editor to offer me a paycheck and tell me which project they want me to work on, I’ll do a million things at once and none will get done. I’m hoping to learn how to navigate that tendency soon though because I do feel like there’s something missing in my career, and that working on things that belong fully to me might be the missing piece. Of course “Violent Messiahs” was a creator-owned work, but I wrote that over seventeen years ago. I’m a much, much different writer and person now and I look back on that series and wince a little, despite how good it’s been to me all these years.

If you could give one piece of advice to an aspiring comics creator, what would that be?

The best advice I can offer any new comer is that they understand that comics, more than any other medium, is a small community. And you have to become part of that community before you can achieve the goals you have in mind for yourself. You have to make comics and get them out in the world. You have to go to shows. You have to make friends with people in the industry and those at your professional level so that you all lift each other up. You have to invest in yourself. That’s easier than ever now that we have the internet, but it also increasing the amount of noise that’s out there. But that’s okay. Ask yourself, if I never got paid to make comics would I still make them? If the answer is yes, then blaze your trail and make your own work.

www.joshuadysart.com

Filed Under: Pro Tips, ProFile Tagged With: B.P.R.D, career, collaboration, Comic Con, comics, Comics conventions, comics industry, creativity, critique, Enrique Breccia, Eric Powell, Fábio Moon & Gabriel Bá, Igor Kordey, John Totleben, making comics, Mike Mignola, pro tips, Richard Corben, Rick Veitch, storytelling, The Unknown Soldier, Ugandan People’s Defence Force, Vertigo, Violent Messiahs, Writing, writing for comics

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