July 23rd, 2009. An occasion I had been waiting for all year. This was my first time attending the San Diego Convention where my main goal was for business reasons. Sure, I intended to enjoy myself, get autographs, and learn about future storylines from the comics, but that wasn't the only reason I was attending this year. I attended with the intention of pitching my comic book idea and pitch I did. Right into the strike zone... not sure if that's a positive term or negative.
The night before I struggled to get numerous copies printed of the full synopsis for the story (five pages long), the character guide, the 23 paged script for the first issue, and 2 pages drawn of the first issue. I was online all day with the artist, awaiting his e-mails of the pages. We were supposed to have 3 pages of art, but time didn't allow for it. After I printed out one copy of each of these (around 8pm) I went to the nearest Staples print center and made dozens of copies. That's 31 pages copied and printed. I made about 7 packets. That's 217 pages. Actually, that night I hadn't typed up the character guide yet, but since we had such little amount of art, Richard (the artist) and I decided to add in some pages of his art from a comic he was working on his own, just to show that he is capable of drawing a comic. I was at Staples for roughly 45 minutes. When I got home, I began typing up the character guide. I only needed to write about 5 characters; the five main characters throughout the series. I wrote one paragraph per character and it came out to one page perfectly. This didn't take long, but at the time I was still waiting for Richard to finish a third page of art. Well, he never finished it. Not a big deal.
The next morning I woke up around 6, got the lady friend awake and we began getting ourselves ready for the trek down to San Diego. First, however, we need to make a pit stop to the nearest Kinkos, where I printed out several copies of the Character Guide. In the parking lot, I organized the packets, taking out the pages of Richards art from the other comic because I felt it was too confusing to explain why it was in there, and bound them together with large paperclips. I threw the packets into my folder, and we were one our way.
Long story short, we got into the convention center and I instantly began searching for people interested in a great story. My first venture was to the Archaia Studio Press booth. I was directed to the publisher himself. I had to wait a bit as someone else was speaking to him. But, once I was able to speak to him, I was able to give him my full pitch. I was a bit nervous, but I think it went well. He did, afterall, give me his business card and asked me to e-mail him directly with the packet I gave him in pdf format. This was really good. The actual publisher gave me his card and told me to e-mail him directly? I don't have to go through a submissions editor? Awesome.
After my moment of success, I moved to the booth across from Archaia. It was Boom! Studios. They're much more known than Archaia, but I figured "what the hell". Unfortunately, I didn't get to talk to anyone there. I asked one of the creators if there was someone I could talk to, but he said they weren't around and that they do have a submissions pile. So, I watched him place my packet in the submission pile and that was that. Not as good as last time, but it'll have to do.
I wandered around a bit, just looking at some of the booth's, not looking for anyone in particular. Then I came across Oni Press. They were on my list of publishers, so I made my way to them. To my surprise, I was standing in front of the display for Greg Rucka's Queen & Country. This had to be a good sign. I was able to talk to their submissions editor for a bit, where she proceeded to tell me that they don't usually look at submissions at the conventions, especially since they just had a contest for artists on their website. I had to inform her that I'm not an artist, that I'm a writer, and that I was pitching an entire project, not just wanting to be hired. She took the packet and I explained the premise to her for a little bit. She told me that it may take her about 8 weeks to get around to it, but that she would for sure read it. I thanked her for her time and that was that. Not much else I could do without becoming a desperate, demanding fan/wannabe.
After another [smaller] company turned me down, saying that they only take projects from established creators, I was pretty much done with pitching. There was SLG Publishing, but I opted out of talking to them. Don't ask me why, I can't remember.
After I was done with the business portion on SDCC, I moved on to the fun part. I bought lots of stuff and attended lots of panels.
The night before I struggled to get numerous copies printed of the full synopsis for the story (five pages long), the character guide, the 23 paged script for the first issue, and 2 pages drawn of the first issue. I was online all day with the artist, awaiting his e-mails of the pages. We were supposed to have 3 pages of art, but time didn't allow for it. After I printed out one copy of each of these (around 8pm) I went to the nearest Staples print center and made dozens of copies. That's 31 pages copied and printed. I made about 7 packets. That's 217 pages. Actually, that night I hadn't typed up the character guide yet, but since we had such little amount of art, Richard (the artist) and I decided to add in some pages of his art from a comic he was working on his own, just to show that he is capable of drawing a comic. I was at Staples for roughly 45 minutes. When I got home, I began typing up the character guide. I only needed to write about 5 characters; the five main characters throughout the series. I wrote one paragraph per character and it came out to one page perfectly. This didn't take long, but at the time I was still waiting for Richard to finish a third page of art. Well, he never finished it. Not a big deal.
The next morning I woke up around 6, got the lady friend awake and we began getting ourselves ready for the trek down to San Diego. First, however, we need to make a pit stop to the nearest Kinkos, where I printed out several copies of the Character Guide. In the parking lot, I organized the packets, taking out the pages of Richards art from the other comic because I felt it was too confusing to explain why it was in there, and bound them together with large paperclips. I threw the packets into my folder, and we were one our way.
Long story short, we got into the convention center and I instantly began searching for people interested in a great story. My first venture was to the Archaia Studio Press booth. I was directed to the publisher himself. I had to wait a bit as someone else was speaking to him. But, once I was able to speak to him, I was able to give him my full pitch. I was a bit nervous, but I think it went well. He did, afterall, give me his business card and asked me to e-mail him directly with the packet I gave him in pdf format. This was really good. The actual publisher gave me his card and told me to e-mail him directly? I don't have to go through a submissions editor? Awesome.
After my moment of success, I moved to the booth across from Archaia. It was Boom! Studios. They're much more known than Archaia, but I figured "what the hell". Unfortunately, I didn't get to talk to anyone there. I asked one of the creators if there was someone I could talk to, but he said they weren't around and that they do have a submissions pile. So, I watched him place my packet in the submission pile and that was that. Not as good as last time, but it'll have to do.
I wandered around a bit, just looking at some of the booth's, not looking for anyone in particular. Then I came across Oni Press. They were on my list of publishers, so I made my way to them. To my surprise, I was standing in front of the display for Greg Rucka's Queen & Country. This had to be a good sign. I was able to talk to their submissions editor for a bit, where she proceeded to tell me that they don't usually look at submissions at the conventions, especially since they just had a contest for artists on their website. I had to inform her that I'm not an artist, that I'm a writer, and that I was pitching an entire project, not just wanting to be hired. She took the packet and I explained the premise to her for a little bit. She told me that it may take her about 8 weeks to get around to it, but that she would for sure read it. I thanked her for her time and that was that. Not much else I could do without becoming a desperate, demanding fan/wannabe.
After another [smaller] company turned me down, saying that they only take projects from established creators, I was pretty much done with pitching. There was SLG Publishing, but I opted out of talking to them. Don't ask me why, I can't remember.
After I was done with the business portion on SDCC, I moved on to the fun part. I bought lots of stuff and attended lots of panels.
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