Write For Comic Books

Write for Comic Books


Do you have a secret stash of comic books? You might be surprised at the number of adults who still read and collect comic books! Nowadays, most adults prefer to call them 'graphic novels' instead of the old term, 'comic books' since it sounds less childish and describes them more accurately due to their more mature nature. In Japan, America, and many other countries, it is a huge multimillion dollar market, although the idea of grown people paying out large parts of their weekly salaries for comic books might seem odd to most. How would you like to write a comic book? You can! Write for DC, Marvel, or any number of comic book publishing companies. There is also a growing market of people who self-publish their comic books or graphic novels.

It is always better for you to create a web page or have an online gallery of your work so that you can show your work easily to any prospective publishers you plan to approach. Place your best work there to give the publisher the best impression of you. Though emailing graphics is possible, having an online presence makes you look more professional, and gives you a better chance of obtaining a long term writing contract with an established comic book company.

Before approaching a publisher, be sure to familiarize yourself with many of the publications that they currently carry and get a feel for the styles of comic books that the currently promote. You could then create some new comics, similar in spirit or style to the ones currently be published in paper form or online. Some companies only entertain ideas for tried and true styles that they are comfortable with and are proven money makers, and will not be ready to try anything new. So be sure to send them the type of material they will likely prefer. This will give you a better chance of writing for them in the future, if not right away.

You could get ideas for writing comic books from history, sociology, and arts. Nowadays you can see many comics running on the same basic stories from history, but with a modern take on them. You could create similar characters to the ones present in mythology, but change the names and add a few more twists that bring the story up to date and make it relatable to today's readers. You could create comic books drawing on your favorite heroes from childhood!

You should also consider checking out the various comic book internet resources today, and perhaps write for an existing comic book series. The parent companies of most of these comic book producers, like Marvel and DC gladly accept people who can write matter similar to their present heroes so that they receive new ideas with added creativity. Sometimes their writers may face writer's block and will gladly accept your services to cover for them temporarily. On seeing your work, you can move from being a temporary writer to a permanent writer!


Some resources are:

http://www.43things.com/things/view/8604/create-a-graphic-novel

http://www.43things.com/things/view/17157/write-a-graphic-novel

http://www.absolutewrite.com/

http://www.tcj.com/

http://www.avatarpress.com/

http://wikis.ala.org/acrl/index.php/Comic_Books_and_Graphic_Novels