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The big compnaies have "new talent" departments, but if you aren't an artist, you can just ignore that. The big companies have too much money at stake to give their characters to an unknown quantity, so as tempting as it is to send in a proposal for "Man-Thing", and it may be great, the odds are very much against you. If you are deadset on working for Marvel or DC, the best route is to get a job as an unpaid intern or trying to get into editorial (such as an assistant editor) and spending a year learning the ropes. Don't come in with the attitude that "I will write Spider-Man", but that you will make the copies and bring the coffee in return for learning what editors are looking for. A similar position at Wizard or another comics related magazine would be a good choice as well.
For a writer, the best thing to do is to try to find an artist and put together a proposal for one of the smaller publishers, focusing on making both of you look good.
I wrote a lot of comics that never saw print during the black and white boom of the late 80's, and did a LOT of series proposals that were picked up by smaller companies in the early 90's that never went anywhere, and decided to just work in prose until recently when an artist friend of mine said she wanted to do a comic strip. So, I whipped up an idea, wrote a bunch of scripts, met with her until we were happy with what we had, and now we have a webstrip we're looking to publish in book form by the end of the year, so there are a LOT of ways to write comics. Now getting paid is a completely different story.
But one thing that everyone else has said is true, write, but also READ.
Read genre SF and Fantasy, read non-fiction, read history, read classics, read short stories, read popular novels from 30 years ago, read Steven King, read movie scripts, read comics in genres you don't like, read a HUGE variety of things. And as you read them, pay attention to how the story is structured, how they use pacing, how they draw the reader in, how they twist the story to keep you interested, how they impart information. And as you write, edit, looking at your work as if you are your own worst enemy, or an editor whose job it is to take out every word that doesn't move the story forward. Take ALL criticism as help and don't defend your work. If someone says a scene or an idea doesn't work, ask them why and THANK them because if a reader needs you to tell them what is going on in person, you have failed as a communicator.
Write every day. Every day. Long journal entries about your life, articles, opinions, anything, but get in the habit of writing every single day no matter how busy you are, how sick you are or if you have nothing to say.
I also VERY HIGHLY recommend joining the November Novel Writing Project, a group of writers who each write a 50,000 word novel every November (www.nanowrimo.org), go to the meetings, talk to other writers and get help from them.
Writing is something you HAVE to do, not WANT to do, and if you don't HAVE to do it, fake it until you do. The point of the journey is not the arrival, but what happens on the way, so think of publishing as the goal, but if the goal changes, be ready for that too, since as you write, you may learn you don't want to write comics, but movies, TV, novels or editorials instead.
And good luck. We need more writers. EVERYWHERE. |
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