The always amazing Steve Lieber put together an extremely helpful list of 12 common comic art portfolio critiques and asked if a comic writer wanted to do the same kind of thing, so I picked up the baton and ran with it.

Read, learn, and if you like it, feel free to share far and wide.

Here’s Steve’s original art portfolio post, packed with great advice:

A brand new comic book publisher announces their arrival with a glitzy series of big projects and big promises. Within a few years, they implode and the rights to titles they published become hopelessly trapped in a legal labyrinth that may never get figured out.

Sound familiar?

If you’ve been in and around the North American comic industry, it should. That same excitement-to-apocalypse scenario has played out at least a dozen times over the past forty years. I’ve watched this cycle time and time again with independent comic publishers who try to build their foundation on ‘creator-owned’ titles that lock away rights in perpetuity and page rate promises that crumble when boisterous external funding runs out.

To help people avoid this awful ‘tradition’ of predatory publishing, here are 12 important warning signs to look out for:

• Publisher pops up out of nowhere with bold claims and unknown/vague sources of funding.

• You never actually see any of a publisher’s books in a comic shop, bookstore or even at their convention booth but, according to their marketing, they have a bunch of titles ready to be turned into movie/TV properties.

Don’t get me wrong, there are predatory indie film, music, prose and game companies as well (and most of the same warning signs covered above also apply), but the lower start up costs and movie/TV pitch-friendly packaging of comics seems to lend itself to these kinds of companies launching with all kinds of fanfare and then flaming out.

Most of these predatory publishers seem to operate on a simple 3-step model:

1) Acquire or generate large amounts of intellectual property as quickly as possible.
2) Pray that they can make a media deal and/or be acquired by a bigger corporate fish.
3) The people in charge profit. Everyone else gets screwed over.

When you’re starting out, I know that any and all credits feel like the path to legitimacy and being considered a true ‘pro’, but please don’t rush into any publishing deal for your original creations without carefully checking the paperwork.

Get a lawyer to review the legal paperwork you’re about to sign. Whatever you pay for that service will be worth it because they can outline exactly what the legal ramifications are and how that paperwork might be wielded against you in a worst case scenario down the road.

Back in 2014 when I pitched Wayward, we got a lot of interest. In turn, I received potential contracts to review from many of the creator-owned publishers in business at that time. When my lawyer and I sat down and reviewed all the paperwork, many of them had deeply unfavorable terms or ‘snake trap’-style clauses built in – ways a publisher could hide profits in and around other expenses, give themselves a disproportionate amount of earnings from our work, negotiate and sign media contracts on our behalf without any communication or approval required, or seize creative control and ownership in perpetuity with very little recourse to fight it.

One of the contracts was so bad, so ridiculously bad, that my lawyer said something to me I’ll never forget-

“If you signed this terrible contract I would have to stop representing you on the spot, because clearly you have no respect for yourself or your hard work and everything I thought I knew about you would be in question.”

(There’s a reason why Wayward, Skullkickers, and Glitterbomb were published by Image Comics. No company is perfect, but the creator-owned contract at Image Central is one of the most creator-friendly anywhere with ownership rights retained and few other strings attached.)

If you do jump into a publishing deal with a new and possible fly-by-night publisher, make sure you do it with eyes open – take the paycheck, cash it quickly, and mentally file that project under “Work for hire with slim chance of benefits” because in many cases that is the truth of the contract you signed.

Even then, before you sign anything, I also recommend you reach out to other creators currently working with that same publisher, even if you don’t know them beforehand, and make sure they’re being treated well and getting paid on time. There’s no guarantee there won’t be future problems, but some due diligence is better than none.

I don’t know of a single creator who wouldn’t respond to a polite message asking about a company they work with:
If things are good – they’re happy to tell you.
If things are bad – they’re eager to warn other people away.

One final point-

Legitimacy comes from the quality of work you create, not a particular company’s logo on your project.

There are more ways to get your work out into the world and independently fund creative projects than ever before. I wish crowdfunding and Patreon had been around when I began my career in the late 90’s/early 00’s.

A bunch of us started right here on the web, creating original work and learning the craft of comics, bit by bit. It may have taken us longer to build up legitimacy that way, but we kept ownership of our creations and quite a few of us have been able to carve out a readership and long term success in a business not known for its stability.

If you found this post helpful, feel free to let me know here (or on Twitter), share the post with your friends and consider buying some of my comics or donating to my Patreon to show your support for me writing this tutorial post instead of doing paying work. 😛

In late 2013 I put together a blogpost discussing productivity that included a dorky bar chart showcasing how many comic pages I wrote each year from 2009-2013. That period was explosive for me in terms of career growth and visibility. It was exciting to launch my new creator-owned series and slowly use the momentum that came with it to get work for hire projects at some of the largest comic publishers in North America.

It’s strange looking back on that chart and realizing that some of my highest profile projects, ones I’m now closely associated with, had not happened at all yet – In 2013 I hadn’t written anything for Marvel, Dungeons & Dragons, or Conan the Barbarian.

So, almost a decade later, what has changed?

As you can see, the year-over-year wild increase that happened between 2009-2013 leveled out and then decreased. I mentioned in that original post that juggling 1000 comic pages a year alongside a full-time teaching job played havoc with my personal life and that was certainly true. I look at the most productive years on this chart (2013, 2014, 2018, 2019) and remember the intense stress they brought to my personal relationships and physical health. I also remember the pressure I felt from 2015 to 2017 to ramp things back up and maintain a crazy output level, to make sure I wasn’t squandering the higher profile projects I was a part of.

I’m still extremely proud of the books I’ve written, but also know that by the time 2019 wrapped up I was on the cusp of burning out. That’s one of several reasons why I planned to take a teaching sabbatical in 2020 so I could focus more on writing and travel. After the pandemic flared up, those ambitious tour plans came to a grinding halt, but so did a bunch of the writing…

…And that was, surprisingly, a good thing.

Being forced to slow down, write less, and not travel finally showed me a better work-life balance, one where I could still be creative, but also enjoy more personal time. I went for long walks with my wife, exploring our neighborhood in Toronto with the same sense of relaxed curiosity we previously only reserved for trips abroad. I learned how to cook dozens of new dishes, unlocking a satisfying hobby I never would have imagined for myself when I first moved away from home and could barely operate a stove. I jumped into tabletop RPGs on Zoom and, once in-person activities resumed, board game nights at home, strengthening social bonds with industry peers and other friends. I signed on with a company to handle convention appearances so Stacy and I didn’t have to spend crazy amounts of time and effort figuring out the logistics behind each trip.

I also took on writing projects outside of comics – consulting work, a bit of prose, scripting for an unreleased video game, and continuing the D&D Young Adventurer’s series. It was a period of trying different things and realizing that the skills I’d been honing in the comic industry could be leveraged in other places.

Bringing things back to productivity, what have I learned so far?

I don’t think quantity is the only measuring stick when it comes to writing, art, or any other creative pursuit, but it’s still a valid metric. How much you create does not equate to its quality, but there is natural skill growth that comes from regularly finishing projects and releasing them out into the world. I am a much better writer now than I was ten years ago, and a large part of that came from the volume and variety of projects I worked on.

Having a schedule you stick to or a deadline imposed by a client can help push past the natural creative resistance we all feel, the “imposter syndrome” that halts us in our tracks or other self doubts that keep us from achieving our goals. The early years of ramped up productivity helped train me to get into “writing mode” more easily.

And yet, productivity can also overwhelm a lot of other things and blind us in terms of how we value our time and why we create in the first place. I’m trying to be more vigilant about my time and where I put it, while also planning for a future creative semi-retirement down the road where I get to create stuff I’m passionate about on a more relaxed schedule.

The page count represents a concrete measurement of work completed, but those numbers also have meaning to me as an ebb and flow of my career. High output years are not necessarily ‘good’ and lower output years are not necessarily ‘bad’, they’re all part of the journey I’m on. The most important thing is that I still have a ton of passion for telling stories and, if I’m careful and cognizant, that gets to continue long into the future with many more bar charts to come. 🙂

If you found the above thoughts helpful on your own creative journey, feel free to let me know here (or on Twitter), share the post with others, and consider buying some of my comics to show your support.

I find this problem in comics quite a bit as well, especially modern superhero stories.

If the characters aren’t invested in this story/conflict, then it’s much harder for the audience to be as well.

I’ve written sarcastic characters and characters who know the tropes they’re in the midst of. Doing that without losing the audience is tougher than you might think. The stakes must be clear, despite their quips or desire to be above the fray.

Emotional investment and sincerity is impressively resilient to changing trends in entertainment.

Don’t act like you’re too good for the genre you’re working in.
Don’t treat the past like your doormat.

You can be irreverent.
You can be sarcastic.
You can be critical.

But, beneath all that sass, there has to be knowledge and appreciation for the strengths and entertainment of the genre you’re riffing on or else it will feel hollow.

Your best friend gets to give you shit because, deep down, they also care and want the best for you.
Treat genre deconstruction the same way. Give ’em hell and make it hurt because you know which buttons to push that matter, not because you think you’re too cool for all of it.

Fantasy and magic are especially susceptible to this kind of abuse.

“It’s fantasy, so just make up a bunch of Chosen One/Destiny shit.”
“It’s magic, so nothing matters!”

Wrong.

You don’t understand the genre or why it has worldwide appeal.

In this new video I explain why I never talk about stories I didn’t have a chance to complete or pitches that didn’t get approved, with a very special current project example pulled from a pitch that was old enough to vote!

Kieron Gillen has written high profile work-for-hire comics including Thor, X-Men, Darth Vader, and the Eternals along with creator-owned hits like Phonogram, The Wicked and the Divine, and Die. We chat about inspiration, indie publishing, shared universes, and the joy of tabletop gaming.

Todd Nauck has been in the comic business for 27 years. He’s done a ton of work for DC and Marvel along with his own creator-owned comic series.

Lots of process work and inspiration here. Enjoy!

Tamra Bonvillain has been coloring comics professionally for almost 10 years. We cover her influences, career, and a bit of process.

Find Tamra online here:
Twitter.com/TBonvillain

A new interview is up! Max Dunbar has seen incredible growth in his skills after working on Dungeons & Dragons, Gears of War, Legends of the Dark Knight, and Batman Beyond.

This video includes process pics, designs, motivation, and more.