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davidmariottecomics · 1 year

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Ask Me (Almost) Anything 2023, Pt. 1

Hello!

This week, I'm answering a bunch of questions about comics from you, the reader! There will also be some non-comics-y questions that'll pop up too, just for fun. I actually got so many questions, this is going to get spread out over 2 weeks to cover them all! As a reminder, I didn't have a lot of rules, but I did ask that people keep in mind there are some things I can't answer due to confidentiality (or just plain don't know!) and that I'm not fielding requests for work. Without further ado, let's get into it!

@BillijoFreeze asks: "Hi David! Will you be attending New York Comic Con?" I actually don't know! I'm planning on being at a few more shows through the year but the only one I can say is 100% set at this point is San Diego Comic-Con.

Because this might be interesting, I attend cons 3 ways myself. There are conventions that I attend as promotion for my own work--like I tabled as myself at the Arizona Comic Book Arts Festival earlier this year. Those shows are all things that I set up/am sometimes asked to do/set up with Becca (my fiance & sometimes creative partner). There are shows I attend as Becca's booth babe or otherwise just an attendee, like WaifuExpo earlier this year, where I'm not really there for my business, I'm there to act as Becca's support or, occasionally, primarily attend as a fan. Then there are the shows I attend on behalf of/in conjunction to my IDW work. Those shows, often I'm getting my badge and potentially my travel covered by IDW. Because of that, my attendance is dependent on their needs and when they let me know they need me there. If IDW sends me to NYCC, I'll happily go, but right now, I can't speak to if that's happening this year.

Billijo had a couple other questions, so let's knock those out, too!

"Will you be doing portfolio reviews in upcoming months?"

I'm sure I will be, but I don't know how publicly accessible they'll be. Something I've certainly learned the past few years is just how difficult it is for me personally to do portfolio reviews digitally. A big part of that for me is that I find the most valuable parts of a portfolio review tend to come out of conversation, which unless you're in person or on a video call with someone, is slowed down by the act of actually reviewing the portfolio and the time between responses. Like, the real time conversation of "here's why X doesn't work" and then an artist is like "but I was thinking Y and that's why I did it" and then I can say "okay, well doing Z is going to be better for you in the long-run" is I think a lot handier than writing out corrections and slowly building the back-and-forth of conversation around notes and then things get buried in my inbox and new things end up taking priority because that's the periodicals business--there's always something new (all of which is to say, I do know I still owe a few people responses and I will get back to you very soon. I appreciate your patience).

Here on my website, I've actually changed the policy to be that you're fine to send a portfolio along, but I just can't guarantee a review of it (though I will always link to Steve Lieber's sight-unseen portfolio review because it is a lot of the sort of general notes I would give).

With that all said, I do think it's worth mentioning that I have often found artists outside of portfolio reviews and do contact people without them. Portfolio reviews are great for getting professional feedback and strengthening your skills, but you can get jobs without them.

And finally, "Is there a limit to how many artists you can hire for a comic?"

Functionally, yes. There is a limit. However, to answer the question I think you're asking, no, there isn't. It is very dependent on the project. Let's say I'm working on something very short, like our Godzilla Rivals one-shots or a Sonic mini-series. Generally speaking, I have a pretty set limit on the number of people I can hire for those. I have X number of covers, plus an interior art team, and that's all the openings I have. Sometimes those numbers do go up, like things are running behind and I need to bring in an extra person to help out on an issue. Sometimes those numbers go down, like an artist is hired to do a cover for each issue so by hiring them for multiple projects, I can't hire someone else on that particular book. And also, sometimes, there are projects where I have even less creative control--some Original titles, for example, might have the creators bringing in the majority of the talent and I might only be able to bring in/suggest one or two people.

But when it comes to an ongoing project--say Godzilla or Sonic comics generally--I'm often looking for artists for future projects. I may not have any availability at the moment, but I can add to the pool of talent available. The only limit I have there is actually being able to provide those folks with a job (and, to some extent, making sure people I bring in have the opportunity to continue working).

Another batch of questions, this time from @ziggyfin: "How do you like your steak? How do you like your eggs? How do you take your coffee?"

I prefer my steak medium to medium rare, but when I'm cooking a nice steak, I usually end up making it closer to medium-well because that's how Becca prefers theirs.

I don't eat eggs by themselves in any form. I'll happily cook with eggs as an ingredient when I'm baking or as a binding agent when I'm making like katsu or fried chicken or whatever.

I'm very basic with my coffee tastes. I like it with half-and-half and regular sugar. I tend to drink medium roasts and prefer to grind my beans every morning. And I only drink it hot.

@PeterClines asks: "Possibly silly question--how do artists and writers tend to get paired up on new projects? Do folks usually come to you as a pre-existing team, do you keep writers and artists hip-pocketed and connect them, or is it a mix of the two?"

Not a silly question at all! Whether we're talking licensed or original projects, it does tend to be a mix of the two. And sometimes even on a single book it can be a mix of the two. When Canto by David Booher and Drew Zucker came into IDW, the team pitched it together and when we started working on it, they had also brought Vittorio Astone and Deron Bennett in for colors and letters. It came with the creative team and made that part of my life really easy. But on something like, say, Paul Allor and Adam Bryce Thomas's Samurai Jack: Lost Worlds, that was totally me being like "I like these two guys and I think they'd make a good book together" and I was right! Or most issues of Sonic, we look at our schedule, our artist pool, and figure out who can hop on those issues while the writers for each issue are set up further ahead of time.

But, like I said, it can also be a mix of the two on a single book. When Sonic: Scrapnik Island was getting pitched, Nathalie Fourdraine did some early concept art as part of the pitch and so when that became a reality, we had Daniel Barnes locked in as writer, Nathalie locked in for designs and coloring, and then editorial brought Jack Lawrence in for the lineart.

When we're talking about acquiring a comic project, often having a creative team in place is a good thing. Anything that makes the pitch closer to the reality of what the book will be is helpful for reviewing the project. Sometimes it's not so locked in, but say a writer will come in with a short list of artists that are in the stylistic wheelhouse they're thinking of, and that's helpful too. And, less frequently than a writer coming in without an artist, occasionally you'll get an artist who comes in looking for a co-writer/scripter.

I'll also say that sometimes a book comes in with a creative team, but shifts over the course of the acquisition. Again, not a super common thing, but sometimes it'll be a situation where for whatever reason, someone has to step away but gives their blessing for the project to continue. I have a project I can't say too much about where the writer pitched it with concept art that they commissioned from a pal who started out as sort of a question mark of attachment and pretty quickly was like "I like you, this seems fun, I can't commit to this longterm" and so we figured that out.

@DigammaFWau asks: "Hi David! Cross referencing your credits on other books at the time, when Sonic started development in mid-late 2017 and you and Joe Hughes got attached to it, were you initially assistant editor, and ended getting promoted partway through production of the earliest issues?"

Ahh, the complicated world of comic editorial credits. The short version is pretty much. I came into IDW in 2016 as an editorial assistant and pretty quickly over the next few years ascended to assistant editor, associate editor, and now editor. So when Sonic started development at IDW, yes, I had not yet been promoted to editor as my job title. However, sometimes credits are not strictly tied to the title so much as the work put into a title. And pretty much from the get, Joe and I were doing equal amounts of work on Sonic and co-editing the book. And the exact nature of what that looks like can change too. While I would say we were co-editing the book from the launch, the division of duties that went into it was very different than how it is co-editing the book now with Riley Farmer.

The other big push here--as well as when I took over Transformers--is my role really shifted when Joe left (and when Carlos left TF). My title may've been associate editor, but in function, I was the editor on those books and the credits reflected that. I am a big proponent of credits reflecting the work, rather than the title.

@TheIllustriousQ asks: "When putting on your socks do you start with your left foot or your right?"

I don't usually notice/think about it, but in testing this morning, shoes & socks lead with the right, pants lead with the left.

@lizislife2 asks: "How do you choose artists for Sonic comics? When can you submit a portfolio for IDW Sonic?"

To answer the first part, I start out by looking at my artist pool. These are the approved artists that (semi-)regularly work on Sonic. A lot of that initial determination is based on availability--the more regularly I'm working with someone, the more I know their schedule in the first place, so it's easy to be like "oh, Adam Bryce Thomas can't draw X cover because he's only midway through Y issue." Then if there are any other factors, those are considered, and if everything's good, the person's hired for the project.

If we're talking finding new artists, that happens a bunch of different ways. Nathalie Fourdraine posted some good Sonic art on Twitter and both Joe Hughes and I had someone send us her stuff (simultaneously) and we were like "yeah, she needs to draw Sonic for us" and she's been doing it ever since. Gigi Dutreix first came in on Evan Stanley's recommendation. I think Reggie Graham (who asked about steak and eggs and coffee) is someone I found on Twitter and we DMed and the rest is history. And someone like Jack Lawrence, well, Jack was a new-to-Sonic artist, but he and I had worked together on TF for a while and I thought he'd be a good fit (and, again, happy to have been proven right time and again). There're folks who either I reach out to or who reach out to me who I've worked with on other projects who express interest in Sonic and sometimes that works out too.

Here's where we enter the "things I can't talk too much about" category: There are specific requirements that I do need to get people approved to draw Sonic. I do have a set of guidelines that I use in my reviewing of portfolios (and generally when I'm looking at artists that I'm interested in) and if someone's approaching/meeting those criteria, I may reach out.

I do not have set periods for portfolio submissions. As mentioned above, I'm also not really doing digital portfolio reviews at the moment. Know that I am both often looking for artists and also when I actually have the ability to try to on-board more people, am the one reaching out to people I'm finding and interested in. You can also send a portfolio to [email protected] and direct it to my attention and if you're a good fit and I am able to try to on-board more people, I may reach out.

@CraterLabs asks: "How does one get into comic editing? I see people talk about comic drawing (showing editors portfolios) and comic writing (getting lucky), but I never see people talk about starting editing. Also do editors look for new projects, or is that someone else in a comic company?"

I find that there are two ways into editing, and it really depends on if you're freelance or if you're working at a company--though they do kinda overlap, especially as there are editors who move between the two.

I got into comic editing the old fashioned way--I applied for a job that I was unqualified for, happened to apply to a place that already had goodwill toward me and had a position I was qualified for opening up, did an interview, and got hired. There is a longer story there, but that's the short version. And a big part of what got me in the door, in all actuality, was the fact that I came from journalism school where I had been doing editorial at the school newspaper and in my classes. And that often is what companies are looking for, someone who either has an editorial background from a different type of publishing/creative field or someone who has been in the trenches of comics in other regards: former store owners, writers, artists, etc.

If you're doing freelance editing of any sort, a lot of it, like most comics jobs, is reputation based. Start out small with projects with your friends and peers, build your portfolio and relationships simultaneously, and as your reputation grows, hopefully so does your work. I know folks who've left companies and do some freelance editing and a lot of what they do is based on the relationships they established being in-house. But, yeah, if you're not coming in with an editorial background, the best way really is to do any other part of comics and start independently, as rough as that often can be, and work at it until you start to grow.

Generally, yes, it is the responsibility of editors to find new projects and new talent at a comic company. Some companies will have additional people who act as support in those roles--be it doing some talent relations or business affairs or management who bring in new projects/new licenses and give them to editors (e.g. someone above my pay grade brought Sonic to IDW, but I have been editorially involved since day 1). Similar to what I was saying earlier, a big part of finding new projects is building reputation and relationships. Many projects come to me from creators and agents I've either worked with in the past or who know my work and think I'd be a good fit for what they have in mind. Or I'll be reaching out to a creator that I like and asking if they have a pitch for an Original project or a specific licensed project.

Also, and I know you weren't being flip, so much as trying to communicate quickly, but I think understanding the ways in which editors at a company bring in new projects and talent beyond portfolio reviews and luck is beneficial to you as an editor too. The best editors are not necessarily a jack-of-all-trades, but understanding of the processes of each step of creating comics to better serve the people they work with.

@Huwer14 asks: "What would be the best advice you could give to a writer looking to pitch for your books?"

One of the biggest complications of being a writer and wanting to work on a specific series is you can't really talk about what you'd do with the series, right? Editors and other writers can't read unsolicited ideas/pitches, so if you have a great idea for The Flash or whatever, you can't just float it out into the world and hope to get picked up.

So what you can do instead is establish that you're interested in a book and that you're a good fit for the tone of it, right? Like I knew Gale Galligan was a big Sonic fan and from having read Gale's other work, I knew that they were good at writing the sort of stories I like to read and that work with Sonic as a property. Same with like James Kochalka or Daniel Barnes. So, make stuff that you like to make and stay on my radar and it'll help me figure out if you'd be a good fit.

But the actual best advice I can give sounds really simple: read the book. There are a thousand complications to this, of course, and yes there are writers who are hired who are not fully caught up, but knowing what the book is like now goes a long way to making everyone's life easier. I'll speak to this more in the next question too, but, yeah, read the book.

@SuaveGorilla asks: "What are red flags you notice in scripts or pitches that tell you the writer’s vision might not be aligned with what you can publish or that they might be challenging?"

Okay, so, this builds really well from the last question. That said, I'm going to talk about this very generally because it is sensitive and does border on some of the stuff that is more confidential/particular to each license.

1. To me, there's only one outright red flag and that's sending an unsolicited pitch. This one I don't mind saying. If you send me something and I didn't ask for it, I can't read it. That is standard policy with editors across comic companies. At least ask if you can send it in first and once you get the okay, do so, but if you aren't following protocol in that way, it's a red flag for future projects and it kills that pitch there and then.

2. I'd say this is a yellow flag--something to be discussed, but not always a dealbreaker. I can tell when someone is not staying current to a series. To use an exaggerated example: an editor gets a pitch for a modern day Batman story and Dick Grayson is still Robin. And, like, yeah, you can tell a Batman story with Dick Grayson as Robin, but it's a lot harder to have that line up with Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo's Nightwing run if they're supposed to be happening at the same time.

3. A closely related yellow flag is not following the rules provided. When you're working on any sort of pre-existing property, there are some rules attached. Again, to use an exaggerated example, if someone has been asked to pitch the next arc of the main Batman book and it comes back and Batman never puts on the costume and both his parents are alive and he loves guns and it's to "make Batman cool again", that's not really in the spirit of Batman. Like... maybe there's a version where that's his worst nightmare or it's an alternate reality, but it's not great to get a pitch that is trying to break the rules.

The specifics between a book and even the way a creator and editor work together can be very different. And rules can shift with editors and licensors and creators over time. As a final Batman example, there have probably been times when Batman couldn't pilot a robot or be a dinosaur because Batman was supposed to be a more "grounded" character. Notably, in recent years, both those things have happened. Policies can change and things that might not fly now may down the line.

@CBDev95 asks: "What is a good way to reach more people outside of social media in regards to marketing your comic?"

That is a great question! The short answer, I suppose, is that social media is just one form of communication and ultimately all marketing is communications, right? I know folks who when they have a new comic releasing call or email comic shops and say "hey, you're the person who can order this/stock this/sell this. Do you have a couple of minutes to talk about it and I can tell you why it's cool and why your customers are going to like it?" And sometimes, that little touch is the sway that they need to place the order and gives them the tools to sell to their customers.

I'm also a big proponent of events (huge asterisk: if that's something you're comfortable with/able to do. I understand it is a privilege in many ways to be able to travel and feel secure in your health, personal safety, and finances). Doing outreach at your local/semi-local comic shop, book shop, zine shop, little art market, library event, convention, etc is a good way to expand locally and sometimes bring in attention from people who aren't local. And, depending on what you're doing and who with, sometimes they're doing conventional marketing. You get on a flyer or maybe you're super lucky and they run a TV or radio ad or whatever. Similarly, occasionally that can beget a "local does good" story where you end up in the paper or on TV or on a podcast because you're the person in your area who made this thing.

Something that is social media adjacent that I know happens but I only sometimes looped in on is creator review chains. Basically, a group of creator friends who get advanced PDFs and get to say good things about it and help build hype--online, offline, maybe they give you a blurb that helps get the book into a new hand.

If all else fails, just drop a couple copies off at like... a bus stop or laundromat. Somewhere people might need something to read for a few minutes and might pick it up and become a fan.

And also: "How does IDW scout for talent, especially when it comes to the various IP they hold? Any set criteria?"

I think it's important to understand that even within a company, the way different editors (and talent folks) scout and find talent can be wildly different. I find a lot of people on social and through creator connections. I like person X's work on Twitter and reach out or creator Y says "hey, my buddy creator Z would be an awesome fit for this, can I put them in touch with you?" I also do the traditional thing of walking around artist's alley and the small press area and talking to folks and getting a feel for what they're doing. And I also sometimes reach out to people creating other stuff that I enjoy--people working in animation or podcasts or traditional publishing or whatever.

But by the same token, I know editors who are inactive on social media, if they have it at all. I know editors who are much more active than I am in talking to managers and agents who bring them talent. And editors who primarily do it the old fashioned way and do in person portfolio reviews, con walk throughs, recommendations, and bringing the authors and journalists they like. I personally think that the right way is a combination of them all, but everyone has their own style, their own comfort, their own tastes and scouting is going to be unique, which is part of what makes books unique.

That all said, and again, kind of continuing what I've said above, yeah, each IP is going to have different guidelines. And, frankly, sometimes different editors/talent relations folks will have different understandings of those guidelines or tastes within them. A good way to start to get an idea, if you're not talking to an editor about the criteria of a certain book, is to read the books they are putting out in that IP. Because at the end of the day, those are books that the licensor allowed to be released, which is a good sign that they and the editor probably liked it.

@brainstorm_dr asks: "So once you’ve got a job writing, what’s the production pipeline like? Writer -> editor -> revision -> artist? Or are we talking an endless loop of potential back-and-forth?"

Endless loop! Endless loop! No, I'm... kind of joking. Like so many of the things I've talked about so far, it can really vary project to project, and even sometimes issue to issue. My ideal would be, yeah, writer sends over a script, editor does a single pass for clean-up and whatever notes, writer sends the revision back, it's perfect, it's off to the artist, the artist does great and makes things super easy for the colorist and letterer and the book happens. But the more people are involved, the less straightforward things are--often for the better, but y'know, not uncomplicating things.

I'm going to talk Transformers because your name's Dr. Brainstorm. At certain points, a Transformers script would go through 3 editors at IDW on the first or second pass. Assuming revisions were all good and locked on the rd. 2 script, that would be reviewed by the nice folks at Hasbro. Their team would come back with any notes, the writer may have to do a rd 3 (or very occasionally, more) draft. If deadlines demanded it, sometimes the rd. 3 script would be coming in after art had started. Sometimes things would be set pretty early, but then the art would come in and a writer might end up doing more significant rewrites at the lettering stage (though, the hope was always not that). With various other books, you may have even larger editorial teams looking at it, you may have translators involved or copy editors or co-writers or someone else along the food chain who has to review the script and may make notes, and notes that may seem like they're going back and forth a lot.

That is all assuming two things: 1. we're just not going to get into the weeds of artist/colorist/letterer/production artist back-and-forth and revisions and 2. you're writing full script style. You may've heard of Marvel or descriptive script style, where the script is looser and more focused on the action/emotion of each page, and then the final dialogue is added after the art is drawn. That whole process gets additionally wonky!

The good news is eventually the comic has to go to print, so at some point the back-and-forth must stop. And, sometimes, it really does only take one or two rounds of back and forth to get everything set.

@DesertLorenzo asks: "How have you been lately? Both doing and feeling (within what you feel comfortable sharing)." Most people are polite enough that they don't tell me that I look tired. Or, alternatively, are so used to the bags under my eyes, I appear as normal to them. But tired I am.

Some of it is normal tiring stuff. Tiansheng being a cat, does not really understand the concept of time and recently has been particularly active (and naughty) between the hours of midnight and 7 a.m., which happens to be when I am trying to sleep. Money's been a bit tight recently. Not "we don't have groceries" or "we can't afford bills" or anything, but tight. I got a lot of hot takes on things and thinking about them tires me out.

A lot of it is what I would describe as unusual and despicable. From the anti-trans legislation that is sweeping the nation and contributing to a trans genocide to all the book bannings to library funding removals that are instead going to police to enact fascism to the challenges to the attempts to abortions by negating mifepristone use to the fucking bullshit that is the RESTRICT Act to all the people who are being killed so frequently by guns and a refusal to do the most basic care in not spreading a deadly disease.

It is fucking hard out here. It is hard to even try to live a life that is normal. It is hard to feel like there's so much more I should be doing and to know that in a weird intersection of my own privilege and disadvantageous circumstances, there is only so much I can do. I am frequently sad and mad and scared and most of all uncertain. And it's not to say I don't have good days and good times too, just that the negatives are constant and at some point, I can only celebrate one step forward for two steps back so much.

I am not doing well. I don't see how I can have a brain and a heart and be doing well. But I am doing the best I can and that is all I can ask of myself or anyone else right now. Sorry to go out on the downer, but that's how I feel.

Next time: RILEY QUESTIONS! And the rest of the questions not from my co-editor on Sonic/good friend Riley. If you weren't in this batch, sorry, I did try to do these relatively in the order they came in!

What I enjoyed this week: Blank Check (Podcast), Honkai Impact (Video game), Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo (Anime), Mass Effect (Video game), Teen Titans Go (Cartoon), Craig of the Creek (Cartoon), Devil House by John Darnielle (Book), Chainsaw Man (Manga), a very good call of what I hope will mean good things to come, and there have been so many good art shares for Portfolio Day and stuff. It's nice to see artists and creators banning together to promote each others work in the face of a platform that is increasingly against them. New Releases this week (4/12/2023): Quiet week from me! Enjoy another comic!

New Releases next week (4/19/2023): Sonic the Hedgehog #59 (Editor)

Announcements:

FREE COMIC BOOK DAY! I'm going to be at Geoffrey's Comics (see the Pic of the Week for the address) for Free Comic Book Day this year. As always, it's the first Saturday in May (the 6th). I'll be there with Becca and a number of our friends including Nick Marino, Rosie Knight, Mark Martinez, and more! It'll be a cool little event and I hope you can come out and see us.

Also, relative to the very first question, looks like I'll be playing booth babe for Becca again soon too. More on that after they have shared.

At time of posting, you can still come and hang out for Becca's Twitch stream tonight. It's at 7 PST. They're playing Genshin. It should be fun.

If you're at all interested in that silly little comic redraw thing I mentioned last week, the scripts are available here still. If you're not sure what I'm talking about, more info on last week's post!

I was hoping to have something announced this week, but not just yet. I am looking into building something that'll allow for a little direct support for me, provide some extra content beyond the blog, and maybe even start to fund some cool new little comics projects, but that's all TBD. There are a few services that I've decided against, but I've yet to find the right platform for it. And if nothing ever comes to fruition... well, it's a nice idea.

Pic of the Week: FCBD info and a cute (?) picture of Nadja!

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