I try to get out… but they keep pulling me back in.
One of the things I didn’t like about publishing was being the editor. Now you get to be the driving force of a book, group of books or a company depending on whom you work for. But you also have to be the bad guy when artists don’t meet their deadlines. Now an advantage that someone working for Marvel, DC or other publishers is they have the power of the paycheck. Most of the time artists, inkers, colorists and letterers like to eat so they tend to finish their work to get paid.
When I was publishing, I didn’t have the paycheck. I had the promise that I would do everything in my power to publish the book and to make money and if money were made then it would be shared among those involved. It’s awfully hard to fire someone off a book when you’re not paying them up front. So a few years ago I put the publishing company to rest and began focusing on freelance writing; this made my life a lot easier… or so I believed.
In December of 2005 I came up with this bizarre idea to take all the little comical concepts I had come up with over the years and bind them into one graphic novel. This would construe nineteen different short stories of two to five pages each. Which also meant nineteen different artists. I also set this up to be a charity book so no one involved was going to get paid. In essence, I put myself right back into the position I had left a few years back. I had nineteen artists, an inker, and two letterers now to keep on top of. I also had to assemble pages from an old ‘cut & paste’ set, write the scripts for all of these artists and digitally ink four pages; quite the list of things to do.
As of now, I have all but three artists pages, waiting for the inker to finish up the pages he has and the letterers are cranking away. Everything else is done and I feel a lot better. But I still have to pressure the remaining creators to finish up… and it’s not something I want to do but it must be done. So I’ve dusted off my editor hat and found the old whip. With any luck I won’t have to do much more than a couple emails. But I can see someone flaking at the last minute and the having to scramble for a replacement artist who can do three pages pencils and inks in a week… that type of thing.
What I’m going to take out of this experience is a lesson that should help me as a freelancer. As a freelancer, the best thing I can do is be an asset to an editor that he never has to worry about. Make my deadlines with time to spare. Make changes quickly. Basically be at the top of my game on every project I take on; because in the end, and editor is going to go back to the creators that make their jobs easier.
One of the things I didn’t like about publishing was being the editor. Now you get to be the driving force of a book, group of books or a company depending on whom you work for. But you also have to be the bad guy when artists don’t meet their deadlines. Now an advantage that someone working for Marvel, DC or other publishers is they have the power of the paycheck. Most of the time artists, inkers, colorists and letterers like to eat so they tend to finish their work to get paid.
When I was publishing, I didn’t have the paycheck. I had the promise that I would do everything in my power to publish the book and to make money and if money were made then it would be shared among those involved. It’s awfully hard to fire someone off a book when you’re not paying them up front. So a few years ago I put the publishing company to rest and began focusing on freelance writing; this made my life a lot easier… or so I believed.
In December of 2005 I came up with this bizarre idea to take all the little comical concepts I had come up with over the years and bind them into one graphic novel. This would construe nineteen different short stories of two to five pages each. Which also meant nineteen different artists. I also set this up to be a charity book so no one involved was going to get paid. In essence, I put myself right back into the position I had left a few years back. I had nineteen artists, an inker, and two letterers now to keep on top of. I also had to assemble pages from an old ‘cut & paste’ set, write the scripts for all of these artists and digitally ink four pages; quite the list of things to do.
As of now, I have all but three artists pages, waiting for the inker to finish up the pages he has and the letterers are cranking away. Everything else is done and I feel a lot better. But I still have to pressure the remaining creators to finish up… and it’s not something I want to do but it must be done. So I’ve dusted off my editor hat and found the old whip. With any luck I won’t have to do much more than a couple emails. But I can see someone flaking at the last minute and the having to scramble for a replacement artist who can do three pages pencils and inks in a week… that type of thing.
What I’m going to take out of this experience is a lesson that should help me as a freelancer. As a freelancer, the best thing I can do is be an asset to an editor that he never has to worry about. Make my deadlines with time to spare. Make changes quickly. Basically be at the top of my game on every project I take on; because in the end, and editor is going to go back to the creators that make their jobs easier.
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