SAN DIEGO COMIC-CON 2001

I went to San Diego with forty-eight completed pages of the Lump, in sharpie.

Elizabeth was so great. She was enjoying herself so much at the con. She would offer to wait in line for me, so that I could go listen to a panel, or go take notes at a panel while I was in line for a portfolio review. She was so willing to try and help out, since she knew how important all this was to me. She loved people-watching. She kept talking about how, Look, there’s a place for everyone, that they can go and feel like they belong.

ONI Portfolio Review

Watching all the reviews ahead of us, we saw they were quite kind and tried to give meaningful, helpful advice. The editor (who I would later learn, as I got into the industry better, was James Lucas Jones) looked over my stuff, and tried to give positive feedback of what he liked, and make criticisms of things to work on. He said some of my figural forms looked awkward to him. He signaled out a panel of two characters pointing at each other and shouting. I told him it was my John Woo homage, but he didn’t even smile. He suggested I might take some figure drawing classes. When we left, he suggested, if I wanted to leave a package, he could keep it with his files. I started to get a package together, but was thinking about how I’d seen him take packages from everyone. I said something along the lines of, “Would it really do any good to leave this with you? I mean, you don’t really look at these packages, do you?” Because even though he was very courteous and polite, and willing to take the time to do these reviews, I just imagined this vibe that it was easiest, and assuaged hurt hopefuls, to offer to take something, but that he wasn’t going to be looking at any of these packages again, except to throw them out. And he kind of looked at me, like he was taken a little aback at my asking, and he answered something polite that basically told me, No, it won’t really do any good. The moment I asked, I realized what this could mean. It could mean, even if I do look at these packages, I’m sure in the hell not gonna bother to look at anything you leave me … now.

Valuable lesson. This industry is so tiny, you better be as polite as you can to everyone you meet, and say, Yes sir, to whatever they say. Because they’ll still be there for the rest of the time you’re still trying to find work. So whether you’re a prick or they’re a prick, you won’t be getting in so long as they stay in the industry, and they’ll remember you.

As if I didn’t make myself into a big enough moronic asshole in the eyes of Oni Press, I asked something about sending submissions to them, and when to expect to hear back. And I was just trying to be funny, and did an impression of a stalking psycho, saying, “Why didn’t you write back??!?” But the editor shrank back and winced, with a glaze of fear in his eyes, like he thought I was going to jump over the table and grab him. I smiled to show I was joking, and he smiled with relief, finally getting the joke. And I left, thinking to myself, Good work, Chris. Now I can look forward to never getting work for Oni Press.

Darkhorse Review

Darkhorse recommended going to a seminar they held before getting your portfolio reviewed. Randy Stradley gave a lot of information I found very interesting and helpful. He said you have to have two of three things to make it in the industry. The three things are 1. Being able to work fast, 2. Being a nice guy, and 3. Being a good artist. He said if you’re a nice guy, and you’re really good, but you’re slow, you can still make it in comics. If you’re not that good, but you’re fast, and and you’re nice, you can make it. But if you’re an asshole, and you work slow, even if you’re hot shit, no one will hire you. He pointed out, like every editor I’ve spoken to, that editors are just doing their job, and if they say something you don’t like, don’t take it personally. Just look for a different editor that nurses you and appreciates or understands your style. If you get pissed and snap at them, or if you argue with them about their critique of your work, they’re going to remember you. And they’re going to remember you were a prick, and it won’t matter if your art gets better over time. The industry is way too small to be an asshole, and it will come back on you. There are only so many editors, and once you’ve pissed a few of them off, you’re just shooting yourself in the foot, because they’ll be around, and also they’re all friends with each other, and it will be no trouble at all for them to prevent you from getting in.

While waiting in line for my portfolio review at Darkhorse, we befriended a very sweet young seventeen-year old named Dash Shaw, who had come out from the Midwest. And he was very talented. His art looked great, his stories were quite sophisticated. From the sound of it, he’d flown out to this big con for the first time, hoping to just come out and land work. I sympathized with his hopefulness, now that I’d had a few years of portfolio reviews at Wondercon.

We bumped into this kid later, and you could tell he was beginning to feel that familiar portfolio review despair. However, he had gotten a good sign from Oni. They had given him a special “secret business card,” which he was told to copy and affix to the outside of a submission envelope, and send a package to them in the mail. The implication, in my jealous mind, was that Oni received all these submissions, and just tossed them all into the garbage unopened, laughing with mirth … UNLESS the envelope contained the secret signal card identifier! THEN they would know it was okay to open up this particular package and consider it. I didn’t get a secret signal card like this, and so I knew they were definitely not interested in me. Of course I already knew that!

I saw a horrible thing waiting in line for my Darkhorse review. It was a maybe late-twenties guy with a big stack of papers … obviously a script. He was up at the table, and we watched him sit nervously down, make his pitch, get a couple words of advice, shake hands, get up and walk off. And obviously, even though I couldn’t hear a word, the editor had told him how hard it is to get into comics as a writer, how no one really looks at your stuff, how he wasn’t planning to look at the guy’s stuff, and on and on, like we’ve all heard and had to bear.

But the horrible part was that then his wife and two very little kids came up to see how things went, and they were all so obviously hopeful about their guy becoming the comic book guy, and they were all standing there giving him big hugs. Sweetest saddest thing, knowing what he must have been going through.

I actually enjoyed my Darkhorse review with Phil Amara. I loved his Nevermen with Guy Davis, although I didn’t realize he had written them until after the review. He was kind and sympathetic, and seemed to like my work all right. He gave me his contact info. I sent him more stuff and emailed him, but I never heard back from him. I wondered if he was even still working for Darkhorse.

DC Review

DC was also giving portfolio review panels. If you wanted your portfolio reviewed, you were required to go to the panel, and listen to their hour presentation of what they’re looking for, and what to expect. Then, at the end, they gave out lottery tickets for the privilege of a portfolio review, later in the day. A lot of kids went three days in a row, and had to listen to that goddamn presentation three times, and still didn’t get their winning lottery numbers for the review (I should hope DC would finally let them have a review, at that point just out of pity.)

I actually found the talk helpful. Mark Chiarello gave this talk. I was familiar with and admired his artwork. He discussed the kinds of submissions they want, and the format they want it in. It put things in better perspective, seeing the people who would give reviews. Like Darkhorse, he said they were editors, and their day jobs are editing and getting books ready to print, not looking through the stacks of submissions they get every week. Sure, they could look for new talent, and they might even find someone great (You never know. They might). But it’s easier, and more efficient and reliable if they just hire artists who have done professional work, whose work they know, and whose work ethics they already know from experience that they can rely on. Why should he hire an unknown artist who does a nice sort of Simon Bisley style, if he can just hire Simon Bisley. He said that every convention, he finds a dozen artists with potential, and maybe half of them he gives contact info to, and maybe three of them he thinks might really be good to work with. But that doesn’t mean these three are going to get work. Because it depends on how many books are available month to month, and it depends on if these new artists would be good for the book in question. You just never know. The bottom line is that it’s a tough industry to get work, but keep pushing, and keep calling, and keep trying. And don’t be a jerk, and don’t get impatient, because that will just insure you never get work.

So we listened all the way through the talk, and then they passed out tickets for the reviews. If you got your ticket, you were assigned an hour time block, during which time you’d go to the DC booth and wait in line again, and then they’d look at your stuff. What a goddamn pain in the ass, but of course we went along with all this bullshit, because it’s all we could do. And who could blame them for making you jump through hoops, because they’re swamped with all these hopefuls, and just trying to offer a sort of courtesy to a mob of talentless morons who are never going to get jobs from DC anyways .

At my allotted time, I went down to the portfolio review line, and was told there were two editors. I chose a Vertigo editor, because obviously my stuff isn’t really superheroic. So I waited in line, started to show my stuff, and this editor began telling me to pay more attention to detail. Obviously, he wasn’t particularly interested in my style. He looked through maybe three or four pages. Then he stopped looking, and kind of suggested I work on this, and I work on that. He recommended picking an object each day to draw, and fill a page with that object each day. Draw clocks one day. Draw couches the next day. It’s a great exercise, I agree, and I think about it whenever I’m looking for objects to fill my panels with. It’s good advice, but I wanted to show him some examples of objects I put into some other pages. I began to turn through my portfolio, but he wasn’t interested anymore, and he wasn’t even looking. He just literally shut my portfolio, with my hands still in it, and shooshed me on my way. I found his review hurried, uninterested in what I was trying to do, and not very helpful, and I was so pissed.

On a sudden whim of naughtiness, I went to the opposite side of the DC booth, where the other editor was reviewing. I unfairly pushed to the front of the line, because my slip of paper said I had to be there within a certain hour, and my hour slot was just about up. And never mind that I’d already gotten my review. I sat down with Alex Sinclair, who I learned was a colorist for Wildstorm. I thought to myself, “This guy isn’t even an editor. He’s just a colorist. What the hell am I getting a review from him about? How the hell could I possibly land work from a colorist? What a joke! What bullshit!” But he was so kind, and it turned out, he was making his way fast up the Wildstorm ladder. So I take it all back, colorist portfolio reviewers! My apologies!

He really looked at my artwork and tried to give me helpful advice. I showed him the first few pages of “The Lump” that took place on the freeway, and the sequence where Lance DeLaney follows Moe Beckett to the Body Barn. I felt Alex really wanted to help me. He really took time to listen and look at my work.

I told him I had tried sending my work to the DC offices, and never heard anything back from anyone, not even a form letter. He gave me his email and told me to send him a copy of my stuff, and he would get it onto the desk of an editor. What a kind gesture. I did as he said, and he told me he did what he promised. I of course still never heard back from anyone, but it always meant a lot to me that he was willing to do this for me.

Overall, I felt pretty good about my portfolio experiences. I learned a lot, and got plenty of good advice to consider for the next year. And I met people, who I assumed would be back again the following year, and I could show them how I’d continued to work, and hopefully also improved. It would be a long-term struggle to get in, but I’d keep trying, and now I had a couple ins, small as they were.