Rather than waste your time with a long introduction today in the hopes of snagging your attention, I wanted to hit you with the “High Concept” first and roll from there if I may…

Today’s key to Failure is: Go Big or Go Home!

 This week is the virtual High Holy Week of Geekdom- THE San Diego Comic Con! If there is one skill that ALL Indy Comic creators NEED to know for Comic Con that is how to Pitch your stuff to editors, publishers and the like. That’s because Comics are like Major League Baseball- in both arenas, Pitching is EVERYTHING.  

Why?

Consider for a moment how comics get published- usually a comic is either produced “in house” by a company or is brought in from outside the company fully complete and (hopefully) ready to publish. Bringing in fully finished books is something for another day, because doing that also requires a Pitch, but it’s a Pitch that involves a lot of specifics that would bog down today’s conversation.

When a company produces it’s comics in house, they will almost always rely on someone pitching that storyline to them and many times that person who does that pitch already works for said company. It’s important to note that when a company posts on their website that they don’t accept pitches, they mean they don’t accept pitches from YOU. Of course they take pitches- from someone who already works there, or from someone with a track record… Let’s be blunt here: If Neil Gaiman knocks on their door with a pitch, they are 100% listening. If you do… maybe and maybe not. Some of that has to do with who you are and some of that has to do with whether or not you can pitch your way out of a paper bag. While I can’t change who you are, pitching ability CAN be perfected.

Take Blacklist Studios for example- we don’t accept outside pitches, but both Daniel and I have to pitch each other projects that we decide to either do or not do. KING! was an example of something that Daniel pitched to me several times before I agreed to it- not because there was something “wrong” with the idea behind KING!- what happened was that I didn’t “get” the pitch. Yes, he TRIED to explain what he was thinking of doing, but he kept throwing out to me little pieces of the idea and I didn’t get it. Then one night we NEEDED an idea, and he emailed me a picture of KING! and said, “He kills Monsters.”

Right then, I was sold and our whole Comic Book careers began to move in a very cool direction.

Quick question- Who was the idiot in that case? Was it Daniel for pitching me KING! in a “wrong” way? Was I the idiot for not seeing right away that KING! was a GREAT idea?

The answer is both… and neither.

As I see it, there are 3 main rules to pitching a Comic Book project, and all of them relate to what happened with KING!.

Rule #1- It’s up to the PITCHER to make sure the Pitch is conveyed correctly.

What I mean by that is pretty simple: If you are pitching an idea to ME, then your job is to explain the idea in such a way that I GET all the major points of it. That isn’t MY job. It’s YOUR job to do that. I stress that fact because if you can’t explain a pitch to someone correctly, then they didn’t “miss out,” YOU did. Nobody OWES you anything- you have to come to a pitch meeting or discussion with the idea that you are the one lucky to be there.

You need to be clear, concise and you need to give the person or people listening to your pitch an idea of why you are excited to share your story idea with them. And keep in mind- the fact that you came up with an idea when you were in High School isn’t “exciting” to anyone but you. There needs to be cool aspects to a story that will get a reader to want to read your story if they don’t know you, and your job in the pitch is to translate both the excitement and the details of the idea into words that the person you are pitching to will understand and accept.

In the case of KING!, the excitement that Daniel had for the idea translated 100%. What took a bit longer was explaining the details of the idea. Honestly, KING! did evolve from that pitch to what it has become, but once Daniel figured out how to explain to me what was exciting him, I became excited and we dove into it.

Rule #2- Keep it Short and Simple.

There are many ways to pitch a Comic Book idea, but the best way is also the most direct. You need to give them a High Concept idea and a brief summary of the plot.

What do I mean by “High Concept?” Well, the High Concept statement for Robot 13 is “Clash of the Titans Meets Borne Identity.” Is that REALLY what the plot is about? Of course not! But if you take the main impression people have about Clash of the Titans (the Mythological monsters) and you think about the basic idea behind the Borne Identity (A super spy with Amnesia searches for his identity) you are pretty strongly in the ballpark of the main ideas behind Robot 13. Now- to be fair, when we developed Robot 13 it wasn’t written with that High Concept in mind; we thought about the book after the fact and found that connection and it has become a very helpful tool in explaining the book to people. Regardless of when you arrive at a High Concept statement, you need on these days to pitch most everything.

Once you have that, you need a brief plot explanation. Can you run through the whole plot, from beginning to end, in 30 seconds or less without sounding like the guy from the old Micro Machines commercials? Then you need to work on your synopsis. Long + Involved = Snoozefest that gets you passed over. Believe me- you need to be brief and punchy and to the point. “He Kills Monsters” was all I needed after seeing the picture of KING!. You probably need more than that to sell your pitch, but getting to the point quickly and dynamically is key.

Rule 3- The person listening to the pitch is doing YOU a favor, so act like it.

Be nice. Be gracious. Thank the person for having listened to you. Hell- thank them for even taking time out of their busy schedule to agree to hear your pitch in the first place. You don’t have to French kiss their hiney for an hour, but by all means don’t come off as though you feel entitled. In the case of KING!, this didn’t really come into play- Daniel and I knew each other well by that point & had years of friendship and respect between us  so everything was said in a manner that took all that into account.

Most of the time, however, you will have to mentally prepare yourself for a pitch, in that you need to remind yourself that just because you love an idea, it doesn’t mean that the person you are pitching to will do the same even if you do everything “right.” And you need to take that with some grace and good sportsmanship. I have made countless pitches to people and the overwhelming majority have been turned down. That’s cool, because the reality of things are- the majority of ALL pitches are turned down. Handle that well, however, and you make a good impression. You never know what may happen- the guy you pitched something to today may become a VP down the line, so having them think you aren’t a prissy fudgewhistle is always a good thing.

Now- you may be saying that my “Rules” are all well and good if you are pitching to Marvel or DC, but what about trying to get your own thing going? Believe me, those same rules apply. Being Clear, Being Brief and Being Nice work more than they don’t, and just like you don’t want to alienate some future big-wig, you don’t want to alienate any of us “little guys” too…

As with many lessons in Failure, the key to Pitching with the Big Boys is more persistence and technique than raw talent- meaning that you can Fail today and even tomorrow and next week and still be doing everything right. Braking the 3 main rules of Pitching, however, is an expressway to Failure because it can kill projects before they even start.

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