I got no less than seven emails last week that were all from different people, and yet all were trying to reach out to me in a similar way. In every case, the person identified themselves as someone who had my best interest in mind. Each email told me of amazing things they were willing to do for me, and every letter told me of the fantastic circumstances that allowed that person to come into contact with me. Whether these emails originated from Nigeria, London, China, Russia or even Arkansas, each one promised that for only a little personal information, I would walk away with mountains of tax free money. Sound too good to be true? Of course! That’s because it is…

Today’s lesson in Failure is: Teaming Up Is Hard To Do.

When you work on a comic with a large company, unless you are delivering them a fully finished and ready to publish book, you are most likely working on a team that you have been “assigned” to. DC Comics, for example, is not going to hire you to write, pencil, ink, letter, color and edit a single issue of a book. If they are hiring you at all, it will be to do one of those tasks with the intention of making you one person in a larger group of people who are all working to (hopefully) get a book out on schedule.  Since DC has the resources to hire professional, experienced people to do every job related to making a Comic Book, they also feel pretty confident that the end product will have a high minimum level of quality to it. That being the case, DC will never give you the option of doing everything in a Comic yourself.

When you work in the world of Indy Comics, however, one is not only the loneliest number, it’s also minimum number of people it can take to make a comic. Yes, one person CAN do everything in Indy Comics! Nobody is stopping you from writing, drawing, lettering and doing any and all aspects of making Comics by yourself. Most people actually start off that way- it’s simple, direct and somewhat satisfying to sit down and go from an idea to a finished product and do everything all by yourself.

And what’s more, if you work hard at it, you can improve at all those things. That is not the same thing as saying you WILL improve- after all, it usually takes repetition AND making adjustments to get better at anything. Some people never get better because they do the same stupid fool things over and over again and never take criticism constructively and use it to tweak what they are doing. Even so, there are a great number of people who do everything themselves and are happy with the resulting Comics they create.

Just because you CAN do something, however, doesn’t mean you should. Some people just aren’t Artists. Some people aren’t good Writers. Some can’t color or letter a book or do any number of other critical jobs in making Comics… And the truth is- most people who do Comics are deficient in at least some of the areas that it takes to make a Comic. That isn’t a slap in the face, either, because if you are “just” a Writer or “just” and Artist you have an exponentially better shot at being “just” very, very good at what you do. That is why most Professional Comics people focus on one area and work to excel in it… that, and to be hired by a large publisher, you need to remember that you have to prove you can do one job very, very well…

If you are thinking of “Teaming Up” with someone (or several people as the case may be), I would suggest you think about a few things before you jump into it with both feet. After all- a Comics partnership can be kind of like a Marriage in a sense; not only will you spend a long period of time working with that person, but you will have all those messy, “who will have custody of the children” kind of issues if you break the team up because you will have your Comic properties to think about.

First of all, you need to honestly assess what YOU have to bring to a Comic’s partnership. Just because you can’t draw it doesn’t make you a writer, and just because your Grandma still has every picture you ever made on her refrigerator door doesn’t make you an artist. You may actually need to work on your skills a bit before you actually have something to offer someone. If you don’t, that’s not the end of the world- most people starting out in Indy Comics need to work on their skills. If that’s the case, then get to work because while Practice doesn’t always make “Perfect,” it quite often will perfect your craft.

If, on the other hand, you have some work under your belt and you are feeling pretty good about your skills, it’s still a great idea to push yourself a bit and look to improve. There is a story I have told a thousand times that bears repeating: I was asked once by an aspiring Comics writer what my goals were in doing Comics, and I told that person that every time I write something, I look to improve my skills in some way. If I feel my dialogue was a bit poor on a previous story, I work on that. If I think my characters need development or I have been a little lazy in doing research, I make improving in that area a goal… Needless to say, the kid was expecting me to say I want to write Fantastic Four someday or sell a million copies of one of my Comics and NOT something that was as icky as “Work.” Bottom line- we can all get better, and if you aren’t improving you are most likely regressing and losing your edge…

Once you are sure you are a productive potential Team Member, you need to think about WHY you want to work with another person in the first place. Is it that you have all these amazing ideas and you need minions to do your bidding and make your genius a reality? Or are you not an idiot? If you are not an idiot,  then you should decide which of two paths are your MAIN underlying goal- are you looking to use Comics as a personal creative outlet or do you want to making Comics to become your job?

If you want Comics to be primarily an expression of your creativity, then your decisions should be based on what kinds of stories you are drawn to and what you want to explore as an Artistic person. If you like funny animal stories, or Westerns or Sci-Fi, then you should look for teammates who dig the same things. A writer who loves writing James Bond type stuff might not want to work with the artist who only wants to draw unicorns and rabbits frolicking under rainbows… That doesn’t mean you can’t try new things- only that if you are doing Comics for the fun and the creativity, then have fun and work with people you mesh with creatively. It’s a simple concept, but I see people mismatched all the time because they don’t think that side of it through.

If you want to be in the Comic’s industry as a JOB, then you need to think about Comics with that in mind. YOU need to be as good and as diverse as you can be, and you need to work with people who share that same ideal. If you are an Artist, for example, and you only draw trolls then there isn’t a broad market for your skills, regardless of how “awesome” those trolls are that you draw. If, however, you do a Sci-Fi story and a Western story and a 1930’s detective story, you show a perspective employer that you can draw a wide range of things. The same goes triple for writers- the more different genres and tones you show you can pull off, the better you will be perceived. And again- Comics on the Professional level are a Team “sport,” so you need to work with people striving for a professional level of work so you (hopefully) end up with a professional level end product to show people. THAT is why Daniel and I work so hard to make every book we do better in some way than the last- so we have professional quality comics to point to down the road. It’s never easy, but if you want to make this your job later, you have to start with a professional mindset NOW.

Finally,  I would like to give you one last criteria to think about. When you choose a partner, that person should agree with you philosophically in as far as what makes it into your finished Comic is concerned. In our pluralistic, modern, secular society, that kind of advice might seem a bit daft, but believe me it will make everyone happier in the long run if you give this one some thought. Now- I am not saying that you need to agree 100% religiously or politically with a person to work with them, but what I am saying is that your views, philosophies and ideals that come through in a comic need to mesh. Some people, for example, might cuss like a truck driving pirate in everyday life but are opposed to cussing in Comics. Some people have different tolerances for sexuality or religious overtones or references to drugs in comics than you may have. People can be sensitive about issues that you may feel differently about… in any case, it’s good to know these things so you go into a project with an agreement about content and what buttons you will collectively push or not push. The important thing to keep in mind is when you work on a Comic as a team the Comic eventually represents ALL the members who made it happen. ..

Who you choose to work with on a Comics project is amazingly important. From a skill level, you need everyone to contribute in a meaningful way, you need to have the same goals and you need to agree about important content issues for a Comic to have any chance at all of happening. If you want to not only Fail, but also create potential Arch Enemies in the process of making Comics, however, then by all means choose poorly. There is no “perfect” collaborator in Comics any more than Dr. Archibald Mutombo wants to send you 12 million British pounds, but there are very good fits and very, very bad ones…

Popularity: 12% [?]