When I was at New York Comic Con this year, I found myself chained to my table like I have been at no other Con in years. Part of this was due to the fact that we had a pretty constant stream of people interested in talking to us and in grabbing copies of our books. The other part was that the crowds this year were so massive and overwhelming that it was next to impossible to get from point A to point B, much less hear anyone talk when you got there. Staying at our table wasn’t a terrible thing, mind you, but it was my lot for almost the duration of the con.

Since I was locked in to our little row at the Con, I got to talk to our “neighbors” in a lot more detail than I might normally have. One of my neighbors was Eddie Barrows, and my conversation with him was extremely enlightening. If Eddie’s name doesn’t ring a bell right off the bat, then you don’t read much of DC’s big books these days. Right now, Eddie is the penciler for Superman and has done work on 52, Blackest Night, Green Lantern and Teen Titans to name a few. Eddie is the guy behind the Batman Villains Secret Origins #1 that made the Secret Origins books hot, and he has had more Right Place/ Right Time moments with DC than I can count. On top of all that, Eddie is a gentleman and a really nice guy to be around, and to say I was a bigger fan of his after having met him than I ever was before is a HUGE understatement.

In talking to Eddie, I pointed out my favorite page from the latest Superman and, looking at the elaborate pencils, asked him how long it took to do.

“6 hours,” he said.

I remarked to Eddie that the page looked amazing, and he told me that it wasn’t so hard to draw… and then he said something that really took me by surprise.

I found out from Eddie that he started doing comics years ago, but that he stopped for a period until he felt he was “ready” for it. By ready, Eddie was saying that to make his editors happy and be successful, he had to both sharpen his skills and bring himself to the point where he could do excellent work AND turn it in on time.

Today’s lesson in Failure is: Know Who’s The Boss.

When you work for a large company in any industry you can name, one of the first things you find out when you take a job is where you fit in within the companies’ structure. You are told who, if any, employees report to you and you are told who your boss will be. You are also usually informed, often by your boss, who he or she reports to and what chain of command you are in line with as well.

Part of the reason that happens is functional- you need to know, for example, if the co-worker who is sleeping on his desk for 8 hours a day is YOUR employee so you can kick them in the butt. While all big companies have that “we’re all on the same team,” mantra, it’s important to know who on the big team is part of your little one.

The other side of knowing who’s who is really political- You need to know who you DON’T have to listen to as well. Just because a person is a VP, for instance, doesn’t mean if they send you an email telling you to do something that YOU need to do it. It may mean that, or it may mean you need to pass it along to your boss, who will then tell the VP that all requests of that nature need to go through him…

In Indy Comics, there usually isn’t a pre-determined structure like there is in a large company unless you are the “Creator,” and everyone else is in a Work-for-Hire situation. In that case, you are the boss because the buck stops with you. In most cases, however, you have to work with other people and either convince them to get on board with what you think should be done or you need to hash out some sort of compromise.

What’s key, however, is to understand that in Indy Comics, a true democracy doesn’t actually work. Even in the case where nobody is the “boss,” someone has to be the final authority on any specific issue.

Why?

The same two factors at play in a large company are at play in making your Comic- you need to know who you have to listen to and who you can ignore on anything or nothing gets done.

Let’s go back to the example of Eddie for a moment- being an accomplished Artist, he has several levels of tension going on when he sits down to pencil a page. All of them can be important, but some of them can also be in conflict with each other.

First, he has to consider what the script writer is asking him to do. Eddie sits down with the script, and there might be a long, detailed description of a splash page where the writer is detailing costumes, lighting, viewer angle and the fact that it takes place somewhere that just happens to have 952 people in the background and they are all doing something or another.

That’s utterly fantastic for the writer- believe me, as a writer, when I get that strong of a visual picture of a page and I really get going and describe it in great detail, it’s usually a fun thing to write. I am of the belief that offering the Artist those details is helpful, because more time I put into describing those scenes, the less time the Artist has to spend filling in what I am not telling them. But if I am a writer who expects that if I tell the Artist there are 952 individual people in a scene, then I will sit there with a magnifying glass and count to see if the whole “Where’s Waldo?” scene is “correct,” then I am NOT helping the Artist meet his deadlines, nor am I allowing the Artist to be creative. All I am doing is stoking the fires of my own ego… and I am a Writer and I say that, so I am not speaking out of school.

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