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Comic Story Pitching TutorialsHey deviantARTers -
Just as I did with my comic script writing tutorials, I thought it might be a good idea to link to my recent blog posts focused on pitching your story ideas to comic publishers.
Part 1: The Difficulty of Pitching
Part 2: Summarizing Your Ideas
Part 3: Sections of a Pitch
Part 4: Pitching Do's and Don'ts
If you found these posts helpful, feel free to let me know here (or on Twitter), share it with your friends and consider buying some of my comics to show support for me teaching you how to steal my job.

Let me know if you have any questions or comments.
Zub

What About Digital Comics?Following up on my previous article about the economics of mainstream creator-owned comics, here's a new post detailing digital comic sales through platforms like comiXology or iVerse.
Read on.

15 Min. Comic Writing Lesson
I was thrilled to be a guest on the award-winning Writing Excuses podcast hosted by Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn, The Wheel of Time), Mary Robinette Kowal (Shades of Milk and Honey) and Howard Tayler (Schlock Mercenary).
In 15 minutes we sweep through a brisk chat all about comic writing technique, differences from prose, working with artists and breaking into the comic business.
Please give it a listen and share the link with others.

ATOMEKA PRESSGetting the party started.
Okay, well it might not be a party exactly. I'm just having a little artistic license.
So WHAT is ATOMEKA?

ATOMEKA PRESS was a small boutique publishing company founded in 1987 by Garry Leach and myself with help later from Mike Lake and Titan Distributors.
The initial concept was for a small regular anthology that Garry and myself could split. At that time the concept of doing work and having it published while retaining ownership of it was still very new and opportunities were rare. So Garry and myself set out to do our own thing. The first title was "Skit City" which just didn't gel but was the working title for a few months.
During that time and while attending several comic conventions with other creators we started mentioning what we were planning to do down the pub afterwards. All of a sudden we had several creators wanting to do short stories that we could put in the back o

Tutorial Tuesday: ProcessHey everyone. I'm really swamped this week. So I hope you don't mind that for this week I just show you some of my art process instead of a "how to draw" tutorial. I guess this is more of a "How to plan out your art" tutorial. If you like seeing my process you can see more when I talked about "How to make a Comic", "Process", and "Tones".
Today I'm going to show you the process of the page I just posted yesterday. Page 16 of Shadows of Oblivion #2
So believe it or not this page was conceived about 7-8 years ago... (wow, this comic has been a long time coming). I didn't know where I wanted this to happen in my story, but I knew I wanted it to happen.

How Do I Find An Artist to Collaborate With?In previous tutorial posts I've talked about my comic writing methods and helpful tips on pitching original stories to comic publishers. This time I'm going to talk about a subject every creator-owned comic writer has wracked their brains over: How do I find a good artist to work with?

Click through to read the full article on my blog.

The WarThe War part 1

Location Fire Kingdom.

Times were tough in the Fire Kingdom, it's been a year since the Flame king died and me and my Beautiful wife have been married for 20 years and have a nice caring son that is almost 18 years old. The dying wish of the Flame King was for his daughter and the man that she married to rule over the Fire Kingdom as King and Queen and since being human I couldn't rule because I would die. So for about a year my subjects were working on a serum to let me survive in the Fire Kingdom without it changing my color or wearing off after I leave the Fire Kingdom. So no

My new ART BOOK is out! Come and get it! Photos.Hey guys!
I'm so excited to finally tell you guys about my new art book! I recently launched an online store, and this is where you can pick up a copy of the book if you want it. Some of you guys have already bought the book and received it. I would LOVE it if you guys could tell me what you thought about the book in the comments below. I want to hear your feedback, and I think people who are interested in the book would love to hear your thoughts as well.

OZMOSIS CHILLS III INFO:
This book features the art of comic book artist Jon Sommariva, also known as Red J. Jon is a published comic book artist and has worked for DC Comics, Darkhorse Comics and Image Comics. The book collects a huge amount of art, ranging from concept design and sketches to pin-ups and finished works.
- 88 Full colour pages
- Magazine Size (10.5 x 8 inches)
- Comes with Bonus Poster and Chibi Spidey Sticker
I WANT A COPY! HOW MUCH?

Kickstart'd!I swear I'm not dead. Quite the opposite, in fact! I have been busy with my newest brainbaby: a Kickstarter project. Lil' A and ALICE have generously agreed to be my spokesladies throughout this whole endeavor:

For those of you who don't know what Kickstarter is, it is a crowd-funding website for creative projects. Kickstarter has funded a diverse array of endeavors, from independent films to art books to comics to journalism. In my case, however, I am trying to get to Austin Comic Con, but I need your help to make my first Artist Alley a success!
Click HERE to check out my Kickstarter page and video!
Also! For every $100.00 I raise towards my goal, I will release an Alice vs. ALICE doodle. I will have a poll up on my main DeviantArt page that will let you vote on what weirdness you want to put the

FREE CONCEPT ART INSTRUCTRUCTIONAL VIDEOS!
hello my friends! Due to popular demand, I'm continuing my promotion: If you purchase my ebook for ONLY $9.99, I will give you ALL of my digital tutorial downloads!
That's five separate videos, each one hour long, including photoshop brushes, reference images and psd files. More in depth description: These downloads are designed to give the artist a solid yet quick understanding of basic to intermediate digital painting techniques. Each video runs approximately 55 minutes, and comes with a different set of brushes as well as final images. Commentary is provided over the entire duration of all videos, giving the viewer a solid understanding of what is being instructed. Videos include Photoshop Brush Creation and Ideation, Environment Design 1 & 2, Creature Design, and Painting From a Sketch. This collection contains the following products: -Creature Design Video T

'Bi' Weekly assignmentHi everyone,
Hope you are all well.
Thank you all for taking the time to fill out the poll, it seems the majority of you that took part, love the idea of extra assignments outside of those set by C+P's Matt Kohr.
In response to this, we will be assigning Bi weekly 'tasks', here is an example:
week 1 - Assignment
week 2 - Draw 20.....
week 3 - Assignment
Week 4 - Draw 20.....
etc.
Before I get onto this weeks task, I'd like to say a big, WELL DONE to the people who did some lip studies, they are really great. It is always interesting to see the different approaches people take.
Okay on with the show.
This week - Gestural drawing.
The purpose of gestural drawing is to capture the ‘essence’ of a pose/movement very quickly.
Because of this the drawing need to be quick/fluid and lively.
Now these aren’t meant to look pretty, they are meant to catch the energy of the pose/movement.
This exercise is for you, so just let loose and go for it.
If you want to post

Megaman Legends: Dark Storm Chapter 1Chapter 1:  A Strange Storm is Brewing…
[Tron (in the Gustaff), Bon (in a new battle harness), and some Servbots are on another "job" to get some refractors from a supposedly abandoned ruins on a deserted island.  Things are going well until…]
KABOOM!!
Tron:  Yaaahhh!
Servbot 1:  Ms. Tron!  They're gaining on us!
Tron:  I can see that!  The tip said this place was supposed to be abandoned!
Servbot 3:  That old man said it would be empty!
Tron:  Well it isn't!  You really should remember to double check the source next time!

HOW TO FIGHT ARTBLOCK!!!!;'D SO I NOTICED MANY OF YOU HAVE ARTBLOCK.
I had artblock too. It was a pain. SO THIS IS HOW I WAS ABLE TO GET RID OF IT.
1. Draw lots of fanart. (you can just sketch things out. You don't have to color. and you don't have to upload. just to see if you can still draw. thats what i do.
2. Look at your self in the mirror. Pose. and try drawing that.
3. try sketching out nature thats outside. (Try to draw somthing that looks cool)
4. Try drawing somthing that you ususally don't draw. (ex. Realistic horses and animals. things like that.)
5. Try to draw things that you wanted to draw ever since. (what I want to draw is a girl standing in the rain,humanoid with cords connecting to it,someone drowning,somone flying,a sunset.
6. try animating. (this helps you with poses aswell.)
Well goodluck. Thease methods usually helps me with artblock. Thats why I'm trying to draw all the singing/talking synthesizers. ._.

Lecture 5/6, Assignment 5/6

Week 5: Jan 29-Feb 4 – Hair, Clothing, and Large Accessories such as Weapons and Horns, Focusing on Shape.
Week 6: Feb 5-Feb 11 - Tattoos, Jewelry, Fasteners, Fabric Edges, Cultural Design Motifs

*actually looks at the dates on this* Oh crap am I like 2 weeks behind with these? @_@ Okay, these content for these two weeks is getting rolled into one week because the topics of the two are almost the same. So, for this week, you should be taking you character+face from last week and, if at all possible, printing out 3-4 copies of each character. Then onto the print outs you are to sketch hair, tattoos/makeup, clothing, jewelry, any hor

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The Reality of Mainstream Creator-Owned Comics

by ~Zubby, Nov 27, 2012, 7:06:45 PM
Journals / Personal

A lot of people have asked me about how they go about creating and selling their own comics. There are many different ways to do that, but most people I talk to want to see their books for sale in comic shops alongside mainstream superhero/big publisher titles.

I put together a pretty extensive blogpost outlining the financial realities of how mainstream comic distribution works and the profit margins involved for independent creators. If you want an eye-opening look at the business, please give it a read.

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The Reality of Mainstream Creator-Owned Comicsby ~Zubby

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*burningflag Nov 30, 2012 Professional General Artist

I have read through your whole blog and read some of the Skullkickers and am now purchasing the first Skullkickers tradepaperback. Also, I am going to use your advice and plan my stories according to your examples. All in all, thankx a huge lot for sharing. It helps.

~Zubby Nov 30, 2012

Thanks so much for the praise and support. I really appreciate it!

~marvelleftw Nov 28, 2012 Professional General Artist

Something needs to change. I will definitely look for another way to go about my creator owned stuff. Thanks for the honest insight!

=Midnitez-REMIX Nov 28, 2012 Student Digital Artist

I'll check it out.

~devonta-66 Nov 28, 2012 Student Traditional Artist

aw, thanks for putting this up i hope one day to make my own comics i got in the works right now. (i'm both the writer and the artist, vary much alone on this project.)

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~ArminOzdic Nov 28, 2012 Traditional Artist

Thanks for writing this...I heard that you can even owe money to publisher(Image for example)if your comic dont sell well...Did you ever experienced that Jim or know someone who did??

~Zubby Nov 28, 2012

As far as I know Image would not charge a creator if a book failed to make back its costs. They approved the pitch and decided to publish it, so they'd eat the difference. Even then, that's going to be very rare because retailer orders come in before books are printed. Comic publishers can gauge whether a book is going to meet its minimums before they go to press and can always cancel a book rather than print it and lose money. The only scenario where this could happen is if they overprint (to maintain extra stock after release) and it doesn't sell at all, or if the distributor makes an issue returnable due to content not matching orders (say, if a book was solicited as an all-ages book and shipped as an adult book for some insane reason).

~ArminOzdic Nov 28, 2012 Traditional Artist

Cool!Thanks for explaining...means a lot!

~Koenken Nov 28, 2012 Professional General Artist

Very interesting read.
I am not surprised to learn independent comics don't make much for the creator/creative team through normal mainstream distribution.

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The Reality of Mainstream Creator-Owned Comicsby ~Zubby

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