I’m not a talented artist. That’s not me putting myself down, I just know I can’t put out the same kind of quality art my peers create. I’m sure that if I put more work in learning and practicing to draw, I could eventually get to the level where I feel comfortable saying I’m an artist. However, that’s not where I was earlier this year.
I had a comic script that I desperately wanted to make into a story. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any big publishers knocking on my door to get it made. That’s how imagine most people dream of making into the comic industry, myself included. I wrote an amazing script in my mind and if one person at the publishers were to read it, I was sure that they would hire me immediately.
That’s not how comics, or any industry for that matter, works.
Once I got that through my dense head, I knew that I needed to do the thing everyone in comics keeps telling you when they say how to break into comics: Make a comic book.
With the script written and edited repeatedly, I needed to get the art started. Since I felt my own artistic skills would only diminish my story, I needed to find a collaborator. There were a few people I knew that I started talking to that seemed very interested in working with me on a comic project. We would make loose plans through text on what we wanted to work on. We would set a date to meet up and plan, in detail, our comic book story, timeline, etc. Then they day would come and the other person would have to cancel because something came up or they wouldn’t be able to work on a project that large right now. This happened four times.
Now I don’t hold any grudges towards any of them. I wish them nothing but the best and I’m still friends them. I’m actually happy it happened the way it did because it probably means us working on a comic book together wouldn’t work out too well, but this still doesn’t solve my problem. Due to this, I went to the only place I could think of for help. The internet.
I went looking on multiple sites to find groups of people in similar places as me to collaborate with. It was until I found a subreddit called Comic Book Collabs that I felt like I was going into the right direction. Not only did I find people having similar problems as me, but other people looking for someone to work with. I scrolled through the site at least once per day and asked a few different people. It took a few months until I finally found someone I really wanted to work with and they wanted to work with me.
Rick and I emailed back and forth a bit as I looked over his portfolio and he looked over my script. Funny enough, our conversation didn’t start too well because there was a misunderstanding that I was asking him to work with me for free. This was not the case and the was my fault for not being more clear. Moral of the story is when you find a good artist you want to work with, PAY THEM. They put in so much work and they need to be at the very least compensated for their time. There might be some cases where you can find a collaborator to work with who won’t mind starting the work without pay if they really like the story, but that won’t last long. A page that took me 5 minutes to write, could take Rick 5 hours to draw. It was important when trying to earn Rick’s trust that I compensate him fairly and in a timely manner. Especially since we have yet to meet in person. That was the best way for us to build a working relationship.
With the deal all figured out between the two of us, we could start on the first pages of Sidekick For Hire.
-Kristian Herrera
December 19, 2019