Yajirobe: Work Progression

 pencils

inks

colors

 final

Yajirobe: A Role Model for Fat Kids with Swords

One of my earliest obsessions was Dragon Ball Z. I've always had a passion for animation. One that has lasted throughout adolescence and followed me deep into adulthood. Imagine a man well into his 20's waking up early Saturday morning just to watch cartoons. Often confused by what was currently driving kids into a frenzy but so attached to his weekly ritual he couldn't look away from the pikachu infested screen. 

Through all these Saturday mornings there was one era that stood out and that was the Dragon Ball Z era. I love everything about that show, the crazy characters, the flashy special moves, the extended screaming, it was awesome. 

Lately I've been going crazy on Youtube, gorging on clip after clip of this amazing show. When I was reminded of this..      

As an overweight Asian boy, with wild unkempt hair, this was something unseen. Finally a character I could relate to. Though he was always seen as a joke, it was something for me to grasp onto. Even as his role diminished throughout the series, I always hoped for the random cameo from this pudgy samurai. One that would usually never come but still force me out of bed stumbling gleefully towards my consistent Saturday morning companion, Balls..Dragon Balls.

  

A Failure to Submit pt.3

After the realization that emailing my comic to publishers is probably not the best way to go. As firstly most wouldn't accept them and secondly they were just too easy to ignore. I decided to go traditional and mail my pitch and book to whatever publisher would take it. Again I realized that most wouldn't even accept them, some stating that they would just throw away any unsolicited pitches. So once again I scoured the internet and came back with only three reasonable options, Dark Horse Comics, Avatar Press, and once again Image Comics. 

So my next step was now to find a printer. After a quick search I landed on Ka-blam Printing, they seemed perfect for a small print. The only problem was that it would take a month for them to get printed, a lot longer than I thought it would. So, eager to get the books printed as quick as possible, I paid extra for a rushed order. A 44 page full colored book went from about $4 a piece to more than $10 each, forcing me to run a pathetic 5 issue first print. After 2 weeks (quicker than projected) I received my books, and they were amazing. This is not me bragging about the quality of the art or writing but to see or rather feel my work in this format was such a euphoric moment. The weight of the pages, the texture of the ink on the page, I loved it. It gave breath to my deflated ego, reminding me why I wanted to follow this path.

So I printed out the pitch from my failed email submission, grabbed my book, jammed them into an envelope and mailed them off. As I woke up every morning with descending excitement to check my email for a life changing email, I once again realized I was just waiting for something that wasn't coming. end pt.3 

Page 3

Bait #1 pg.3

Maybe putting a big gold chain on a street punk

is a little too stereotypical but I felt like drawing

a chain, a big stupid time-consuming chain.

A Failure to Submit pt.2

After composing a rather long (maybe too long) "pitch" for my book, I eagerly sent it to Image comics via email. It included an introduction to myself and the project, a simple synopsis of the book, a more complex synopsis of the first arc including character bios and designs, and most importantly the first 44 pages of the book. As I waited/hoped for a response, I began to dive deep into the internet searching for any information I could find on the process of "pitching" a project. As time grew on and the realization that I wasn't going to get a response became clear, I questioned the quality of my work more than ever before. As pushed back the urge to just quit, I began to search for my next step. I started to dive deep into the internet searching for stories of  kindred struggling comic creators. I was just hoping to find a magical "guide" telling me what I was doing wrong and how to fix it.

Through research on mainly message boards and later podcasts, I learned a few things.

1. If they do like your work expect an email or call within a month of your submission. 
2. That most publishers now want full issues as opposed to the 5-6 pages they once asked for, unless you're an established creator.
3. Publishers seem to like the cheesy comparison pitch ex. the movie "Speed", "It's like Diehard on a bus, A BUS!!!"
4. Find a way to personalize your pitch towards each individual publisher. If it's towards a company ex. Image or a person ex. Eric Stephenson (who says he reviews all submissions at Image) I'm not sure which is better. I personally think it's weird to personalize something towards a person you never met, so I didn't do it.
5. You really need to make the first few sentences "hook" the attention of the publisher.
6. This one is just a rumor but some people send "gifts" to publishers. It makes since but I think it's sketchy.
7. Most people get their "big break" in comics in nontraditional ways. i.e. not through emails. 

From what I could gather from a few stray message board posts, emailing a pitch to Image (one of the only publishers that would even accept an email pitch) is simply a waste of time. I don't know if it's true or just a way for me to justify the dismissal of my pitch but the rumors of a phantom email submission program is just too believable. One that is there to only facilitate the masses approaching the higher ups of Image at cons asking "I have a great idea for a comic" only to be shooed away by "that's great, send us an email and we'll review it". To avoid throwing the dagger a word like "no" can represent towards an eager creator, they simply give them another place to direct their energy. Though whether this is just me trying to blame my rejection on the rumored trickery of Image Comics or if there is some truth to this, I knew I had to find another way to grab the attention of publishers. end pt.2 

Page 1, Page 2

first 2 pages of Bait.

One of the themes of the first story arc is the "Stomach". The killing that occurs in my book, for the most part, is not about murder or simply violence, it's about the need everything has for food, even monsters. The whole process of killing, eating and digesting is so violent but it's just part of life.

First real page to the book

A Failure to Submit pt1

Around November I finished the first issue of Bait. After numerous edits, which I realized would never end as I grew more critical with every glance, I decided I needed to just finish this book. In my mind "finish" meant, send it to publishers because once it was in their hands, it was too late to make any changes. So I went online in search of every publisher I could find, in hopes of emailing them my book. In hindsight, I guess I was thinking I would just find a list of 100 publishers and mass email them my book only to be bombarded by a series of responses begging to print my book. It did not work like this, not at all. What I found out was that most publishers won't even accept submissions albeit emails. I checked most of the top independent comic book publisher and most won't even look at unsolicited submissions. So pretty much they want established creators only. Which I kind of understand, they don't want to be hammered with countless zombie books (cough, my book will probably have a zombie in it.) but in doing so also turn away many legit creators just trying to get a start in a very difficult profession. One bright spot was that I did find out that powerhouse Image Comics did accept online submissions. I kind of thought Image was a little to prestigious for an untested creator like myself but fuck it, i'll give it a try.

They wanted to be sent a "pitch". This is something that took me a week to write up, as it ended up being way more difficult than I ever thought it could be. The process of doing a comic book pitch seems to be a somewhat mysterious process, one I'll talk about some other day. The pitch took me forever to do. Imagine taking a book which you've spent months creating a world full of interweaving stories and themes and having to compress that into a few paragraphs, it's tough. Though it is necessary, you can't expect a publisher with stacks of books to blindly read an essay about a story that only has a small percentage of a chance to even interest him or her, it's your job to quickly grab their attention with just a few sentences. It was a struggle to pick apart my story and try to take something that I pride on it's complexity and make it so.. simple. I spent so much time on this, though later on I found out this didn't even matter. end part 1

this helped me locate a lot publishers and what they wanted.  Submission Guidelines

cover to Bait #1

Intro to a Blog

I've never been big on "putting myself out there" but as I get to a point where my book is ready to be published, I'm learning that being anti-social might be a little hindering to what I need to accomplish. I've been reluctant about showing people my work for a long time but I guess that attitude needs to change if I want to get serious about a career as illustrator and writer. So this blog is my attempt to be a little more forefront about my book, the art, the process of getting a book published and myself. I really want this to be a somewhat instructional blog to other would-be comic creators while also helping me find a way to be more expressive about my own work.

I was thinking of a video that will help represent this blog and I think this might be the one. It's not the funniest thing I've seen but I think it will represent my posts pretty well. A grown man bitching and whining about things that most will see as childish but hopefully doing so with as much intensity and class as these old British dudes.