If you’re interested in length guidelines for graphic novels, please see this LinkedIn discussion. By the way, if you’re interested in getting published, I’d recommend getting on LinkedIn. It’s like Facebook for professionals. For example, right now I’m in discussions with other writers about how best to build up a writing platform to impress prospective publishers. I think it’s even better for comic book teams: I posted a request for feedback on a group for comic book illustrators and received feedback that was very useful and informed.

PS: Based on the graphic novels I’ve seen recently, I think anywhere between 132-200 pages would be publisher-friendly. However! Each publisher has its own preferred length, so check out what they’ve been publishing lately. If your length is significantly outside of the range of what they’ve published in the past few years, I think that bodes poorly for your chances there.

One final note: As a measure of comparison, comic books are usually 20-26 pages of content (not including ads). As always, check out what the publishers put out, but Marvel and DC usually publish at the shorter side of that, compared to Dark Horse and Image.

1. In most cases, I think that it’s probably best to ask your editor about a pseudonym after getting the offer. For one thing, it’ll reduce the chance that you make a poor first impression with a goofy-sounding pseudonym. The only time that I think that a pseudonym may be necessary prior to getting published is if the author shares a name with a celebrity. (“Who’s this guy pretending to be Steven King?”)

2. If you do use a pseudonym, please write something like “[YOUR REAL NAME], WRITING AS RODDY BARBER” on your title page. For tax reasons, the publisher has to know your real name. (Otherwise, the IRS will get surly and then everybody is screwed).

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1. Please establish the voice and personality early. One possibility is having the character and/or narrator make an unusual observation about something important to the story or giving some unusual personality trait about the character. For example, “It was a pleasure to burn” (Fahrenheit 451) or “You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but that ain’t no matter” (Huckleberry Finn).

2. Another option is having the character start with an action that is typical to him, but NOT typical to most other protagonists. This is why opening a book with the character waking up is usually ineffective. It rarely launches into the unique/interesting aspects of the character and the story quickly enough. You didn’t write a story about this character to show him waking up, so just skip to the part that we WILL care about.

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1.  Does the character try to plan for the superpowers and capabilities of their opponents? On Heroes, allegedly competent and well-equipped organizations routinely stumbled into slaughterfests because they used SWAT-style raids to try to overrun targets with crazy powers.  Let me lay this out right now: any plan that involves close-range combat with somebody that can outrun a fighter jet or stop time is idiotic!  As soon as the target sees anything, (s)he turns on his/her superpower and everybody else dies.  A better plan would be something like killing the target by long-range, perhaps by sniper rifle or bombing the house while the target is asleep.   Alternately, you could interfere with the character’s ability to use his powers.  (On Heroes, it is amazing how rarely the Company uses the power-nullifying Haitian).

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An independent filmmaker is raising funds for a documentary about American comic book culture.  Superhero Nation: The Documentary is not affiliated with me or this website in any way, but if you’re interested in this sort of cultural work, please feel free to donate here.  ($2 gets you a shout-out on Twitter).

Also, one brief note on titles…  When you pick a title for your project, I’d recommend taking something that isn’t already being used as a URL. It’ll make it easier to place high on Google searches for variations on your name.

I saw this today on a comic book forum: “searching 4 artists who want to draw my comics’ covers. its NOT be a paid Job, but ur name will be mentioned with the artwork, and yes, it will commence our long term professional relationship.”

Artist: “Umm, how about you commence our long-term professional relationship by paying me? Also, why would I want to work with a writer that writes worse than I do?”

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I want to see The Losers when it comes out, although it’s probably awful, and was pleasantly surprised by Kick-Ass (which has a 77% rating on Rotten Tomatoes).  This got me thinking about financially successful comic book movies without superheroes.  After running some numbers, I found they’re really rare nowadays.

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1.  Whenever possible, give details instead of general statements. For example, a general statement would be “Tommy LaRouche is a brutal criminal.”  Generally it’s more effective to give the readers the evidence and let them reach their own conclusion.  For example, “Tommy ‘Powerdrill’ LaRouche is wanted for twelve kidnappings, eight counts of torture, five murders, and at least one kidnapping that resulted in murder by torture.  And don’t even think about how he got his nickname.”

2.  Put extra scrutiny into adjectives. Do they help establish a character or the plot?  Do they help the reader create a mental image?  Generally, I think adjectives create more interesting imagery when they describe a detail or action than when they describe something larger, like a character.  For example, saying “Batman is careful” is harder to visualize than an adverb phrase like “Batman carefully checked the door for wires and other signs of booby-traps.”

3.  “Showing” all the time is probably not possible. For one thing, it takes more space.  Calling somebody graceful is shorter than taking a sentence to describe something graceful he does.  However, if the trait is important to the scene, it probably deserves the extra space.

4.  In most cases, I’d recommend finding more specific alternatives for bland modifiers like “good,” “well” and “nice.” What kind of good are we talking about?  For example, if you say somebody is a good writer, it’s not clear whether you’re complimenting her sense of humor or attention to detail or superb wordplay or something else entirely.

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• what do good superhero stories have?  Usually, some combination of interesting characters, unusual-feeling plots, suspense, sharp dialog and/or intense action.  Main character(s) that are likable and relatable don’t hurt, either.
• Memorable phrases for killtacular people. Off the top of my head, “he’s dropped more bodies than an epileptic pallbearer.”  The Wire used “he’s got more bodies on him than a Chinese cemetery.”
• common questions when designing a superhero character.  Please see this.
• Can I decapitate somebody in a YA novel? F*** no.
• how to copy write a superhero charictor.  Good news: Your work is protected by US copyright laws as soon as it is written.  Bad news: No one will want to steal your writing until you’re good enough to figure out how to spell “character.”

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1. I would recommend using your symbols in unexpected ways. For example, fire is most commonly used to symbolize destruction and/or Hell.  However, there are so many more options that are creative and fresh.  For example, fire represented ignorance (and possibly political correctness) in Fahrenheit 451 and civilization in the story of Prometheus. If the symbolic meaning you’re going for is the first one that comes to mind with that symbol, maybe you could be a bit more creative.

1A.  If you got your symbol from a list somewhere, it’s probably too obvious. For example, tree -> life, fire -> destruction/Hell, spring -> rebirth/life, apple -> loss of innocence, water -> atonement or cycles, etc.  Think on it some more and you’ll probably come up with something that fits your story better than these.  For example, the recurring symbol for destruction/doomsday in Watchmen is a ticking clock.  In The Godfather, death is usually preceded by an orange.  (!)

2. In a comic book script, make sure that you tell your artist how you want the symbol to appear. Otherwise, the artist may inadvertently mangle the meaning of the symbol. For example, if technology is supposed to be a sign of progress and civilization in your story, you’d probably want the cars to look shiny and new rather than grimy and decrepit. Unless you specify otherwise, it’s up to the artist’s judgment.

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• literary agents for comic book writers. I’ve gone back and forth on this a few times.  I’ve heard good things about Bob Mecoy and he’s worked with a variety of comics publishers (including DC).  Besides that, I’d lean towards submitting a comic book without an agent.
• top superhero novels. See this.
• how to get a superhero stiry published. Step one: proofread.
• comic on potassium. Uhh, good luck with that one.
• alligator vs. werecanadian. Here.
• slash fiction comic book. Not here.
• “fire dragon” + “exploding” + “dictator.” I have no idea what you’re looking for, but suddenly I want to find it too.

• schlieffen plan comic. Add an exploding dictator, and I’m game.

• how to narrate an important choice or decision. First, you can show the character taking it seriously, maybe sweating or behaving nervously or otherwise worrying about getting it right.  Alternately, you can have him think through the consequences.
• how can I become a superhero? Step 1: get a job at a nuclear power plant.  The more leaks, the better.
• writing a paper about whether players should be held for accidentally hitting the umpire with a baseball. When I tell my publisher how many readers this site has, I’m going to subtract this guy.
• average advance for first time fantasy novel. $6500.   However, the typical first-time advance is $5000.  (The average is skewed by a few superstars that make a bajillion dollars on their first go).   Also, don’t forget to secure an agent.
• panels on the average american comic book page. I think it really depends on the situation.  In a page heavy on dialogue, I usually do 6-8 and Watchmen often did 9.  If the page has a lot of action or heavily involved settings, I would recommend doing fewer panels because you’ll usually need more space for a visually involved panel than you would for text.
• surprising facts about alligators. When holding an alligator, make sure you hold its neck in place.   Otherwise, it can turn its head and possibly rip something off.   (Depending on the size of the alligator, common losses include fingers and arms).

Your superheroes will probably stop crimes at some point.  So how do they find it?  Here are a few options.

1. The most common option is just going on patrol. Most readers and editors will give you the benefit of the doubt that a modern city has so much crime going on that a hero can stumble upon armed robberies without too much trouble.  (Even though that’s probably not realistic–see #12 here for more details).

2. The hero may have access (authorized or otherwise) to what the police know. For example, maybe he has a police scanner, has hacked police radios, has a friend on the police force, or is otherwise contacted by the police on particular cases.

3. The hero might be contacted directly by a victim. For example, if a company has some reason to resolve a crime without getting the police involved, maybe it’ll contact a hero instead.  This would make sense particularly if the police in your story aren’t particularly competent or honest.  Or maybe the victim was somehow involved in some illegal activity (like a prostitute, an illegal immigrant, etc).

4. The hero may have access to what the criminals know. For example, maybe he has an informant, has bugged an important phone, interrogates a captured criminal, etc.  Any one of these could indicate where and when an impending crime will occur.

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Birdemic!

Write or Die is one of my favorite tools to beat writer’s block.  It’s a website that pushes you to write by trying to hold you to a word-goal within a certain amount of time. On the most forgiving setting, it gives you friendly pop-ups reminding you to keep writing if you wait too long.   On “Kamikaze Commando,” it will slowly delete your words if you stop typing for too long.

If you’re a writer that has trouble completing first drafts, I’d recommend checking it out.  So far, I’ve written at least 275 words every time I sat down for 15 minutes.  (If you’re interested, you can read 30 minutes’ worth here).  At that rate, I’d have a first draft of a novel manuscript within roughly 70 hours or a comic book script within 5.

As always, I recommend just getting the first draft down and saving any concerns about smoothness, style, conciseness, coherence or anything else for the rewriting process.  Having a draft complete will make it vastly easier to rewrite because you’ll have a much better idea when you’re going.

• How to request a review forum at Superhero Nation. Leave a comment anywhere.
• Is Batman overpowered? Overawesome, certainly.
• How long does a manuscript have to be? 80,000-100,000 words is pretty typical for an adult novel manuscript.  For more details, please see this.
• Great presents for writers. Step 1: Cut a hole in a box…
• Is Book Antiqua a good font for books? Personally, I feel it’s harder to read than comparable fonts.  BA letters are taller, so you will be hard-pressed to fit as much space between each line.  See this sample for more details.
• Comic book villain who controls water that is a guy.  Hydro-Man?
• “kill a couple cops.”  Umm, what?
• Killer squirrels. This?
• Why are so many superhero stories set in cities? Because superheroes need lots of people to save, and cities have more violent crimes that threaten lots of people.  Most superhero stories have the heroes encounter crime whenever they go out on patrol, and that’s more believable in New York than New Hampshire.  Also, cityscapes tend to look cooler than small towns.
• I am on fire and need writing advice. I’d recommend dealing with the on fire thing first.

The screenwriter for Battlefield Earth has written an amusing article describing his experience. And, also, an unsuccessful search for love on a Scientologist cruise.  No matter how bad your writing is, please rest assured that it’ll never be that bad.  And, if it IS that bad, please find some other line of work.

1.  Be quietly confident. Ideally, confident enough to encourage prospective publishers and agents but not so arrogant that working with you sounds difficult.

2.  You need self-confidence to drive yourself through an emotionally grueling publishing process. Getting published will probably take thousands of hours of writing, submitting, rewriting and resubmitting.  If you don’t believe in yourself, nobody else can help you much.

3.  Your query doesn’t need to say anything about you, and shouldn’t say much. Only talk about yourself if it makes you sound like you will sell thousands of copies.  For example, if you’re professionally published (any medium), have professional experience relevant to what you’re writing (like a doctor writing a medical drama), already have a large audience (through a day job, perhaps), have worked in the publishing industry or have something similarly impressive, say so.  If you don’t have any impressive publishing credentials, that’s fine–just focus entirely on what will actually impress the editor: namely, your book.

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Kindergarten would have been a lot more kickass if I had had these when I was learning the alphabet. Most of these are pretty amusing, but I highly recommend  D and X.  Here’s Z.

• How to Format a Query E-mail (by literary agent Nathan Bransford)
• Rookie Mistakes in Queries (by literary agent Jenny Bent)
• What It Takes to Succeed as an Author (by Eric at Pimp My Novel)
• How to Survive a Publisher’s Google Check (by editor Meghan Conrad). Your publisher will probably Google you before offering a contract to make sure you’re consistently professional and easy to work with.
• Respect Yourself and Your Editor (by publisher/editor Raelene Gorlinsky)
• More Query Blunders (by agent Laura Bradford) — among other things, be very careful about mocking/insulting authors or genres the agent or publisher works with.

Image is trying to promote its upcoming Invincible spinoff, Guardians of the Globe, and it hasn’t announced the team membership yet.  However, it has released some teasers, which are pretty funny… especially if you’re familiar with Wolverine Publicity.

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Literary agent Nathan Bransford has some great ideas about how to make book proposals more enticing by adding specificity.  If you’re trying to find a professional publisher for your novel or comic book, I would recommend checking it out.

Here’s an excerpt.

Be as specific as possible about the plot.

I get so many queries that read (literally, though this is made up for the purposes of this post) like this:

Character Name is living peacefully in Hometown. But then a life-changing event occurs that changes everything. Secrets are revealed that turn her life upside down. Character Name faces grave danger as she embarks on a quest to save her people. This novel is filled with humor and passion and suspense and romance, and there’s a shocking twist that leaves the reader breathless.

Being vague leaves an agent with so many questions: What are the secrets? What is the life-changing event? What is the danger she’s facing? What happens that is funny and suspenseful and romantic?

When all of these key details are kept hidden the query ends up sounding like… well, pretty much every novel ever written. And chances are an agent is going to move on to the next query.

Here are twenty sets of questions to help you check your writing.

1.  Is the story easy to read through? Will readers understand what is happening as they read through it for the first time?

2.  At the end of each chapter, does the audience want to keep reading? For example, perhaps you make an exciting revelation, leave a character in danger, leave a character on the verge of doing or learning something interesting, etc.

3.  Do the characters have high-stakes, urgent goals? If not, check the pacing.  When little is at stake, the plot tends to drag.

4. Does each paragraph develop a character or advance the plot? If not, rewrite or shorten or remove as necessary.  One common offender here is unnecessary dialogue, such as niceties.

5.  Does the plot challenge the protagonists? Is there doubt they will succeed?  If the plot is too easy, you could make the antagonists tougher, make side-characters less supportive of the protagonists, make the protagonists less powerful, etc.

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Agent Kristin has some suggestions for applicants to her literary agency, but I think they’re mostly applicable to prospective publishing professionals across the board.  Even for applicants looking at the comic books/graphic novels side of the publishing industry.

I have a checkered relationship with the Academy Awards…

If you’re looking for a low-stakes way to get a short story (up to 6000 words) published, This Mutant Life might be worth looking into.  You can see its submission guidelines here.  “Stories which deal with the everyday lives of people with unusual abilities or physical characteristics are ideal, and there will be a definite preference given to stories which present interesting and well defined characters and situations.”  The pay is extremely low, though.

UPDATE: A Thousand Faces is a quarterly journal that also specializes in superhero stories. You can see its submissions page here.

One of the more frustrating things I see is when an author tries to give a character a guilty backstory but one he is utterly not responsible for.  For example, the character’s powers might manifest by killing the town and/or pretty much everybody she knows.  (Please see the TV Tropes Power Incontinence page for more examples).

If you want this character to feel guilty about her backstory, why not make her actually responsible for the accident?  For example, instead of having uncontrollable poison-massacre powers*, which is merely awful luck, maybe the character has powers that he uses in a reckless or ill-conceived way.  For example, maybe a flame-controller accidentally blows up a neighborhood by lighting up a gas line.  It’s still unintentional, but at least this gives him a choice to regret and atone for. Overcoming that will be more dramatic than “Gee, I’m sorry I was born to be a town-killer.” If the goal of the story is to have the character atone for his sins, it probably won’t be too dramatic if he’s not actually responsible for the sins in question. Or, if the character’s powers are completely uncontrollable, perhaps the character played some role in acquiring them, like participating in some poorly thought-out scientific experiment.

*Which are a losing Superpower Lottery ticket if ever there were one.   Pretty much everybody else in Heroes has something cool like superstrength or flight or time-travel.  Poor Maya.  Even the psychopathic serial killer has more control over his face-ripping telekinesis than she does.  (Also, he spent  a lot less time moping about his body count than she did).

Hello. If you haven’t seen my comic book’s five sample pages already, please check them out here and sign up for a chance to win a free signed copy when it comes out. Thanks! Having more interested readers will help me get published and I really appreciate your time.