Become a Comic Book Writer

Starting a Comic Book Writing Career, what you need to know.

How to start a comic book writing career. Do you like Batman, Spiderman, Superman, comic book heros, of DC comics or Marvel Comics. did you grow up collecting comic books? Many of those comic book collections are worth money, they grow in value as time goes on. You may have thought that you could do what these famous writers have done. You may have heard Paul Dini was able to successfully start a career writing comic books.

Have you thought about how to make your own comic strip, What if you are not an artist and can not draw, do you need to be able to draw to write for comic books. Well sit back and relax while we cover what it takes to break into the animation industry as a freelance comic book writer field.

For starters when talking to Paul Dini he mentions a point that many non-writers as well as seasoned writers may not know is that when you become interested in any new career you want to take lessons,this will help you learn what the field is about, so Paul recommends learning all types of writing styles from film writing, speech writing and creative writing. One of the main reasons for this is to help you start to see story lines in your writing, most comics have a cinema type setting which adds to the visual affects of the characters.

Comic books keep a story moving in a visual way, graphic storytelling to learn how this is done it is recommended that you take a class in film. movie analysis along with film appreciation, which will allow you to analyze storytelling that has a visual narrative. One thing that a class in screenwriting with help you with how to write a script that includes the entire story, descriptions of scenes, dialog, sound effects and a tone for the talking bubbles, colorists and artists can get a sense of the tone of the comic by having access to a script.

Keep in mind who your lead character is and what they do, the storytelling has been done before so by showing how what you have to write about is new and different is what is needed when setting up a comic strip.

A suggestion is to learn the history of comic book writers, the story of the charactors and how the story makes sense to the reader while providing that visual element.

Words are pictures and pictures are words, so it is important to use descriptive writing that elaborates on the scene, "what is happening", How is it happening, Who is doing what, How does it realate to the senses of "feel, touch, smell, hear".

Most story creation comes from previous comic heros, fans already know the history of the character and the writers job is to bring that story to life in a new setting with a idea.

What would it be like if this character encountered a new planet, how would they react or use their special powers or gifts.

This is where the writer must draw on research and knowing the background of a series of story lines that have already been written in the past.

It is important to note that due to the visual nature of comic books a comic book writer needs to know how to write well and understand sentence structure grammer and punctuation.

Also it helps to fully understand plot, structure, pacing, character development, dialog, that leads to a coherent interesting story.

Learning the basics takes time and due to the competitive nature of the industry, you will want to be prepared: Here are some comic book writing resources at comicbookresources.com

How much do comic book writers make?

After some research it looks as if comic writers are paid per page, ranging from $100 to $300 dollars. Another source states that knowing someone who is already in the business helps, seeking internships with the company you want to work for and to remember that having published work already is necessary.

When starting out make sure to start a writing portfolio of your published work, look into illustration, animation writing and follow those who are successful in the field of comic book writing, this is done by reading comic books but for the stand point of analyzing how its done, break down the story lines and see how a comic book is constructed.

Its not an easy field to break into and and a even tougher one for freelance writers, so start small, be persistent and use your networking skills. A good start is to familiarize yourself with publishers of comics. A list of comic book publishers include:

Dark Horse DC Comics IDW Publishing Image Comics Mam Tor Publisher Marvel Comics Scar Comics Septagon Studios Inc. SLG Comics Timelike Line Productions Timeliketoons Top Shelf Productions Vertigo Comics FLabor Graphics, Viper Comics Virgin Comics Wildstorm comics Archie Comics Disney Comics After Hours Press Blue Water Productions , just to name a few.

Other related freelance writing jobs include Freelance Eulogy Writer, this allows you to leave a memory for families who have lost a loved one.