August 2015 Discussion Post

I know this isn't going to be a popular opinion, and I know I'm late on this discussion thread, but can this subreddit please stop playing the role of the supportive parent who knows their child's work is garbage? Can we stop being nice to the 'writer' who thinks their generic steampunk or hardboiled detective pitch is anything more than mass added to an editor's recycling bin? Can we stop encouraging the pencilers, inkers, and colorists who think they can command $50+ per page when their work isn't good enough to be compared against a child's scribblings inside of a Highlights magazine?

Why do you think most publishers don't take unsolicited submissions? It's probably because 99% of them are garbage that come from people who have no business writing or illustrating something that's intended as a piece of commercial work. Can we not tell writers and illustrators that post here the truth? "I'm sorry so-and-so, but your pitch has been done ten thousand times over, and honestly, it seems like you're just ripping off some shitty anime or video game you probably enjoyed."

What good are we doing these people and each other if we're too politically correct to convey the honest truth? This is the exact reason I (and many others) stopped frequenting /r/writing. Oh gee, you opened your fantasy and sci-fi hybrid with prose pertaining to the weather, or an entire paragraph relating to how the light cast itself on the face of the protagonist? Sure, fine, submit your tripe to a publisher and have your dreams ruined because your peers were too cowardly to tell you the truth.

How about we say "NO! Your pitch sucks, but hey, here's what you can do differently to give yourself a better chance of fulfilling your dreams." There's a lot of people that come here that seem to think that because they passed English in highschool then they're perfectly qualified to be a comic book writer. Worse yet, there's WAY too many people here who spent a good chunk of their lives becoming comic book artists that can't even cut it as caricature artists at a county fair. Learn anatomy, and take a class on three point perspective. Don't spend your time bitching about the shitty writers who aren't offering you money you don't deserve to begin with.

Source: Literary journal submission reader, comic writer, and someone who's paid waaaaaay too much money to pencilers, inkers, and colorists who act like a contract is just there to wipe their ass with.

Sorry, /r/comicbookcollabs, but you're not doing anyone any favors by holding back the punches. You're also protecting scammers by not allowing people to pursue the typical witch hunts other communities embark on when a scammer has taken advantage of the community. Not only have I and other creators been taken for $1,000+ by inkers and colorists in this community, but we've also experienced users on here trying to obtain our credit card information directly from us.

If you want this sub to produce anything but failure after failure then let the editors and artists on this sub that know the industry dig into the bullshit submissions that this sub sees day after day. Good artists should be able to command their own rates, and good writers shouldn't be thrown to the curb because shitty illustrators can't take advantage of good proposals.

/r/ComicBookCollabs Thread