Marv Wolfman is a multi-award winning writer of comic books, animation, theme park shows and rides, children’s books, novels, television, internet animation and more.
Marv was Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics and Senior Editor at DC Comics where he created the acclaimed series The New Teen Titans. In 1987, Marv moved to Los Angeles where he became Comics Editor for Disney Adventures magazine.
In animation, Marv became story-editor for The Transformers, Superman and Monster Force TV shows. He and his long-time friend, Len Wein, recently sold the script for a big budget, live action super-hero movie called The Gene Pool.
This is the third in a three-part series on various ways you can improve your hitting percentage with editors.
The previous two columns have been about tailoring your pitch so that an editor/publisher/producer will become enamored with your story and want to see it developed further.
Let’s presume that your pitch communicates exactly what your story is about, in content, character and tone…that it is beautifully written and at a comfortable length…that it hooks the reader at the beginning and reels him in like a trout. This constitutes as perfect pitch as you can hope to have created for your story.
So, you submit your perfect pitch, and the asshol--um, editor / publisher / producer says, “Thanks, but no thanks.”
How could this happen?
Where did you fail?
Did you fail?
Yes, and no.
You failed to sell the pitch, yes.
But if the pitch perfectly communicates the story you hope to write (or have already written), then you’ve succeeded in getting the jerk--er, editor / publisher / producer to determine whether or not it would suit his or her needs.
In short, he knows he doesn’t want it, no matter how well the finished piece will be executed, and that’s the silver lining of this cloudburst that momentarily doused your dream.
This is your first step toward…
“LEARNING WHERE TO PLAY IN THE SANDBOX”
Imagine all the stories that have been (or will ever be) written as existing in a gigantic metaphysical sandbox.
What Marvel wants is in one corner, not too far from what the DC Universe is looking for. Vertigo is somewhere over on the other side. Image, CrossGen, Dark Horse, NBM, Oni, Fantagraphics, Drawn & Quarterly, Cyberosia and all the rest—no offense intended for any omissions—have their spots staked out, too. And yes, Platinum Studios, the company I work for, has its spot in this sandbox, too, (and if you want to know more about what we’re looking for, go to our site at platinumstudios.com and request a submission kit).
When an editor / publisher / producer says, “No thanks,” he’s also saying, “You’re not playing in our part of the sandbox.”
We’ve already established that the pitch is well written and that you’re not deluding yourself about this—which is not a bad thing to double check with a hyper-critical friend whose opinion you value—so the “no thanks” will more likely mean one or more of the following:
“We don’t publish stories in that genre.”
“We can’t sell your story.”
“We have something—or many things—like your story, and we don’t need (or can’t sell) another one.”
“We can’t embrace your story.”
“We only work with published writers/creators who’ve established themselves in the marketplace, critically or commercially.”
None of these explanations is inappropriate. Each is a signpost in the sandbox that would help you determine what you will or won’t be submitting to them in the future. Some signposts read, “stop,” “wrong turn,” or show you the detour route, (an example of which would be for you to establish yourself as a creator before coming back).
All of these are shorthand for “We don’t like it,” or “We can’t sell it.”
The problem is that most publishers don’t have the staff to get back to creators and plant any of these posts clearly in the sandbox for you to read, so you’re forced to speculate…which can be very frustrating.
If you want to minimize the speculation, then you have to eliminate the obvious possibilities.
You have to target the right material for the right publisher.
How many of you just said, “Well, duh”?
Yeah, that’s what I would’ve said a few years ago, too…but that was before I learned that it’s as important to become familiar with the culture of a publisher as well as what they publish.
You may have the coolest idea for Batman in the world, one that could spin the franchise on its head and send it leaping in its most profitable direction in years…but DC Comics is careful about whom they’ll let play with their toys.
Let’s say you’ve never worked with DC Comics before, but you’ve written some well-received books by other publishers, nothing measuring a 7.0 on the Richter scale, but material that was respected enough to give you a shot.
In your pitch, you reveal that Bruce has a twin brother who was kidnapped at birth. Through a sequence of events—probably something involving a deathbed confession by the nurse who stole the child and raised him as her own—Robert Cain, a local thug in the organized crime community, discovers that he is really David Wayne Jr., the elder twin of Bruce Wayne…and he becomes obsessed about the brother who stole his childhood, and sets out to claim his inheritance.
That might be an interesting premise, but nobody’s going to let you write that story as anything other than an Elseworlds.
This is what’s called, in TV land, a staff-written show, in other words, something they’d only let you write if you worked on staff. This story changes the Batman mythology in a significant manner, and only people in power—whether they’re editors or writers of influence who may or may not be Frank Miller—make these changes.
Nearly ten years ago—ancient history in comic book industry terms—when I was Group Editor of Creative Services at DC Comics, I was responsible for the Submissions Department.
I remember culling through proposal after proposal…reached one by an unknown writer, and laughed out loud, because it was terrific, as was the next one and the next one. Great stuff. Inspired. I showed them to Dean Motter, who worked in my department, and he loved them, too. Dean then spent the next week showing them to editors…and nobody wanted to see more. Nobody.
Why?
Because this writer was previously unpublished, and he hadn’t earned enough stripes to get the editors’ attention and be able to play with the DC Comics toys.
It’s not my intent to criticize the DC Comics editorial staff for not pursuing these pitches. My goal is for you, as a creator, to realize that companies have different barometers for whom they will and won’t hire, and it is incumbent on you to determine the nature of these barometers.
If it is your goal to write for DC Comics or Marvel, then you should realize it’s nearly impossible to do so without a body of work behind you…unless you work within the company or have somehow established a relationship with an editor. Failing the latter, your next rung on the ladder is to find somebody whom is more interested in publishing your story than your publishing history.
So, if you’re charting your career path towards DC or Marvel, what kind of stories should you be writing?
Well, you could try publishing a brilliant body of work in crime fiction comics, like Brian Michael Bendis, and hope that a top editor will be inspired to extend his search for new voices beyond the superhero/heroic fantasy genre.
But is that the exception or the rule? Let me tell you a different story.
The writer of an independently published comic once submitted his superhero book as a writing sample to a top editor at DC or Marvel. (That’s right, I’m not telling whom or which). The editor said, in effect, “I really enjoyed it…but we don’t do comedy.”
The late Peter Ledger once told me about a conversation he had in an advertising art director’s office. The art director skimmed through Peter’s portfolio as though he was at the dentist’s office flipping through an Entertainment Weekly, when he suddenly stopped and peered closely at a page with a new discrimination. He looked up from the illustration of a Halloween pumpkin, and said, “You can draw pumpkins. I have a project that requires somebody who can draw pumpkins.” Peter got the assignment, knowing full well he wouldn’t have without an illustration of exactly what the art director required.
Peter and his then-wife, Christy Marx, called this the Pumpkin Syndrome.
You should keep this in mind when creating a body of material or stories for specific locations in the sandbox. I’m not suggesting you write for anybody other than yourself. I’m just saying that you can’t control who’s sitting on the other side of a desk, and even if what you’ve written or want to write is spot on…you may only be able to walk away from an encounter saying, “Inspired thinker” or “Pumpkin Syndrome.”
So, when you’re in a position to create something for the publisher of your choice, you should become very familiar with the type of material they publish.
For DC, Marvel or CrossGen, it’s incumbent on you to understand their respective character universes and not try to affect core mythological changes, like the one about Bruce Wayne’s evil twin, until after you’ve earned a measure of trust and been given a green light to do so.
“Yeah, yeah,” you say, “That’s DC, Marvel and CrossGen. What about the others.”
Where you’re not concerned with fitting into an established mythology, you still have to fit into an established sensibility and publishing history.
You should probably anticipate that a proposed series about topless, large-breasted she-male demons that…um…seduce their victims to death is not going to play too well at Oni Press.
Yep, I’m being obvious, but I’ve seen hundreds of pitches that may be just fine for Oni, Avatar or Cyberosia that aren’t anywhere close to what we’ve expressed our interest for at Platinum.
For example, at Platinum Studios we’re interested in material that we can publish as comics and adapt into mainstream live-action and animated features and TV. We’re very specific about this goal in our submission kit material, and I’ve seen numerous submissions that are similar in tone to the topless, large-breasted she-male demons.
Why?
Because creators will send anything to anybody in the hope that somebody will embrace their vision. I sympathize with this, but when you send in material that’s completely inappropriate to the publisher’s professed needs, the quality of your pitch becomes less relevant, and you greatly reduce the chance of setting up the project.
Red Skelton did a weekly skit on his ‘50s/‘60s TV show about a mean little kid. The kid often encountered situations that were too tempting for him to ignore, even though he knew he would be punished for what he contemplated. At the moment of decision, he inevitably grinned—it was a wide, toothy, devilish smirk—and said, “If I dood it, I get a whippin’—I dood it anyway.”
And then he dood—er, did it.
So…
…if you dood it…
…if you send your pitch to editors / publishers / producers, even when they’ve stated they’re looking for something different than what you’re sending, or if they don’t have a history of publishing that type of material, that’s fine.
Go for it.
Dood it.
But should the pitch be rejected, it’s equally important to know that it’s because you weren’t playing in the right part of the sandbox for the editor / publisher / producer. It’s not because he’s an asshol—er, jerk—er, unrepentant lout.
From here, there are two options.
Keep doing whatever it is your doing, and that’s fine. Ultimately, you may become a self-publisher, and there are numerous success stories here.
Or see if you can’t find someplace closer in the sandbox to where the editor / publisher / producer is playing, someplace that allows for your areas of interest to overlap their areas of interest. There’s a history of success here, too.
Ultimately, what matters is that you’re creating stories that hit exactly where you want them to in the sandbox…and if somebody happens to be there to pick them up, all the better.
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For more information about Platinum Studios and our comics publishing program, check out our website at http://www.platinumstudios.com. If you’re interested in submitting concepts to us, please follow the directions on the “submissions” portion of our site.
