NY Comic Book & Graphic Novel Creators Meetup presents Robyn Chapman

On January 10, 2018, I had the pleasure of attending my first NY Comic Book & Graphic Novel Creators meetup.

The meetup organizer was Ramon Gil, "writer of comics and publisher of 'Scifies,'" Creative Director at the graphic design company Fresh Concentrate and design teacher at SUNY/Fashion Institute of Technology. The meetup's guest speaker was Robyn Chapman, Associate Editor at First Second Books.

Ramon asked excellent questions and Robyn gave honest and insightful answers.

Here are my takeaways from the evening:

• Despite having attended art school and having a love for creating comics, Robyn instead went into publishing because she didn't feel she could be sufficiently prolific to make a living as a cartoonist. She said she she draws too slowly!
• The middle grades (tweeners) are her company's biggest market for graphic novels. Those projects tend to be real life stories.
• Advice to artists: don't be thin-skinned. Be able to take criticism. Be able to do the work quickly. Don't be a drama queen.
• If you want to be considered to do a project, it helps to have a body of work that proves you can do the work, like a long-running web comic or an anthology.
• It's best to have a relationship in advance with an editor at the publishing house to which you're submitting. A huge fan base for the web comic isn't necessary to be considered for a drawing job. SPEED is the most important quality they're looking for to do 124 pages of a 128 page book. BUT it is less of a risk for the publisher to use an artist with a big fan base because that name recognition helps with getting pre-orders for the final product.
• Also helps to have an agent because agents and editors already have a relationship. An editor will definitely look at a submission from an agent (to maintain the relationship) but will take a long time to look at a blind submission, if they look at it at all.
• If do send a blind submission/pitch, send only by email to the correct address. Include a synopsis of the author of the work and samples of finished pages. Make it easy to view the samples because the editor probably won't read the entire contents of the email. Add links to your work but make sure the links work and aren't password protected. There are examples of pitches online so best to check those before sending yours.
• If you make a web comic that you see being printed later, make sure the original comic is in a format that can be transferred to a page size for printing. 

After the talk was some mingling but I was too tired to participate despite the group's friendliness and enthusiasm for the topic (the downside of being a member of the 5AM Club is that you start to fall asleep at 8:30 or 9pm).

I intend to get to know the members at the next meetup on Feb. 7. The guest will be Christopher Allo, artists' rep, consultant and former talent manager at Marvel Comics.

Chris will be talking about his work, how to break into the industry and will be giving some art work pointers. And if you email Ramon your art by Feb. 2, Chris will critique it for you!

If you live in the NYC area and are interested in creating comics and graphic novels, I recommend joining this meetup. Ramon is established in the industry and therefore gets some great guest speakers!

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