Committed Comics Online

If you are looking to submit to Committed Comics then you must follow the guidelines below. If a submission packet is received that does not follow the guidelines laid out here it will not be reviewed and it will be discarded.

The requirements for each position changes depending on what position you are interested in. Although all submissions require a cover letter with the following information (again if there is no cover letter or you are lacking any of the following information your submission will not be reviewed and it will be discarded):

Name - Full Name, no nick names
Your full contact information (Address, phone number and email address)
Age
Position you are interested in

Committed Comics will NOT review any digital submissions (web sites, jpg attachments, or any other type of attachments). The only time a digital file will be reviewed is if a digital colorist sends us a CD of additional work (A digital coloring submission must still contain printed copies of the work).

Mail all submissions to:
Committed Comics Submissions Department
16541 Redmond Way #326
Redmond, WA 98052

Just click on the position you want more information on below

Writers

People forget how important they are to the comic book industry. Yes, the market is very visually driven, but what do you think keeps the readers coming back month after month...a good story.

A story has to be original, and the dialogue has to sound real. A comic with great art and a bad story usually fails and vice versa. The writer and the penciler have to be in perfect harmony for a series to achieve greatness.

If you are interested in submitting to Committed Comics as a writer please write no more then a five (5) page story with a clear beginning, middle, and end. If you are going to use unknowns (your own creator owned characters) please ensure that there is enough description for our editorial staff to know the characters.

The best way to let the editorial staff know about your characters is to include a character sheet with each of the main characters described and personalities detailed out. This is also a good place to put in any visual references for the editorial staff to "see" your characters (ie - Mr Alien Man looks like a cross between Bill Murry from Ghostbusters and Shaq from Steel but with four arms).

Please ensure that your writing is broken into sequential page layouts and is clear and concise.

Pencilers

Committed Comics is always looking for talented Pencilers. We are only looking for Pencilers who can produce high quality sequential work. If you are a penciler and you only have pin up/ cover work then do not send us your portfolio.

A penciler must be able to follow the four points outlined below:

Ability to tell a story through the images you put down on the page.
Versatility in your ability to draw
Human/animal Anatomy
Consistency through panels

The first is obvious: if you can not give the reader a clear idea of where your story is going without text then you may lose their interest. A person who glances at your story should get a basic idea of what the story is about. Besides story telling, your samples should demonstrate good drawing - knowledge of anatomy, perspective, and convincing environments and backgrounds.

The second point listed above focuses on the different things you should be able to draw. If you only know how to draw super heroes and not regular people then do not bother to send in your submission. We are seeking pencilers who understand that even in the course of a super hero comic book you may need to draw regular people. Your samples should show your command of the human figure in a variety of activities: everything from simple conversation to a frenetic fight scene.

Concentrate on what's inside the panel borders, not on the overall design of the page. Complicated page layouts, figures jutting through the borders, and other visual gimmicks usually hurt the story telling. The third point listed above is human/ animal anatomy. I mentioned it in the first point but it is so important that it needs to be noted again. As a penciler you need to fully understand the muscles in the human body. Even if you are going to be drawing in a simple animated style (or even Manga style) you need to know the structure of the human body. You need to know what muscles are where and which ones to eliminate to achieve your animated style. This point also focuses on the different types of people or animals that may come across your drawing table in the script. Make sure that you have some understanding of the characteristics of different ethnicities. That way you can draw different races and creeds and have your readers understand who is who. Last point about human anatomy may sound silly but it is a common mistake, make sure your characters have the same amount of fingers and toes through out your story.

Animal anatomy is also important in your stories. The last thing you want is a picture of a tiger and having it look like a bear. Remember if the reader does not know what animals or people are in your script it will make it harder for them to follow the story.

Lastly, the name of the game is consistency. All of your panels need to have the same detail and line work through out the book. One bad panel can ruin a beautiful page to the reader and even worse…your editor. When drawing out your panels make sure you follow the written story and also follow what would logically happen in a sequential pattern. For example: If you have a door open inward, make sure for the rest of the time you draw that door it always opens the same way. Also make sure your line weights are consistent through out your work. Also make sure your artwork isn’t too “sketchy” and that the lines that need to connect to show the detail and depth of the panel connect.

Pencilers who are submitting to Committed Comics should have no less then three (3) pages of a sequential story and no more then five (5). All artwork should be 11 x 17 inch paper folded once and put in a 9 x 10 envelope. Never send in originals, always photocopies. If you would like you may include one (1) pin up or cover composition piece.

Inkers

An inkers’ job is finish and embellish the penciler’s work. It is much more then just going over the existing lines on the page with black ink and filling in the areas that are suppose to be black (that is called spotting the blacks). An inker should take the line artwork that is there and give it depth, shading and form. When an inker works on penciled pages they should make sure that all of the lines that need to be connected are connected and that the foreground characters are clearly visible from the background. It is also the inker’s job to make sure that the light sources put down by the penciler are correct and to keep that consistent through out the pages. Much like the penciler the inker needs to know human anatomy, page layouts, and making sure the images are sequential and making sense.

A good inker can make an average penciler look great and vice versa a bad inker can make a great artist look really bad. As mentioned before the inker needs to add depth, shading and form to the artwork.

Depth can be achieved in several different ways, most often by varying line weight and the amount of blacks in the foreground, medium ground, and background in a set pattern.
Shading is brought about by the use of where you place the heaviest amount of ink. Usually, a penciler will denote where they want a shadow to fall. Your job is to fill that area with black and add any additional detail to that area.
The inker achieves form by connecting the penciler’s lines and rounding out any harsh edges or vice versa.

When sending in submissions to Committed Comics, it is strongly suggested that you do not send in your own pencils with inks. The reason for that is it's difficult to separate problems in your pencil drawing and problems in your ink rendering. When sending in your submission, send in a photocopy of the pencils along with your inks. That way, the editorial staff can view what the pages looked like before and after. In addition to not inking over your own pencils Committed Comics would also prefer to see inking samples over penciler’s who do not draw so tight. Meaning that if you as the inker do not see a reason to add or change anything to the pencils don’t send it in.

Inkers like pencilers need to send in three (3) to five (5) pages and one pin up / cover piece. As mentioned above don’t forget to include the pencil pages as well. The art should be 11x17 folded once and placed in a 9 x 10 envelope.

Digital Colorist

Good digital colorists are in very short supply and Committed Comics is always open to looking at sample packets. The colorist should have a basic knowledge of what colors complement each other and which ones contrast against each other. In addition to using pleasing colors, the colorist should also understand that their colors are applying clarity and mood to each panel.

As a colorist, you also are responsible for making sure everything in the panel is clear. When coloring characters and objects, it is important to make sure the reader can understand what each object is. This does not mean that every single object must be rendered in its "natural color." Sometimes to make an important object stand out or to clarify the difference between two objects, one object must be colored unnaturally.

Once you understand the importance of coloring things clearly, then you must place in the mood. The best way to get mood across is by using different color schemes. If the story is getting darker in tone, then make sure to reflect that in the colors. Along those same ideas, if the story is cheerful, make sure that the colors match. There may be times where you will have to combine the two ideas. For example, if a brightly colored super hero is entering a dark moody situation, make sure to reflect that with out losing the colors of the hero's costume. Just make sure that the hero's costume still corresponds with the lighting and shading in the situation.

Printers print from CMYK files and many of the special effects used in coloring will not carry over correctly from RGB to CMYK. Therefore, when you finish coloring a page, it is best to change the mode from RGB to CMYK. Even after doing that, the final print may be slightly different then how it looks on the computer screen. This is due to the fact that the computer screen is back lit and when the images are printed out there’s a variety of ink saturation on the page.

Again like the inker and the penciler constancy is very important. You must make sure that the colors you choose are the same from panel to panel and that nothing changes to the point where it makes no sense or is too harsh on the eyes. Make sure you do not over render your characters as well. Over rendering makes your characters and items in the panel makes them look like they are either made of plastic or wrapped in Saran Wrap^®.

Digital colorist also need to work with the letterer to ensure that the color pallet they choose is not too similar or contrast to strongly. Colorists are also responsible for making sure that the files they give to the editor are going to print well. That means they have to be trapped correctly and the saturation levels are correct. That also means flattening out the artwork and removing any unnecessary channels or layers. If you do not know how to achieve this then you need to purchase this book: Digital Prepress for Comic Books.

A digital colorist submission packet must contain the following: Six (6) pieces of sequential work and two (2) cover/pin up samples. As mentioned above a digital colorist may send in a PC formatted CD of their work along with the printed copies. Please ensure that all of the files on the CD are in Tiff format and that they are all sequential pieces. No pin up/cover work will be review digitally.

Digital Letterers

Digital letterers put the words on the page. The advantage to digital lettering is that the artwork stays untouched and undamaged.

Good letterers should be able to place letters in the word balloon and text boxes evenly and clearly. The letterer should also be able to lay out the dialogue balloons and caption boxes in a way that is appealing to the readers eye and logical to the action in the panel. In addition to regular text, the letterer should also be able to use bold, italic, and specialty fonts in their work. Any special effect use should be clear and easy to read. If the sound effect is being used to convey something, that something should be clear.

Please send in three (3) to four (4) pages at 11 x 17 and 6.75 x 10.25 to give the editorial staff an idea of your work. Please also to make sure that in those pages some types of sound effects are in place.

Completed Series

If you have a completed series your submission process is slightly different. Committed Comics only wants to see completed series (or a mini series where 2/3rds of the series is 100% completed). We will not put you in contact with any artist or writers or colorist and so on. If you need to finish your creative team we do have a company that we partner up with, just continue reading.

A 100% finished series means that you have the series print ready on a CD. Print ready means that it has all of the digital pre-press done. If you do not know how to get your book print ready then you can do one of two things. Purchase "Digital Pre-Press for Comic Books" or contact the design studio that Committed Comics has partnered up with.

You still need to make sure that your submission has a cover letter with the basic information and some additional information:

Your full name
Your full contact information (Address, phone number and email address – if applicable)
Your Age
Is your series color or black & white
How many issues is your series

In addition to the information above you need to include a one - two (1-2) page synopsis of your series and a one (1) page sheet of your character descriptions. Then you have to include a finished copy of the first issue of the series you are submitting.

Committed Comics only wants to see finished series. That means if you want to produce a color project then the submission package you send to us needs to be in color. It doesn't have to be a professionally printed book, a series of one sided print outs / photocopies will do fine. The submission you are sending in has to be lettered as well. Do not want send in a print out of the book and then a script of the story. If you send that in as your submission it will be discarded and not reviewed.

If you need any assistance in putting your project together Committed Comics has partnered up with Dream Nexus Designs studio to help you complete your project. They are a full service studio for hire and they even offer professional digital pre-press for your project.
DND STUDIO


If you are looking to submit to Committed Comics then you must follow the guidelines below. If a submission packet is received that does not follow the guidelines laid out here it will not be reviewed and it will be discarded. The requirements for each position changes depending on what position you are interested in. Although all submissions require a cover letter with the following information (again if there is no cover letter or you are lacking any of the following information your submission will not be reviewed and it will be discarded): Name - Full Name, no nick names Your full contact information (Address, phone number and email address) Age Position you are interested in Committed Comics will NOT review any digital submissions (web sites, jpg attachments, or any other type of attachments). The only time a digital file will be reviewed is if a digital colorist sends us a CD of additional work (A digital coloring submission must still contain printed copies of the work). Mail all submissions to: Committed Comics Submissions Department 16541 Redmond Way #326 Redmond, WA 98052 Just click on the position you want more information on below Writers People forget how important they are to the comic book industry. Yes, the market is very visually driven, but what do you think keeps the readers coming back month after month...a good story. A story has to be original, and the dialogue has to sound real. A comic with great art and a bad story usually fails and vice versa. The writer and the penciler have to be in perfect harmony for a series to achieve greatness. If you are interested in submitting to Committed Comics as a writer please write no more then a five (5) page story with a clear beginning, middle, and end. If you are going to use unknowns (your own creator owned characters) please ensure that there is enough description for our editorial staff to know the characters. The best way to let the editorial staff know about your characters is to include a character sheet with each of the main characters described and personalities detailed out. This is also a good place to put in any visual references for the editorial staff to "see" your characters (ie - Mr Alien Man looks like a cross between Bill Murry from Ghostbusters and Shaq from Steel but with four arms). Please ensure that your writing is broken into sequential page layouts and is clear and concise. Pencilers Committed Comics is always looking for talented Pencilers. We are only looking for Pencilers who can produce high quality sequential work. If you are a penciler and you only have pin up/ cover work then do not send us your portfolio. A penciler must be able to follow the four points outlined below: Ability to tell a story through the images you put down on the page. Versatility in your ability to draw Human/animal Anatomy Consistency through panels The first is obvious: if you can not give the reader a clear idea of where your story is going without text then you may lose their interest. A person who glances at your story should get a basic idea of what the story is about. Besides story telling, your samples should demonstrate good drawing - knowledge of anatomy, perspective, and convincing environments and backgrounds. The second point listed above focuses on the different things you should be able to draw. If you only know how to draw super heroes and not regular people then do not bother to send in your submission. We are seeking pencilers who understand that even in the course of a super hero comic book you may need to draw regular people. Your samples should show your command of the human figure in a variety of activities: everything from simple conversation to a frenetic fight scene. Concentrate on what's inside the panel borders, not on the overall design of the page. Complicated page layouts, figures jutting through the borders, and other visual gimmicks usually hurt the story telling. The third point listed above is human/ animal anatomy. I mentioned it in the first point but it is so important that it needs to be noted again. As a penciler you need to fully understand the muscles in the human body. Even if you are going to be drawing in a simple animated style (or even Manga style) you need to know the structure of the human body. You need to know what muscles are where and which ones to eliminate to achieve your animated style. This point also focuses on the different types of people or animals that may come across your drawing table in the script. Make sure that you have some understanding of the characteristics of different ethnicities. That way you can draw different races and creeds and have your readers understand who is who. Last point about human anatomy may sound silly but it is a common mistake, make sure your characters have the same amount of fingers and toes through out your story. Animal anatomy is also important in your stories. The last thing you want is a picture of a tiger and having it look like a bear. Remember if the reader does not know what animals or people are in your script it will make it harder for them to follow the story. Lastly, the name of the game is consistency. All of your panels need to have the same detail and line work through out the book. One bad panel can ruin a beautiful page to the reader and even worse…your editor. When drawing out your panels make sure you follow the written story and also follow what would logically happen in a sequential pattern. For example: If you have a door open inward, make sure for the rest of the time you draw that door it always opens the same way. Also make sure your line weights are consistent through out your work. Also make sure your artwork isn’t too “sketchy” and that the lines that need to connect to show the detail and depth of the panel connect. Pencilers who are submitting to Committed Comics should have no less then three (3) pages of a sequential story and no more then five (5). All artwork should be 11 x 17 inch paper folded once and put in a 9 x 10 envelope. Never send in originals, always photocopies. If you would like you may include one (1) pin up or cover composition piece. Inkers An inkers’ job is finish and embellish the penciler’s work. It is much more then just going over the existing lines on the page with black ink and filling in the areas that are suppose to be black (that is called spotting the blacks). An inker should take the line artwork that is there and give it depth, shading and form. When an inker works on penciled pages they should make sure that all of the lines that need to be connected are connected and that the foreground characters are clearly visible from the background. It is also the inker’s job to make sure that the light sources put down by the penciler are correct and to keep that consistent through out the pages. Much like the penciler the inker needs to know human anatomy, page layouts, and making sure the images are sequential and making sense. A good inker can make an average penciler look great and vice versa a bad inker can make a great artist look really bad. As mentioned before the inker needs to add depth, shading and form to the artwork. Depth can be achieved in several different ways, most often by varying line weight and the amount of blacks in the foreground, medium ground, and background in a set pattern. Shading is brought about by the use of where you place the heaviest amount of ink. Usually, a penciler will denote where they want a shadow to fall. Your job is to fill that area with black and add any additional detail to that area. The inker achieves form by connecting the penciler’s lines and rounding out any harsh edges or vice versa. When sending in submissions to Committed Comics, it is strongly suggested that you do not send in your own pencils with inks. The reason for that is it's difficult to separate problems in your pencil drawing and problems in your ink rendering. When sending in your submission, send in a photocopy of the pencils along with your inks. That way, the editorial staff can view what the pages looked like before and after. In addition to not inking over your own pencils Committed Comics would also prefer to see inking samples over penciler’s who do not draw so tight. Meaning that if you as the inker do not see a reason to add or change anything to the pencils don’t send it in. Inkers like pencilers need to send in three (3) to five (5) pages and one pin up / cover piece. As mentioned above don’t forget to include the pencil pages as well. The art should be 11x17 folded once and placed in a 9 x 10 envelope. Digital Colorist Good digital colorists are in very short supply and Committed Comics is always open to looking at sample packets. The colorist should have a basic knowledge of what colors complement each other and which ones contrast against each other. In addition to using pleasing colors, the colorist should also understand that their colors are applying clarity and mood to each panel. As a colorist, you also are responsible for making sure everything in the panel is clear. When coloring characters and objects, it is important to make sure the reader can understand what each object is. This does not mean that every single object must be rendered in its "natural color." Sometimes to make an important object stand out or to clarify the difference between two objects, one object must be colored unnaturally. Once you understand the importance of coloring things clearly, then you must place in the mood. The best way to get mood across is by using different color schemes. If the story is getting darker in tone, then make sure to reflect that in the colors. Along those same ideas, if the story is cheerful, make sure that the colors match. There may be times where you will have to combine the two ideas. For example, if a brightly colored super hero is entering a dark moody situation, make sure to reflect that with out losing the colors of the hero's costume. Just make sure that the hero's costume still corresponds with the lighting and shading in the situation. Printers print from CMYK files and many of the special effects used in coloring will not carry over correctly from RGB to CMYK. Therefore, when you finish coloring a page, it is best to change the mode from RGB to CMYK. Even after doing that, the final print may be slightly different then how it looks on the computer screen. This is due to the fact that the computer screen is back lit and when the images are printed out there’s a variety of ink saturation on the page. Again like the inker and the penciler constancy is very important. You must make sure that the colors you choose are the same from panel to panel and that nothing changes to the point where it makes no sense or is too harsh on the eyes. Make sure you do not over render your characters as well. Over rendering makes your characters and items in the panel makes them look like they are either made of plastic or wrapped in Saran Wrap^®. Digital colorist also need to work with the letterer to ensure that the color pallet they choose is not too similar or contrast to strongly. Colorists are also responsible for making sure that the files they give to the editor are going to print well. That means they have to be trapped correctly and the saturation levels are correct. That also means flattening out the artwork and removing any unnecessary channels or layers. If you do not know how to achieve this then you need to purchase this book: Digital Prepress for Comic Books. A digital colorist submission packet must contain the following: Six (6) pieces of sequential work and two (2) cover/pin up samples. As mentioned above a digital colorist may send in a PC formatted CD of their work along with the printed copies. Please ensure that all of the files on the CD are in Tiff format and that they are all sequential pieces. No pin up/cover work will be review digitally. Digital Letterers Digital letterers put the words on the page. The advantage to digital lettering is that the artwork stays untouched and undamaged. Good letterers should be able to place letters in the word balloon and text boxes evenly and clearly. The letterer should also be able to lay out the dialogue balloons and caption boxes in a way that is appealing to the readers eye and logical to the action in the panel. In addition to regular text, the letterer should also be able to use bold, italic, and specialty fonts in their work. Any special effect use should be clear and easy to read. If the sound effect is being used to convey something, that something should be clear. Please send in three (3) to four (4) pages at 11 x 17 and 6.75 x 10.25 to give the editorial staff an idea of your work. Please also to make sure that in those pages some types of sound effects are in place. Completed Series If you have a completed series your submission process is slightly different. Committed Comics only wants to see completed series (or a mini series where 2/3rds of the series is 100% completed). We will not put you in contact with any artist or writers or colorist and so on. If you need to finish your creative team we do have a company that we partner up with, just continue reading. A 100% finished series means that you have the series print ready on a CD. Print ready means that it has all of the digital pre-press done. If you do not know how to get your book print ready then you can do one of two things. Purchase "Digital Pre-Press for Comic Books" or contact the design studio that Committed Comics has partnered up with. You still need to make sure that your submission has a cover letter with the basic information and some additional information: Your full name Your full contact information (Address, phone number and email address – if applicable) Your Age Is your series color or black & white How many issues is your series In addition to the information above you need to include a one - two (1-2) page synopsis of your series and a one (1) page sheet of your character descriptions. Then you have to include a finished copy of the first issue of the series you are submitting. Committed Comics only wants to see finished series. That means if you want to produce a color project then the submission package you send to us needs to be in color. It doesn't have to be a professionally printed book, a series of one sided print outs / photocopies will do fine. The submission you are sending in has to be lettered as well. Do not want send in a print out of the book and then a script of the story. If you send that in as your submission it will be discarded and not reviewed. If you need any assistance in putting your project together Committed Comics has partnered up with Dream Nexus Designs studio to help you complete your project. They are a full service studio for hire and they even offer professional digital pre-press for your project. DND STUDIO		IMPORTANT SAN DIEGO INFORMATION Once again Committed Comics will be holding the 8 hour marathon portfolio review at San Diego Comic Con! We will be located in PR H under the sails at the top of the convention hall (you'll see the signs!) The offical information for our portfolio review: Friday PR H 11:00 am - 7:00 pm In order to get your work reviewed and possibly get hired on as a professional you need to follow these four simple steps: Pick up a ticket from either the Autograph Area Information booth under the sails or at the Stickman Graphics (Booth 2101 in the red and white Independent Publisher Pavilion). Read the submission guidelines for the position you are looking for. All the information on what you need is to the left Read the 5 tips for a successful portfolio review (located below!) Be creative and understand that Committed Comics is looking for creators who are excited and full of passion! 5 Tips for a successful portfolio review! Be polite and professional - Each portfolio review is a job interview, so treat it as such. Limited Portfolio Samples - Keep the samples in your portfolio to no more then six (6) sequential pages and two (2) pin ups/cover samples. Eight samples should be enough for the reviewer to see your ability. Keep your work current - Have your most current work is in the front of your portfolio. Having the reviewer see work that is old does not reflect well on your ability or what you are capable of. Have a sample packet - Make sure you have a sample packet to give to the reviewer. In this packet you can include additional samples of your work beyond the requested six sample pages.have a sample packet the editor can take with them! Make sure that your sample packet has your personal information on it as well. Buy a portfolio - It sounds silly but I have had plenty of people show up at my booth/table with a handful of papers in a plastic bag, binder, folder, or even a backpack. Buying a portfolio tells Committed Comics that you are a little more serious then the average person off the street.