Am I blogging...or am I pitching my existence?
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| High Concept Am I blogging...or am I pitching my existence? |
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Wednesday, March 16, 2005 The Pitch: It's like Schindler's List meets Chasing Amy! Image Comics is the bane of my existence.I have to write the solicitations every month for the CE newsletter. I get a lot of free reign (although I try not to bash stuff, which I used to do in my early years--I can save that for the S.C.) and have only a few guidelines I have to stick to, one of which is that I should summarize every first issue and every trade paperback we're going to be carrying. It's a guideline that makes sense--why would a sub order the first issue of a new title without knowing who's writing it or what it's about? However, it puts me in a precarious position in that I've got to write about titles where I know little more than the poor sub. All I have is whatever text or images they've got in the blackline, whatever early info I can find on the Internet, and what I remember of the track records of the teams launching the new titles. Apart from Fanboy Rampage (which is hard mainly because I've been writing it for six years now), writing descriptions for the first issues are the hardest part of my job. And Image Comics makes that job even harder. Because Image receives all sorts of preferential treatment from Diamond as long as they keep a certain number of titles rolling out the door, they have to keep a certain amount of product coming out each month. But because they don't really put out any money in funding, merely help facilitate the publishing of books the creators publish themselves, they constantly turn out new product by new talent with minimal information. For example, I'm writing the previews for books coming out in June. Image Comics has twelve first issues and trade paperbacks, among which are books like Blacklight and Flak Riot. Check out the preview description of Blacklight: Lina Juarez is stuck in a dead-end job and a dead-end relationship, living a dead-end life in a dead-end town. All she dreams of is escape, some kind of excitement in her life. But when a dark and mysterious power possess her, she quickly learns the true meaning of the old adage, "Be careful what you wish for." And here's Flak Riot: "Zoe Nixxon is a cute, bored, lonely file clerk She wants a new life and fate gives her that chance when she finds her true calling: hunting for bounties in the lawless dimension known as the O.D.!" Same set-up, same supernatural twist. One gets possessed and the other becomes a bounty hunter, but do they both end up fighting supernatural creepies? I would guess they do. They go right next to each other in the Blackline and they'll be appearing side-by-side in the newsletter too. Do I riff on the fact that the two books sound alike? (Probably.) Do I kill double the amount of brain cells trying to make sure I don't sound like I'm just writing the same thing over and over? (Defnitely.) I think Image Comics is a useful and valuable part of the comic marketplace, and allow wider exposure to writers and artists daring enough to create their own works. But God, do they make my life miserable for a couple of days every month. Whew. Thanks for letting me vent. Now I have to go back to trying to write cleverly about books I know almost nothing about. posted by Jeff Lester | 6:20 PM | |
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