Film Courage: What are some advantages and disadvantages of having a publisher?
Stephen L. Stern, Comic Book Author/President of Storyboard Graphic Novels:
Wow, okay comic book publishers, I don't want to say this categorically but I will,
they're in business to get movie and TV deals. You could make some money publishing a book but the
real money is in doing deals for film and TV. It's incalculably different and also licensing is very
important. So film and TV licensing is where the real money comes. For example Ken Levin
who founded 1First Comics my personal publisher back in the day, Ken founded 1First Comics as
what's called a creator-owned company what this means is as follows Marvel and DC own all their
characters they own Spider-Man right they own Superman Batman Captain Marvel Etc so when you
when you work for when you get published the only way you get published through Marvel or DC is if
you're writing or drawing stories based on their characters and it's a work for hire they pay you
x amount you draw you write Creator own books like the ones that 1First Comics and some other
companies publish they're still those characters that you create like Zen is still owned by Dan and
I right but what Ken as a publisher can do and what Harry Marcos my UK publisher of Markosia
can do and it's incorporated into the publishing contract is they can take your property and sell
it as a movie as a TV show for example right and those deals are what's really lucrative so so for
example when I with the director friend wrote the latest incarnation of the Zen live action movie
script that goes into Ken's hands cuz he's like the facto he's my manager as well that's part and
parcel of the deal for these kind of scenarios so it can be very important to have a publisher lots
of people just try to self-publish which is fine like they'll put their books up on Amazon and sell
it both as a hard copy and digitally like read it on the Kindle right but when you're in that
position you have to determine what are you trying to do are you just trying to sell some books do
you want to get a movie deal you want to get a TV deal you want to get licensing this is this is the
maze you go through when Hollywood gets involved right so it's very advantageous to me like and
to some of my clients for example I did a book a horror story for a client who's like a writer and
a director named Philip Landa okay and the book which Markosia published is called Shepard and
based on that book Phil got a movie deal and it was shot the movie. You can see it wherever it's
posted on, it's called Shepard right, but that came about primarily as a result of there being
a graphic novel right. We've also done books for example the Mark Roberts he created the TV show
Mike and Molly I think Melissa McCarthy that was her big starring vehicle and before that
he was one of the head writers if not the head writer for years on one of my favorite sitcoms
Two and a Half Men, so we adopted a a stage play that he wrote called Rantoul and Die,
that's the name of a town Rantoul and Die which is this incredible black comedy/dark comedy
and we adapted the the stage play into a graphic novel but Mark has his own agents like maybe it's
CAA or William Morris I don't really know where okay so so he can move his products through his
connections so whether you self-publish in which case you're out there fending by yourself against
the world or you can get a publisher like 1First Comics or Markosia or some of the others like
Image is a big one and Dark Horse okay so if you get an established publisher they can take your
and will take your product and attempt to sell it in these other media okay so these are the
various ways one one can go do you think so many young creators though they see all this IP out
there but they they don't realize that the initial character the initial story has to be special it
has to be something that audiences will resonate with that they just want to rush to the video game
the movie the products yeah and that'll get you nowhere fast right I mean I'm sure there are the
rare occasions where somebody comes up with an idea and they rush putting it together and it
turns into a success I'm unaware of that but they probably exist but probably in small number right
there's no I think the key in wanting to produce your own comic or graphic novel you have to have
the passion for it like I've been obsessed with comics since I was a kid I don't even know why it
just happened right so if you're obsessed with comics and graphic novels and you have a story
you want to to tell you'll get it done one way or another you'll find an artist or you'll find
me and you'll one way or another get it published whether it's self-published or you'll pitch it to
a publisher there's no there's no on set blueprint or pathway as to how to make this happen how much
does it cost to typically produce an independent comic well here's what I can tell you Marvel and
DC the two big comic book companies when they pay their creative team on any book which is writer
pencil inker colorist letterer the five essential people those two companies which are admittedly
giant companies they pay the going rate of $500 a page okay to pay those five people that's what it
costs okay so the average a 20 page book you do the math it's 20 times 500 I think that's
$110,000 that's what it costs them to produce a 20 page book. Again as I mentioned earlier
because I use super, super talented people but people who don't necessarily reside in the US
I pay them like I my total combined page rate is a fraction of that but I can tell you this
there's a one artist an alumni if you will of a storyboard is an artist who lives in Mexico his
name is Enid Balam he did a beautiful major project for us and he is now a top artist at
Marvel they saw his work and he's working on some high profile titles for them like there's one
coming out called Spider-Gwen which is probably Gwen Stacy was a girlfriend is of Peter Parker
who's now got spider powers right and and there's talk of a movie with some big actress going to be
but Enid who cut his teeth on storyboard as well as I guess other projects he's doing that book
that's great he also does like New Mutants which is an X-Man kind of spin offer in that wheelhouse
right so so I guarantee you what he's making now from Marvel is like three to five times what I
paid him but when at the time he was he I can't bend somebody's arm to sign a contract with me so
he was very happy and the exchange rate was good with Mexico but but we have had artists who have
now moved up and he's not the only one yeah what advice would you give to someone who's looking
to get a comic book published the advice would be this go to a comic book convention of which
there are many I believe currently every weekend somewhere in the United States there's a comic
book convention the biggest one is of course ComicCon in San Diego where they're pushing at
200,000 people who attend I call ComicCon in San Diego the five-day endurance test I always need a
week afterwards to recover when I get back right but whether you go to ComicCon or last week I was
at LA ComicCon but they're in Florida new New York ComicCon everywhere everywhere everywhere
so go approach publishers with your portfolio if you're a writer give them a print out or
something you've written if you're an artist show them your art portfolio the best way to
see if you might have what it takes or somebody sparks to your talent is to go to what's called
portfolio review that they have at almost every comic book convention and you'll and and these
people are unsparing if they think your work is not that good they'll tell you why it's not that
good constructive criticism not just for the sake of being critical right but there's no
better way to judge and to find out where your work stands than to show it to professionals
who are sitting behind those booths or at that portfolio review table that's the way to do it.