Con-Pitching: How-To Pitch Your Comic Scripts and Art at The Comic Book Conventions
This is the unique opportunity pitching at conventions offers. You can feasibly walk up to a Dark Horse booth and drop off your submission there with little or no hassle. You can even talk to real human being about your pitch, and receive the much needed feedback absent in the form rejection letter.
But the art of con-pitching is just that – an art. Like all art, it takes practice, and couple pointers. The practice part is up to you, but here are a few tips to get you within striking distance of the industry pros.
Figure Out What You Are Going to Do, and Do It Early – I made the split second decision of loading all of my projects, consisting of proposals, scripts and sample art from a college, onto a blank CD the night before. While this cut down on paper cost, I could have made it twice as professional had I truly give it thought. Do everything two-three weeks in advance – plenty of time to fill an order at Kinko’s if that’s what it takes. And if you do go the digital route, as I did, bring at least four or five hardcopy submissions just in case. Someone chewed me out for that reason alone .Which brings me up to my next point.
Be Prepared For Jerks – Ninety percent of the people you met at cons are going to be far nicer than that submission form Marvel sent you last month, even if these people are turning you down also. But when cramped in a sweaty conventional hall filled with sensory overload, well, bad things occasionally happen. Don’t let occasional jerks get you down. Hurt feelings are the cost of doing business. If you need a break to recollect yourself, take it. Go to the diner across the street and come back ready and able.
Bring Moral Support – Take a couple of friends along, and maybe even a family member, to keep you company. You shouldn’t have them with you when you pitch, unless they are really involved in your creative process. If this is the case, make sure these friends know when to pipe in and when to shut it. Regardless if they are filling in as your editor or even your artist, you are still the one doing the pitching. Keep it that way.
Be Prepared For Convention Fatigue – Get plenty of sleep, eat a good breakfast, all of the stuff they tell you to do before a final exam. Believe it or not, con pitching is a very exhausting activity. Its more psychological than physical. You are walking in cramped quarters, with your eyes darting everywhere from the red-hot artist you just bumped into the hot babe dressed as Red Sonja across the way.
Combine this with the already stressful routine of pitching your dream in front of your idols, and you’ll be lucky to get through three or four pitches back-to-back without collapsing with exhaustion. Expect it and deal with it. Stretch out your pitches over the day. Take time to see the sights and enjoy yourself. This is a con, after all.
No one expects you to be perfect and no one expects you to nail your first project in one pitch. The least you’ll walk away from a con with is a handful of business cards and the most is probably the e-mails of a few important editors. If you promised to follow through, do so, but don’t be a pest about it. After all, there’s always next year.
Richard Pulfer is the co-writer of the webcomic “Hector!”, found at www.risecomics.net. He is also an occasional veteran of the Chicago WizardWorld convention.
