The Comics How To… Vol. 2 Chapter 02. Production: The Budget Breakdown and the Offer

Lance Lucero

6 years ago

We are now ready to reach out to the world and grab an artist for BOB #0. We had a budget in mind and it was time to start posting the offer and see if anyone would bite.

Here“s what we came up with and here“s the exact ad that Adam posted at Digital Webbing:

Hello, Artists.

If you don’t happen to be busy just now: well, it’s possible you could be.

I’ve been asked to edit a project for an independent filmmaker in Colorado who’s looking to try comics. The script is now ready to go, so please look below to see if you’re interested. Email contact information is at the bottom.

PROJECT SIZE – 30 pages of sequential art.

GENRE / CONTENT – Comedy-horror in a modern, urban setting. Horror films by Sam Raimi or Edgar Wright are good examples of the sort of story in mind: gross, witty fun. If you like drawing gore, ghosts, and monsters – or to put it another way, if you think you’d do a good job on DC’s Swamp Thing or Constantine – this project may be for you.

PUBLICATION – My understanding is that the project will be shopped to publishers, but plans have also been made for both an online and limited printed run. One way or another, the book will be either out or in the pipeline by the end of the year.

PROJECT TIMELINE – Negotiable, if the artist has other work to complete and we like him or her enough. A firm timeline will be decided upon and inserted into the contract.

PAYMENT – $3,000 with color, $1,500 pencils and inks. That comes out to $100 per colored page, $50 per page only penciled and inked. This rate is regrettably non-negotiable. The gig is small-time; if you aren’t, I’m happy for you.

METHOD OF PAYMENT: By bank or wire transfer to the artist’s account after we receive digital files for 5 satisfactorily completed pages (10 pages if the artist does not have a U.S. bank account). References are available to assure you we’re good for it. Payment will be made within 10 business days of receiving a set of 5-10 pages in digital format.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS: The artist with whom we work will sign a non-disclosure agreement and a contract.

REFERENCES: Here’s a link to theÂ LinkedIn pageÂ of the project owner and instigator, Lance Lucero. And here is a link to myÂ LinkedIn page. I am an English teacher who recently managed a magazine. I’ve also commissioned a handful of other comics.

EMAIL CONTACT:Â warehouse9bob@gmail.com.

The wonderfully sincere and direct ad that Adam drafted was a success. The response was overwhelming. We had several hundred emails to review. We had to cap the review process after a couple of weeks because of the high volume of solicitations.Â Â It was a pure treat to be exposed to so many talented artists from around the world. Believe it or not, there were a few known artists who applied as well.

Now, to chose an artist from the pile. We reviewed every artist who applied. Our theory was ”” it didn“t matter if you fit the project, what mattered was if we liked the artist in general. We created a directory of artists that we liked. We split them in two groups: Group 01 ”“ artists we wanted for BOB #0, and Group 02 ”“ artists we wanted to keep in our archives for future projects. See, I was already thinking beyond the BOB books.

Then we narrowed the artists down to the top 10 and thought about it for a minute. Then we narrowed the list down to the top 3 and thought about it for a minute. It was a very tough decision, but IÂ thought that Mr. Francisco Resendiz from Mexico was the best fit for our project. I approached him with the offer and he accepted. Francisco is a digital animator, which sparked my interest because he has a really cinematic eye. Being a film guy, I liked that a lot. The look he developed for BOB #0 was cartoony, but when he needed to turn on the action and gore, the art was poignant. His sequential art is cinematic and very fluid.Â I was perfectly willing to throw the dice on someone new and enthusiastic. I organized the contracts regarding the proper page rate and deadlines for ink services.