HOW TO BREAK INTO COMICS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING

On the eve of SCALPED VOL 5 coming out next week and as the editor credited with “discovering” writer Jason Aaron, I thought it’d be cool to tell the tale of how it all began…cue wavy flashback camera shot…

Sometime in 2003, when Jason first approached me (literally out of the blue) with what would become THE OTHER SIDE, he was very polite, persistent without being annoying, professional in his correspondence (too much alliteration!) and all the other things you need to be to “break in”…but I still was putting him off since I had no idea if he could actually write.

And given the number of writers who pitch me stuff every week (right now I have a stack of about 10-15 pitches I still need to answer post SDCC), I have to make decisions based on what I know of their work. Easier said than done.

But here’s the difference with Jason…he actually WROTE it. His last ditch effort was, “I know it’s long shot but I wrote the first script cus I HAD to and I think it’s pretty good. If you read and like it, cool. If not, thanks for your time.” So I read it and I LOVED it and that was that. Now he’s a big star and I look like a genius…ok, not really. I mean I am a genius but he’s only a medium-size star. heh heh.

But that’s the EXCEPTION.

You might be shocked how often new writers tell me that they either haven’t written the script or haven’t planned on writing it yet or don’t want to write it on spec. When you’re at that “starting out” level, my advice is always, “Look, you’re gonna have to write this thing sooner or later so if it’s a question for me, write it and I’ll have more to go on. Worse case, you’re gonna have a legit editor give you unbiased feedback.” That falls on deaf ears (or worse people get combative) more often than it doesn’t.

Bottom line — you need to do the work. Then do it again. And again. And again. Sitting in a bar calling yourself a writer is not the same thing as BEING a writer. Writers write. End of story.

And yeah…it has to be effin GREAT…so, as Jason often says, stop worrying about playing the game/breaking in/getting ahead and just focus on the WORK. Make it kick ass. It WILL find a home somewhere.

Will Dennis

“The most important thing is WORK” – Lou Reed

Blame The Killer Inside Me.

It’s spring of 1991 — well, really winter since I was living in Ithaca, NY where it’s warm likes two weeks out of the year — there was a big recession on, a war in Iraq, I was only working part-time (some things never change, right? jk) and I’m standing in an independent bookstore and this scary-ass face is staring back at me. It’s the cover to The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson. Never heard of him. But loved the jacket design (Day-Glo orange stripes with black type and a creepy black lizard on it) and so I picked it up.

Now, I’d read my share of Chandler, Hammett, Conan Doyle and even James M. Cain, and considered myself a mystery fan…but this book was CRIME. This was a twisted book about a deputy sheriff who had some serious problems. I read half the book standing in the store and the rest that afternoon. I read it again the next day and knew I needed more…

And holy hell, there was more…Willeford, Goodis, Williams, MacDonald, Himes and on and on. It was grimy, sexy, visceral, mind-blowing work and I felt like a poseur cuz I’d never heard of any of them. But I trusted whoever these Vintage Black Lizard geniuses were and I was never the same. The one time in my life when you really could judge a book by its cover.

Which brings us to VERTIGO CRIME…where we’re trying to capture that same flavor. A line of books by some of today’s best crime writers – IAN RANKIN, BRIAN AZZARELLO, JASON STARR, PETER MILLIGAN, CHRISTOS GAGE, DENISE MINA, MAX ALLAN COLLINS and many more – that we believe can proudly sit alongside the best “regular” crime fiction out there.

The first two – DARK ENTRIES by Rankin & Dell’Edera and FILTHY RICH by Azzarello & Santos – drop today in comic shops and next Tuesday in bookstores. They’ve got eye-popping covers (from Lee Bermejo of JOKER fame) and I really hope you’ll take a taste.

Cuz who knows…maybe in twenty years, you’ll be blogging about how VERTIGO CRIME changed your life forever.

God help you.

will dennis

100 BULLETS…I KNOW IT”S OVER

I mean I know we had our rough patches in the past – and you’ve disappeared on me before, sometimes months at a time – but this feels different. Like it’s really over. Ten long years – all the love, tears, laughs, fights, sex, revenge – and you’re just gonna vanish on me? Nice.

How am I supposed to fill my time now? No more daily calls to Azz to talk about you. No more Risso jpegs of beautiful pictures of you. No more links to Trish’s server to see how pretty she colored you. No more words from Clem to speak to me with. No more tortured calls talking Dave off the ledge to get your covers…no more.

Was it because of the changes Brian & I made to you on the last issue? Come on! They were MINOR. Just a snip here, a cut there. We’ve done way worse before. I even included a bunch of them to this posting so you can see what I’m talking about. God, you’re soooo sensitive.

Fine. Whatever. Be that way. Go off and sulk. I’m over it. I don’t need you anymore.

Wait…what’s that? You’re finally all collected? You mean all 100 issues of you? And the last trade comes out in like a week? So I can have all of you whenever I want to? Like forever?!

Oh thank God…I’m so sorry about all the mean stuff I just said about you. I take it all back. I’m just a selfish jerk.

I love you, baby. I always have and I always will.