This will be a strange blog for me to write, mostly because it’s inspired by a Twitter conversation between Marvel Comics Editor-in-Chief, Joe Quesada and an animation artist, “Kochachan“, Andrea Bruce. The premise begins with this comment by Joe Quesada, some time around 7pm (EST) Thursday, March 19: “Artist have it easier than writers folks, there’s no way to sugar coat it.”

At around 10am (EST) this morning, Friday, March 20, Andrea Bruce followed that up by saying, “for the “writers have it harder” remark, you fail. BIG TIME.”  This in turn set off a back and forth that at first seemed like a baited attempt to create the much anticipated internet flame-a-thon. The flame was quickly quenched though with Joe Quesada’s professional responses, which were all backed up by his obvious experience in the industry.

I will re-build the conversation here and discuss this further afterwards. I will note that this conversation has been edited to provide the best flow and significance to the topic at hand:

@JoeQuesada: Really, what’s so off base about my remark?  Writers do have a harder time breaking in than artist.
@Kochachan: Because I think you underestimate the number of good artists out there and the struggle they go through.
@JoeQuesada: No, that’s not what I’m saying.  It’s much easier to look at a portfolio than it is to read a writer’s work. By virtue of that alone, an artist has better odds.  A great artist will get seen, a great writer could get missed… We have many, many more artist than writers.  And all you need to get your work seen is either email it or post in on the web on a place like deviantart.com.  There is no excuse for an artist not to get seen.  You don’t need conventions.
@Kochachan: Blogs. Lots of blogs out there. More than deviantart.
@JoeQuesada: Okay, so what’s your point? You’re telling me what i said was wrong.  Artist have it easier than writers.  I’ve been doing this for a long time, I see what the submission piles look like.  It’s not even close. For every 10 new artist that we break in maybe 1 writer gets in. There is no denying that fact. I’m an artist, I know.

Since I started working on my not-so-secret-anymore project (World of Hellmouth) I surfed the net for over a year looking at artists who had the style I wanted for certain projects tied to the WOHM brand. I must have bookmarked a dozen or so that I found through ConceptArt.org. In December or so I came across DeviantArt.com once again after casually getting to it through CA.org but not really surfing it. After creating a DA account and actually diving in, I was subscribed to about 30 artists within a week–about five of which had the style I wanted to follow more closely for the future.

Now… on the writer side… There was a project for WOHM that would eventually be turned into an anthology of short stories. I started digging into thematic forums and newsgroups that might have had what I was looking for. In a month I had all but one writer that was brought into the project. I maybe reviewed six others. I’ve almost all but given up me search for writers because I simply do NOT have the time to read dozens of submissions. I almost completely rely on word of mouth now. This is something I’ve heard Marvel leaders talk about on podcasts or interviews with iFanboy or Comic Book Club. I now understand why.

In the last ten years I’ve submitted as an artist and as a writer. Neither was my calling at the time to pursue whole-heartedly, and life took over shortly after to the point of making them only dreams and background hobbies that I’d hope to turn into something later (like this year with the first WOHM inspired comic published!).

There are blogs a-plenty as suggested in the Twitter convo, but to find a blog specifically tied to the type of writer you are looking for is a needle in a haystack. Regrettable really, I for one, wish it was easier to find good, professionally-inclined writers.

Anyways, this was my Friday morning… and for what it’s worth, it’s made me want to write a blog for my one-of-a-billion blog. Hopefully someone reads it .