Bleeding Fiction

I spent most of today with Lukas, who's way cool, at the Emerald City ComicCon. I had a good time. This was my first comic con in a long, long while. I saw a lot of what I was expecting; a lot of dealers, with huge stockpiles of back-issues and trades and toys. I spent some money on a buncha stuff that I'd never heard of before, but which was all really cool. There were also a bunch of artists of greater or lesser reknown. I talked to Tony Harris, who I've mentioned before as the artist on Ex Machina and Starman, and told him I was a big fan. I felt stupid for not bringing any books with me for him to sign, but I didn't know in advance that he was going to be there. I saw Scott Kurtz from PVP. I don't read PVP, so I didn't talk to him. I missed Kurt Busiek, who writes Astro City, among other things, and the guys from Penny Arcade. That sorta sucked; I hear they're all cool people.

I went specifically to get my writing looked at by editors. This is pretty much the default way for folks to get comics' work. An editor looks at your stuff at a con, gives you some pointers and, if he thinks you're up for it, throws you some work. Mostly it's artists, so they call it "portfolio review," but no big deal; they look at writers, too, and I've got some scripts done up to show people. There were three guys at the con doing reviews: one from Marvel, one from DC and one from Oni.

Oni was straight out; they're strictly creator-owned finished projects. As in "both art and writing in the can." Since I can't so much draw, that's right out for me.

The DC guy was the Batman line editor, Bob Schreck. Like Batman himself, Mr. Schreck is a shadowy and mysterious figure who moves in the night and never appears where you look for him. I couldn't find his name on any booth, I couldn't find another person who had seen him, no matter how I asked. So much for that.

The Marvel editor wouldn't look at my work, due to my not having signed a Marvel Idea Submission Form. [pdf] I explained that I didn't want to submit an idea, I wasn't looking to push a book, just get my work looked at in consideration for future work, same as the artists. No go. So, the original point of my going to the con turned out to be fruitless, which is more than a little frustrating. I can get over that; there'll be other cons.

But in the meantime I'm wondering what to do about Marvel. I have an idea for a Marvel book; I may have more than one, but I'm not sure yet. With a submissions form, I don't need to wait until a con to show Marvel my stuff; I can just mail it in. Without a submissions form, I'm unlikely to ever get a Marvel editor to look at them. But, well, I don't want to cast aspersions on Marvel's integrity, I'm sure they're just protecting themselves from morons, but the wording of the form is enough to give me pause. It says, in effect, that if they happen to publish a book that's identical to your idea and sort of never mention your name again, well hey, that's not their fault. They might've come up with the idea all on their own.

Which may be entirely true. There are few things so tremendously new and ground-breaking that no mind will come up with anything even remotely similar. And, to be fair, I couldn't dothe things I'm thinking of with some other company; they require the Marvel Universe to work. So if Marvel does them and doesn't want to do them with me, well, it's not like I could've taken the idea elsewhere. But at the same time, right now they're my ideas, dammit, and I feel this funny sense of entitlement to them.

So, this is me soliciting input. Someone please tell me that I'm being, alternately, stupid or smart. I don't promise I'll listen to your advice, but I'd like to hear it.