Breaking In

So, to kick off this week I wanted to go back into the distant mists of two weeks ago. 

Here I recounted how I stumbled into the heady world of freelance editing. 

I reached out to a few other editors far higher up the ladder than I to see how they got their start. So, here without further ado is Daniel Chabon. Daniel is an editor for Dark Horse, overseeing such titles as Negative Space, Harrow County and Black Hammer.

"I moved to Portland, Oregon from Kansas City, Missouri to get a master’s degree in writing and book publishing at Portland State University. I had just an English degree at the time and wasn’t quite sure what to do with it yet so I thought a master’s degree would help give me focus and I was also interested in the idea of working for a book publisher rather than becoming a writer—we already have one writer in the Chabon family as is. 

 

While working on my master’s degree I started an internship at Dark Horse Comics in their editorial department. I had always been a fan of Dark Horse. When I was a kid my favorite comic was The Mask, which was much different than the movie. It was super-violent and bizarre and as a kid, I loved that kind of thing. After I graduated from Portland State I was hired at Dark Horse and learned the ropes by assisting on all the Hellboy universe books: Hellboy, B.P.R.D., Lobster Johnson, Witchfinder, and more. It as a great experience to learn comics under the amazing creators on those comics and it gave me focus to really push editing creator-owned comics as I found those to be more fun to edit. 

Since then I now find myself editing Margaret Atwood and Johnnie Christmas; Neil Gaiman, Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormston; Matt Kindt, Cullen Bunn and Tyler Crook; and many more outstanding creators. While at Dark Horse I actually even went to law school to gain a better understanding on contracts so could make the best deals possible for creators and their creator-owned work."

As you can see, Daniel wasn't initially sure of what aspect of the business he wanted to work in and whilst interning at Dark Horse he gained experience in the editorial department. This lead to work post-college with Dark Horse where he began assisting on some pretty great titles. 

One of the things I really liked about Daniel's story though is the fact he even went to law school during his time at Dark Horse so he could gain a better understanding on contracts. This is a good avenue of approach for all types of creatives within the comic field. Find your blind spots and weak points. Strengthen accordingly. 
 
Next up is Heather Antos. Heather is currently an editor at Marvel where she has overseen a plethora of Deadpool books, a whole bunch of their Star Wars books and even titles from the X-Men corner of the Marvel U. Here's, Heather:

"I became curious about learning more about the role of a comic editor shortly after graduating college. I worked for a couple of websites as a freelance writer writing about comics and all things geek culture so I already had a few acquaintances in the industry. I reached out to editor Jordan White (my current boss!) because he would be attending C2E2 the same time I was. I asked if he would be willing to sit with me and discuss what it is precisely a comic editor does - it's such a mystery to folks not in the industry.

Fast-forward to the convention, Jordan and I had a lovely conversation which kickstarted my goal of one day working as an editor for a comic publisher. Because I was out of college I had no way of getting an internship to get the experience necessary. So I decided to create my own 'internship' of sorts. I began to put together my own comic anthology. Within 4 months I had a 180pg project successfully created and funded on Kickstarter. During the final days of my kickstarter I was at NYCC where I ran into Jordan White again - I told him what I'd been up to since our last meeting and he said to keep in touch. Less than a month later I had my first interview for my current position at Marvel."

The thing that jumped out at me about Heather's story is that she actively pursued the role of editor within the industry, thus proving we don't all fall ass backwards into it. It also means her journey has a laser focus, where she is actively seeking out advice from her peers before putting together her own anthology and then putting it up on Kickstarter. 

Heather was also kind enough to point me towards a series of posts she's put up on her blog that cover the different aspects of an editor's job within the creation process. The first post can be found here and I really recommend reading them all!

===

Some links for your peepers:

Here's the NY Times on the Age of Rudeness. 

I really liked this RPS piece on the level design in the latest Hitman game and how the episodic structure helped players engage with the stages more. Hitman is probably the game I've played the most over the last year or so, going through some stages multiple times. I might write something on the game myself. 

I also really liked this LARB article on cities in sci-fi, with a particular emphasis on Blade Runner. 

===

So, I'm coming up on 1000 words pretty quickly here, so I don't want to cram much more into this week's newsletter. So, my process newsletter will have to be next week. I've also put the feelers out regarding a bit of a crossover with another newsletter. 

Other than that, Project 47 looks like it's going to drop in the summer. I still can't share too many details but needless to say I am psyched to be editing a book coming out from this publisher. The creative team is insanely talented and I've been privy to art recently and it is next level stuff. A really strong A-game from everyone involved.

Keep 'em peeled!

Until then...