Job Hunting in the Comic Industry: Post 1
mood: 
awake
awakemusic: Black Lab
The first time I showed my work to a comics agent was several years ago-- I was still a student at the college of Fine Arts (Painting), and brought a folio full of Real Person sketches and paintings in poses designed to be held for three hours. Needless to say, I got my ass handed to me by the agent I showed them to, who said that if I wanted to do mainstream comics then I needed to actually DO mainstream comics for my portfolio.
I thanked him for his advice, left, and got on with my life.
Fast forward several years: I'm a graduate of 2 Fine Art majors-- both Painting and Visual Communication (Advertising), have been designing professionally for the past 4 years, and have local comics credits (as a colorist) under my belt.
Now, as I spend my days in a cubicle as a corporate monkey who designs Print Ads and Websites and various random graphics for a living, I realized that I was at the age that I needed to either push my way into the comics industry for real, or just leave it behind forever. As I've never been able to bring myself to leave it forever, I realized it was time to Take It Seriously.
Design has always been my bread-and-butter-- it's what makes me money, what pays for my comics (and my bills), and it's what I'm good at. Coloring comics has been something I've dabbled in; I've gotten work locally but since seeing the agent years ago, this will be the first time I've actively made an effort to push this service.
Over the past few weeks, I've been working on my portfolio packet and sending it out (both via email and snail mail (which has cost me an insane amount of money)) to various companies in the US.
By now, responses are starting to trickle in. I've gotten one response from a mainstream source that had some very choice words to say about my style (looks like someone took a hose to a comic and submitted the waterlogged version), and another response from an indie source that was interested in my work and asked me to do a test page. The indie source had a very gritty art style (which I think will work well with the way I color), so I'm in the process of doing the test page and sending it back.
I had a pretty long discussion about the experience with my brother (himself a huge comic fan) over lunch, and he suggested I blog about it so I could preserve it for posterity. :)
I've been in the art industry long enough to have developed a pretty thick skin for criticism, but I have to admit that The Wait itself is pretty damned nerve-wracking. Still, I find it ironic that I still have the same level of enthusiasm for it that I had all those years ago.
I guess you know that you really love something when people are turning you down and you still keep coming back for more. Heh.
Portfolio here: (head to the comics folio section) http://liezlbuenaventura.com