Catching a Vision Interview 008
Learning the Craft of Editing
Catching a Vision, the weekly column on Comic Related from C. Edward Sellner, Founder and Creative Director of Visionary Comics Studio, provides practical guidance on how to break into the comics industry, as well as insights into this medium we all love. With resources you can order online, interviews and debates with comic professionals, and online workshops, this is your best introduction into the wonders of creating comics!
This is the last in this grouping of "Learning the Craft" introductory columns as we come to, truly, the one job that starts before the writer has a script, and does not end until after the book is at the printer. It's the bookend job, and for many, it's the least understood and sometimes most maligned job in comics...that of Ye Olde Editor!
Editing is not an easy job to define in comics, or in any creative medium really. It's a very hard job to train for and one that has precious little in the way of guidelines and standard policies that help define it. Editing is something of a gut instinct, a natural talent that can best be honed through practical application. It's also a job that can easily be twisted and abused by those who really don't have that talent or skill. Why? Let's look at the job itself.
Overview...
Editors are the ones who have been entrusted with the job of trying to make a book the best possible book it can be.
Sometimes they are entrusted with that job by the corporate entity that owns the character, thus ultimately the story and book itself. This is the case for editors at companies like Marvel and DC. The characters are owned by the publisher, the editors are the liaisons between the company's ownership and interest and the creative teams hired to create the stories as work-for-hire. They then are clearly the boss in the direction of the book.
Other times editors may be more partners, such as when creative teams enlist the services of an editor in order to help hone their skills and improve their work, such as in the case of Visionary Comics Studio. We are hired by our clients, various creative teams, to push them to make their book the best it can be.
In some instances the editor can be a pretty schizoid position, hired by one party, representing the interests of another party and working with a third party in terms of creative teams. This is the case for editors working with licensed books, a growing trend in comics. They'have to'keep the owner of the property happy, but work primarily for the company'holding the license, most likely a publisher, and must then'oversee the teams creating the licensed book. Fun huh?
From whichever direction the editor comes at a project however, they still are, by definition the party 'in charge'. After all, their job, if they do it well, is to oversee or manage a project. It may seem odd on one level to create a property, bring in an editor to help develop it into a comic, then essentially hand them the reins of the actual book. But what you're really doing is bringing in a manager, someone to oversee and move things toward completion.
This will mean in its fullest, that an editor will discuss plots and outlines with the writer, helping to fine tune them. They will review every word of a script to edit for mistakes, grammatical errors, continuity problems or just attempts in writing that fall flat in accomplishing the goal. In the case of an editor whose company owns the property, or is working on a licensed property, they may also be very involved in selecting the direction of those stories, or enforcing the boundaries of what can be done and what cannot be done depending on whatever strictures have been set out by the higher ups.
Then the editor will work with the artist, perhaps reviewing layouts or thumbnails, penciled pages as well as later stages of art, when the pages are being inked and colored. Here, likewise, the editor's job is to focus on what is being produced and asking the question: is it the best it can be? Is the penciler using good anatomy? Is their perspective in place? Do they use good two and three point layout? Are the characters drawn right? Does the body language and page layouts tell the story? Is the inker enhancing the art? Are they adding weight properly to make the art pop? Is the colorist enhancing the art? Is their palette good? Are they using good saturation techniques and a balanced use of digital effects?
In other words, they will be looking to see if the creators are doing all the stuff we've been talking about throughout this discussion so far.
Now, it may be true that a given book might have more then one editor, say, someone who works on the story and another on the art, but most times, there is one person who oversees the whole thing and has skills in all those areas; which leads into the next section...
The Challenges...
By definition then, an editor has to be a jack of all trades in the comic industry. They have to have a background and good working knowledge in all the arenas of a comic's production. They may not know all the technical how to pieces, but they should know when something is working, when it isn't and why. It's not enough that an editor can say that a scene is written wrong and falls flat, or a penciled page looks off, or an inked page is too dark, or a colored page too muddy, or the lettering is bad. They have to be able to point to solutions, to specifically identify where they feel the creator is falling short and help them in a direction to overcome or fix those shortcomings.
More than any other job in comics, editors must walk a very fine tight rope, sometimes a microscopic tightrope in order to do a good job. What do I mean by that? Let's break it down.
An editor is something of a teacher, they have to find that balance between correcting and encouraging. An editor cannot be a 'yes' person. They cannot be afraid to challenge someone, or concerned any thing they say negative might 'hurt someone's feelings'. If they don't point out where things fall short, then they are essentially not doing their jobs and thus not helping the project at all.
However, an editor can't just trash someone's work, or constantly criticize. They have to encourage and inspire their creators as well as challenge them in order to get them to produce their best work. This means a balance of praising a creator's strengths, pointing out where they succeed in their work, as well as gently, yet assertively, pushing them to do better.
Another critical piece of editing, is the ability of the editor to distinguish the fine line between whether something 'works' or not, versus whether it's the way THEY would do it or not. An editor who can't make this distinction ends up competing with the creator as opposed to helping them.
For example, when an editor is brought on board for a character or concept, in the process of fleshing out this concept into a full story, they are naturally going to form some preconceptions of how things will unfold, what direction a story will take etc. Likewise, when reviewing a script and visualizing how it will flow on a page of art, they form ideas on page layouts, etc. When a creator approaches the same but goes in a different direction then the editor originally envisioned, the editor has to be able to step back from their preconceived ideas and deal with the question of whether this direction works well or not. Does the story hit the marks hoped for originally? Does the art effectively tell the story with style?
Some editors can't make that separation and instead edit based on how THEY think it should be done. Thus they may make arbitrary suggestions on taking the story in a different direction, or changing the voice used in the narrative. On art, they may be overly critical of certain layouts or camera angles. This happens a lot with editors who are primarily creators in their own right, or worse, frustrated creators in their own right, which yes, some editors are. This results, more often than not, in having someone who is second hand creating the book and generally frustrating the creators who were brought in to do just that.
This can admittedly become even trickier when the editor is representing the interests of the company who owns the property, or a licensor who has licensed the property out to the publisher. The editor then will have specific ideas, guides and overviews that they are working from and most likely ideas how things should thus be done to hit those marks.
I've seen editors who tried to make it as writers, couldn't, at least not successfully, and who now overwhelm writers they edit. They thrash the work because it's not the way they would do it and claim it isn't right, yet are unable to point out specifics of what needs fixed.'They end up writing themselves over the writer, then sometimes claiming credit.' Scary people.
The Basic Mechanics: Editing is Being a Professional Reader
This is one of the best ways I've ever heard editing described. An editor is a professional reader, who knows the material, the medium and the things needed to make it work and can give effective feedback as to where something is not working.
As an editor myself, and one I would like to think who has enjoyed a modicum of success in the field, I know my most important job is not to 'tell the story' but to ensure my creators tell the story and tell it the best they can. For a writer, I'm not going to so much tell them what the voice of a character should be, as much as I will tell them whether the voice they're using works or doesn't. I'm not going to so much tell them what story to tell, as to tell them whether the story is something new and different, or overused and needs reworking. If it's something new and good, then I'm going to tell them when they are getting that story across well, or when it's missing its mark. Same with art, I'm not going to tell an artist to draw from a specific camera angle as much as tell them if they need to vary those angles more, or pick one more dramatic, etc.
Editing like everything else in comics, is a professional responsibility that carries a good bit of weight and skill with it. It also requires a high level of maturity in order to be effective. Editors are working with creators who are often pouring their hearts and souls into their work. An editor has to be able to not only make good judgments about the work, but the people they are dealing with. They have to be able to encourage yet challenge, praise yet correct. They have to be prepared to deal with creators who get frustrated or annoyed. They have to be assertive yet understanding. They have to be open to discussion and negotiation. If they aren't showing these traits and abilities, they are not going to be very effective editors.
As a creator as well, I can tell you I am a firm believer in the philosophy that everyone can benefit from good editing. No matter how good a creator is, there is something to be said for someone who is a trusted, professional outsider to review the work and tell them as a creator how they can work to improve it, or when something isn't quite clicking.
I think the creators who shun this most are simply the ones who don't have the maturity and professionalism to be professional creators yet. I think true professionals are always open to constructive feedback from a positive, critical source that can help identify problems and solutions, and not just trash or takeover a project.
I've actually found editing to be far more enjoyable than I first thought it would and feel a great sense of accomplishment when a creator tells me I've been a huge help to them in their work, or when a book I've edited gets high accolades. So like every other arena in comics, it's a job that has its up sides and its down sides.
There are a number of comic publishers who have editors working for them, but editing is a tough job to get into. Most often editors are folks who have had some pre-existing connection with a publisher, or who are recruited because of their work elsewhere.
Meaning, it's a challenging job to break into. Not impossible, but like a lot of things in comics, comes with its fair share of challenges and obstacles. Unlike most jobs in comics, being an editor also may well mean relocation. Usually larger publishers who hire editors for their projects require them to be office types, who come into the central office to work. This makes sense when you think about it, because the editors of a project become the main touchstones for the project, so, meetings with higher ups in the company, conferences with other editors on related books, etc. are all part of the job.
The best thing to do, if you want to edit professionally for a larger publisher, and thus actually get paid, is to get hands on practical experience by editing other folks. Offer your services to a small independent press or publisher. Connect with a studio who is working on projects geared for publication. By actually diving in and working on projects with creators, you can help polish something that if it catches people's attention, especially those people looking for full-time editors, you may get that break.
If nothing else, you will start building a resume of work. Then, start checking company web-sites. Larger companies will periodically be looking for Assistant Editors or Editorial Interns. This may often mean making a lot of photo-copies and getting coffee to begin with, but this is also the short train to being promoted to a full editor position.
Resources...
So where are the customary book and online resource links? Well, see above. Remember, the bulk of an editor's job is to know the other jobs in comics. Not totally surprisingly, there aren't a lot of resources out there that focus specifically on editing. It's really more a matter of combining a solid skill set in the other major arenas of comics, having a personality and demeanor that lends itself to teaching, and that unquantifiable editing touch that is pure talent.
Next...
As we close this Learning the Craft Introductory series, let me take a moment to share a bit of the GRAND plan with this column so folks know what's coming. I basically am going to run different arcs, or series that cover all the major arenas in comics, with each series being progressively more detailed or in-depth. Further, I will be alternating series between creative arenas and business arenas.
So, this first series, Learning the Craft provided a very basic introduction to each of the major areas of creating comics, from writing, on down to editing. The next series, Breaking Comics Out, is going to deal with basic introductions on the business end. So we will cover Submissions, Marketing, Publishing, Retailing, Optioning / Licensing.
Once that series is over, we will then jump back to the beginning, with writing, and start a new series that takes us to the next step in each of the areas, exploring them in more detail and depth.
Why am I doing it that way? Well, first and foremost, I want this column to cover the entire realm of comics. To do every column on writing I want to do, then switch to penciling, etc. means I would not even begin to touch on other arenas for years.
However, there is a deeper reasoning here as well. The person who wants to make the most of this column is going to do two things.
First, they are going to read it EVERY week in order to gain a better understanding of the entire industry, to know how all the pieces fit together. Why? Well, a good professional should know their business inside and out, all areas of it, not JUST their specialty. Also, someone wanting to break into comics should have a good understanding of how everything works, to help prevent them wasting time on dead-end ventures. It is a lot easier to spot when you're working with a scam artist or someone who has no idea what THEY are doing, if you have a good idea how it SHOULD be done.
Second, they are going to focus on the columns in their chosen area they are pursuing, then follow the advice, practice, and hone the skills they pick up in each series, in order to improve their craft, until the next round, where they hopefully glean some other insight to then go and practice and hone...etc. So, hopefully, new, aspiring folks, just exploring, will take the time to buy the books, do some reading, take a class here and there, etc. to start getting the basic elements, then be ready to take the next step, by the time of the next series.
So, with all that in mind, next week, we start Breaking Comics Out: The Submission where we will explore all the ins and out of creating submission packages to publishers.
Join the discussion and add your thoughts on this edition, or the column in general. If you have any questions or suggestions for resources, post them or email them to Sellner so they can be included in future columns. Are you an aspiring or up and coming creator and would like to share your story? Email Sellner and let him know who you are and what you've done.
C. Edward Sellner is the co-founder and Creative Director of Visionary Comics Studio, a studio that within its first two years has drawn high praise from the media and attracted the attention of legendary creators in the comics industry. They have been digitally and print published in the mainstream market and their creators currently work with over a dozen different publishers. Their work has been featured on television news shows, radio programs and internet podcasts as well as featured in every major comics news site online.
Contact him directly at cedwardsellner@aol.com
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