A little over a year ago, my buddy J. Torres asked me to help him pitch a new volume of his Oni Press series from yesteryear- Side Kicks. It’s about a school for super powered teenagers. He really came up with cool characters coupling powers with personalities you’d never suspect. It was a neat little anime/manga style comic and you should totally Google it.
Having read several issues of the first series, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a natural fit stylistically. I was more than flattered just to have been asked.
Before you pitch a series, sometimes it’s important to have as many ducks in row as possible. I’ve heard stories that sometimes a pitch could be as simple as a sentence FROM an editor or a sentence TO an editor. On the other end of the spectrum, sometimes you need the entire creative team in place and in others, you’ll need the entire book “in the can” and ready for print. No two pitches are ever the same, just as no two “breaking stories” are ever the same.
Don’t look to me for advice, I haven’t done either successfully.
For this series proposal, there were two approval processes I had to go through. First, I had to go through the writer (volleying emails back and forth) and then the characters had to make it through the editor/publisher of the proposed comics.
Anyway, J. Torres had a four issue outline (character descriptions and character arcs) all mapped out. All he needed from me were character designs. We went back and forth on a few designs, but ultimately the series was scrapped. Oh well. Enjoy these concept sketches for the next couple of days.
First up was one of the more difficult faculty members to nail down.
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