This story should totally be a comic!

May 25, 2008 2:06 PM

What's the process by which published fiction gets adapted into comic book form?

I'm most interested in how this happens or could happen with short stories, but if you have information on novels, feel free to share that too. Does an author/story just get famous enough for a comic book company to approach them? Or is there a way for authors to propose adaptations to comic companies? Do you know of any examples of not-already famous short stories which have been adapted into comics? Alternately, are there spaces (virtual or real) where more DIY-style comic artists who are looking for short stories to adapt might go? Thanks!

posted by overglow to media & arts (4 comments total)

Are you an artist, or a comics writer, or both? If there's a story that interests you, you should contact the author and see if he or she is down; once that's done, pitch the idea to a comics publisher (if you want to go that route... the one time I've adapted an existing story into comics, I just put it up online, but I was just learning the ropes and am a pretty web-centric with comics anyway).

If you don't have an established relationship with a publisher, you'll have to either pitch it or self-publish, and you'll want the author's permission first.
posted by COBRA! at 2:56 PM on May 25, 2008

If you're looking for someone to illustrate something of yours, try DeviantArt.com -- lots of budding comics artists there, browse around and find someone whose style you like, strike up a conversation.

In my experience, most work and/or creators that make the jump from another medium into comics do it with a long-form project, not a short story, and it's generally something that the company specifically sought out -- meaning something with at least some kind of profile.
posted by logovisual at 7:13 PM on May 25, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

COBRA! is right. It's actually often fee simple to approach an author to suggest making a graphic adaptation. I think it's possibly harder for an author to make an approach to an artist, there has to be a shared interest. You might look into the recent success of Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon. Colon, who is in his 70s and had previously been an artist for Marvel, was working as a security guard at an airport when he came up with the idea of making a graphic novel of the 9/11 Report, which is in the public domain. It's been a remarkably successful venture. You might start there, if you are an artist: find a book in the public domain or where you can use orphan works rights. Do a first chapter, or even the first several pages as a taster to send along to those whose work you would really like to adapt. Don't do Moby Dick, but something with some recent provenance.
posted by parmanparman at 7:18 PM on May 25, 2008

Thanks for the answers so far. To answer COBRA!'s question, I'm a writer and my first short story was recently published. So that's where I'm coming from with this.

DeviantArt sounds like a good place to look.
posted by overglow at 10:00 PM on May 25, 2008