Work in Comics, Nexus, Webcomics.com and Optimum Wound’s Submission Guidelines Directory.

by Jason Thibault

There’s a host of resources, online magazines, and membership sites out there for a comic creator to take advantage of this year. Actually the sheer volume of it on the internet is breathtaking and maybe a little overwhelming for a new creator.

Let’s a take a quick look at four places where you can either hone your skills, sharpen your marketing knowledge or attempt to obtain work in the comics industry.

Our first stop will be at the new Work in Comics site. Nick Defina and the crew at Septagon Studios have done an amazing job bringing this site to life. Nick and company have been working on this for a long time which shows in the polished look of the site. This is where you go to offer up your services as a creator, find a partner or to put a full-blown team together.

The site mission states, ‘Our goal at Work In Comics is to help you find independent creators in all areas of comic development. It is a place where people looking for work in comics can find opportunities or create their own. We have great tools and resources available to help get you started on your way to building your comic team and getting your comic project realized.’

Key Features
• One stop to finding all the people you need to get your comic project off the ground
• Current listings
• Multiple search options
• Lets you upload resumes, demo reels and artwork
• Variety of filters to optimize searching
• Opportunity to look for a jobs or employees on the global scale
• Post your Announcements and Events
• Find help in any area of comic development
• Make some moolah
• Make some friends
• Make a comic!
• It’s all FREE!

Here’s a video demonstration of how Work in Comics operates.

Work In Comics: Demo Trailer from Work in Comics on Vimeo.

Webcomics.com is an info site run by comics creator Brad Guigar. In early 2010 they made the decision to become a paid subscription site as Guigar was putting in almost as much time into it as he was on his webcomics. It’s packed with tonnes of useful articles on every facet and step of creating and marketing your online comic. $30 USD gets you a year’s entry to the site. Features include:

* Frequent updates of news, advice, tutorials and strategies by webcomics veteran Brad Guigar.
* Monthly contributions by webcomics pioneer Scott Kurtz and Penny Arcade’s Business Guy, Robert Khoo.
* Personalized features like a new e-mail-based organizer to help you plan for upcoming conventions.
* Feedback and guidance for your comic and the small business you’ll create running it.
* A fully rounded, indexed repository of two year’s worth of information that you can use to help improve your work.
* A moderated, passionate, supportive community of webcomics creators.
* Inside information on conventions, vendors and other entities that webcartoonists access to advance their businesses.
* Deals on merchandise.

Ian Shires and the crew at Self Publisher Magazine launched the free PDF magazine NEXUS in January of 2010. They’ve maintained a monthly release schedule and have 3 issues out now. The focus is mainly on indy comics and self publishing featuring interviews, features, HOW-TO’s and reviews. Another welcome addition.

And then there’s of course our comic submissions directory of publishers who still accept creator proposals and art samples. We launched it in May, 2009 and did a huge overhaul in December. The writers definitely have a tougher go of it than the artists but there’s still publishers out there willing to look at your wares.

We try to keep it updated as often as possible and keeping track of 70 publishing companies can be a huge undertaking. We aim to track everything at least on a quarterly basis to see if certain guidelines have changed or links have become broken.