Writing comics as a second job

Starting out in the comic book industry from a regular 9 to 5 job must be difficult, no one expects to get the top tier books immediately and so for some the comic gig is probably the night time and weekend job while waiting for that chance at a big shot title. Khoi Pham artist of The Mighty Avengers was a lawyer by day and an artist by night (although he has since quit being a lawyer to be a full time artist) but what about those not in the regular jobs what about those who work in the entertainment biz?

Being famous or working on something famous carries a certain stigma, everyone either demands high quality from the products they make, create etc or they are berated for being money grabbing bastards taking away from the professionals. When it comes to comics it is a little of column A and column B. In recent years there has been an influx of Hollywood writers writing for comics, mainly Marvel, writers such as Lost’s Damon Lindelof, Grey’s Anatomy’s Allen Heinberg and Clerks’ Kevin Smith have all had moderate, if not cult success with their titles in Marvel for pretty much the same reason, their projects have been delayed.

In Heinberg’s case it was a few months delay between issues of Young Avengers, with fans awaiting the ‘second season’ of it while he gets enough scripts written before it gets solicited. In the case of Lindelof, his Ultimate Wolverine v Hulk had been delayed a few years and is only now getting finished, and the less said about Smith’s Daredevil: Target the better, issue 2 hasn’t even seen the light of day and never will. Heck even X-Men director Bryan Singer was meant to write an arc of Ultimate X-Men, which will never see print even if there were scripts as the series ended fairly recently and yet fans still demand it.

Obviously having a TV/Movie writer, taking a crack at comic book characters is very appealing to both a comic company and to fans of the TV series and movies that these writers have been involved in however for TV writers the demands of rewrites during rehearsals and on shooting days can often mean the demands for something which for them is more of a personal project than a career/job is put on the back burner leading to delays.

There are some such as Paul Cornell, J Michael Straczynski and Jeph Loeb who are able to work two lives of movie/TV writer (or in Jeph Loeb’s case executive producer) and comic book writer without many delays to their projects however since gaining some critical acclaim for his script for Changeling, Straczynski’s comic work (Marvel’s Thor and DC’s Brave and the Bold) has suffered some delays and in the case of the latter the project has yet to start, at least until there are a sufficient number of scripts for the book to run without delays I should imagine.

There have been some stars who have worked on comics in the past, Nic Cage worked with his son on a comic book series for Virgin Comics called Voodoo Child, entrepreneur and occasional rock star Gene Simmons has his own line of books as well as the KISS comics and even porn star Jenna Jameson created a comic book for Virgin Comics (which sounds ironic doesn’t it) called Shadow Hunter, although none has been as popular as My Chemical Romance’s Gerard Way’s Umbrella Academy published by Dark Horse. Way has been smart with his title, while keeping the same creative team, Way writes his Umbrella Academy in seasons rather than as an ongoing, a method which is proving to be successful so far.