The Portfolio Game, Part 1

It's easy to be nervous about presenting your portfolio to an editor or another artist at a comic book convention. It's easy to delay it, in the mistaken belief that a lot is hanging on this one early incarnation of your portfolio. It's not so. The first convention at which you show your portfolio is the beginning of a process, it's not the whole game. You will very likely not walk up to an editor, wink, say, "Have I got a style for you" and blow him away. Not at the first con and probably not the fifth.

For now, just pick the very best pages you have. The ones that you don't feel you have to make excuses for or explain anything about. Maybe that's just three pages now. That's fine. Your job is not to convince an editor that you are already the artist you secretly hope to be. You need to make the most favorable representation of where you are in your growth now.

Right now, you can only be as good as you are right now. You are accountable for nothing more. Don't wait for inspiration to strike so you can finish that really great page you know you have within you. It'll come out some day. For now, the most important thing is that you get the process started.

Be clear on this: You will only show editors pages with storytelling. No pin-ups, no covers. I should retype this ten times because people always seem to dream up reasons why they should show some single drawing. Don't! Story pages only!

If you are demonstrating inking, make sure that you have xeroxes of the original pencils. It's much better if these are not your pencils, but those of a professional. If you know a comic book artist, ask him or her if you could make copies of some xeroxes of their pencils and others'. All artists have some. You can ink these on one-ply bristol on a light box, with a duplicate on hand to refer to. Or you can scan them and print them out in blue ink onto two-ply bristol on a large format ink-jet printer. Again, have a copy on hand to refer to.

JH