Comic Book Publishing - Get Your Series Publishing

If you want to send out your idea for consideration, it makes sense to know who the players are and what kind of material they publish, so you can target your submissions. Check with each company listed, but in many cases, you will need to send samples or a complete mock-up of your work.

In order to be considered, your work must be original, you must be able to convey emotion in your character's faces and you must understand the pacing of a story and how it should unfold. You'll need a resume and portfolio with samples of your work.

If none of these companies is a fit or if you get turned down by all of them, consider comic book self publishing which makes sense in today's print-on-demand world. You might also consider creating a web site, building an email list and distributing your work electronically. If it's popular enough, you could even syndicate it across a number of web sites.

Another exciting option is to create, print and bind your own comics book using a simple to use binding system. This gives you control of the entire process and is a great way to start building your market of enthusiastic fans.

To get an idea of the different companies that are self-publishing their work, scroll down to see our listings.

Comic Book Publishing: The Big Two and their Titles

• DC Comics - a subsidiary of Time Warner, this comic book publisher owns the biggest share of the market and also owns the imprints Vertigo (violence, adult language and mature situations) and Wildstorm (Cliffhanger, Homage, America's Best Comics).
• Marvel Comics - includes Spider Man, Black Panther, Captain America, Conan the Barbarian, The Hulk, X-Force and more.
• Archie Comic Publications
• Dark Horse Comics
• Image Comics

Indie and Niche Comic Book Publishing

Manga - means "picture book" in Japanese. These comic books have been translated from Japanese to English and have a distinct drawing style.

• Antarctic Press
• CPM Manga
• Dark Horse Comics
• Mixx Entertainment
• Viz Communications

Independent Comic Book Publishing Houses

Comic Book Self Publishing - widely accepted in the comic world, many comic book artists publish their work using the same standards the mainstream publishers use.

Some examples include:

• Abstract Studio - Strangers in Paradise
• Adhesive Comics - Too Much Coffee Man
• Basement Comics - Cavewoman
• Crusade Comics - Shi
• Cup O' Tea - Xeno's Arrow
• Dork Storm - Dork Tower
• El Capitan Books - Stray Bullets
• Helikon Comics - Galaxion
• Insight Studios - Liberty Meadows
• Studio Foglio - Girl Genius
• Warp Graphics - Elfquest

and of course, many others.

If you want to get into comic book publishing, make sure to have a resume, portfolio and know your niche. To really impress publishers in the comic book world, send a mockup of your comic book by printing out and binding the pages with an inexpensive binding system. Doing it yourself is much less expensive than hiring a printing company to do a short run of your comic books (or worse yet, taking the project to Kinkos), plus once you learn the secret, it only takes a minutes to do.