ESSAY // 6.13.02

ONE SHOTS
By Alasdair Stuart

Size doesn't matter, when it comes to comics. Neither does quality of art, publication schedule, variant covers or any of that crap.

What matters is The Moment.

The point at which the idea leaves your head, gets transmitted into a medium of some form and is read/heard/seen/experienced by someone else. That's The Moment to aim for, the moment that justifies every single thing you've done to get to that point. The final five pages of THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD, Henry Rollins yelling "Get some! Get some! Get Some! GET SOME GO AGAIN!" or Martin Sheen in mid-speech on THE WEST WING are all examples of The Moment. The Moment can take any form, be anything - from the look on an actor's face to the thunderous sound of Beethoven putting instruments together - but when it works, it's a moment of pure, genuine artistic communication.

Except in comics. In comics, The Moment is restricted to specific locations and one of two basic forms. Comics, despite the best efforts of many to do otherwise, are still either 22-page trimmed A4 leaflets or 120+ page books. All of which are sold in specific locations, locations that in turn are dwindling in number.

This is not how it has to be.

Every city has coffee shops now. It's a fact of life. I live in York in England, a community whose designation as "city" is more due to the cathedral located here than the actual size of the town. There's less than half a million people here, and at last count there were somewhere in the neighborhood of twelve separate coffee shops. That's even before you take into account the sandwich bars, the cafes and the street vendors. In fact, factor them in and you've got something like fifty separate outlets. Outlets for single page bursts of communication, or art.

Or One Shots, if you will.

So here's the idea, broken down with rough numbers:

STAGE 1-THE IDEA

You build a story in four pages. Specifically, a serial, something that can be read in chunks but when read altogether presents a much larger, more interesting picture. Doesn't matter how it's done or what it looks like, just go and do it. It's really that simple.

Don't have an artist? Take photos.

Lousy photographer? Get a friend to take photos.

Don't have a camera? Use stick figures, magazines and glue. I'm deadly serious, I've seen this done and the comic which uses it, ZYGO-A-GO-GO, does a brisk little business in my store.

Once it's done, go and get a new email account. This is incredibly important and cannot be stressed enough. If this thing is out in the public view, then you'll want a way for people to be able to get in contact with you about your work, while at the same time having some method to filter out the morons from those genuinely interested in your stuff. Email's not hard to obtain and anymore can be had for free: go get a new Hotmail or Yahoo! account and you'll be fine.

STAGE 2-LOGISTICS

Pick ten sites in your hometown. They can be coffee shops, cafes, cinema lobbies - whatever. Note the addresses and phone numbers down.

Copy the first part of your comic. If you've got ten sites, assume five to eight copies for each site, which gives you a total of not more than 80 pages. 80 single pages.

If this costs you over ten bucks to copy, then you're doing something very wrong. Even if you decide to copy all four parts and have everything sitting waiting to go, that's 240 pages total. This should cost you forty bucks, tops.

STAGE 3-THE PITCH

The pitch is simple. You're a local artist (you were a local artist the second you made the comic. Tell them this, never sell yourself short) and you'd like to place some flyers of your work in their shop, if that's okay.

Now, I've done this recently and I did a couple of things that I think helped land some stuff with the local coffee shops:

Dress smartly. We're not talking a suit and tie here, but by the same token we're not looking at combat boots, JAY AND SILENT BOB t-shirts and a leather jacket. Wear a shirt, no tie.

Work out what you want to say before hand. This is what I always have trouble with, my brain having a tendency to work a little bit faster than my mouth. So, when I did this a while back, I went in with the following talking points already decided on:

Some people will say no. Which is fine. You smile, and you nod and you thank them for their time and leave.

However, if you've gotten them to "yes" and you're feeling extra silver-tongued and charming then there's something extra you can try. If it's a small scale business instead of a chain, then you could try and persuade them to package one copy of each page with each sandwich, each cup of coffee that they send out. A giveaway - everyone likes free stuff, so why not?

In any event, The Pitch is the tough part, and it's also the most important. Be nice, be articulate and be ready for people to say no. Some will, but many won't.

STAGE 4-PRESS

So people have said yes. Now, you go and let the world know when your magnum opus will be available. Once again, it's all a matter of telephone numbers and names.

Ring the local paper, radio station, student newspaper, listings magazine or whatever. Tell them about what you're doing, and ask for the name of the Local News Reporter or the Arts Correspondent. If they offer to put you through, accept. Then explain what you're doing, again. Talk to them about your project. If you don't get the correspondent you're looking for, ask for their postal address or the email address of the appropriate reporter. Send them a copy of your press release.

This last one is also pretty important and thankfully, easy to find out about if you've never done one before. TRUE FACTS has an excellent walk-through on how to build a press release, and indeed a press list, while a quick look at most comic news sites will give you an idea of how copy is phrased - and often, how copy ought not to be phrased.

STAGE 5-WAIT

There might be no response. It's something you've got to acknowledge but not dwell on: the possibility that you might get this far, get your project made and placed, and no one will ever talk to you about it. There will be no new messages in your inbox, no callbacks from the local paper and little or no response from the customers of the coffee shops. You will walk past your comic in the gutter, see it used as an ashtray or thrown away in bins like litter.

You still win. Here's why.

Firstly, you've done it. That's the most important thing, that you've gotten an idea from your head out to other people. You've had The Moment; you've created something that is unique because it's come from YOU and no one else. Never lose sight of that and never lose sight of the achievement it represents.

Secondly, you've just got yourself an immense boost in stature. There's a world of difference between the people who have ideas and never follow them through, and the people who have ideas and move heaven and Earth to get them done.

Keep your master copies, keep any press you've gotten, and make sure you keep those phone numbers. By doing this, you've proved yourself capable of organizing, designing, distributing and promoting a comic - and a unique one at that.

What that won't get you is a job in the comic industry.

What it will get you is noticed, proud and artistically fulfilled.

And all in One Shot