Hi, I'm a comic book artist (pencil, ink, color, and letters; I do it all!) with a few years, six titles, and hundreds of pages under my belt. Nothing caught on yet, but I'm getting there. This was all with writers who were taking their shot in the comic book medium for the first time, or aspiring writers starting out altogether. I assume this is the case for most of the writers in this sub, including me, as I'm also writing one-shots, which I'll be drawing myself.

Being a freelancer means reading a lot of scripts for potential work. After a while, I pinned down certain patterns within the scripts from inexperienced writers. Even if it is a banger story (some were! ), when the script has these MECHANICAL problems, it's real hard for the artist to turn it into banger sequential images. Lot's of potential is lost as a result. Assuming you already know the basics of storytelling (you should), those problems can easily be avoided if the writers are aware of them in advance, which is the whole point of this post.

I'm going to break it down into certain topics with smart-ass headers, and the first one is:

THE ARTIST IS NOT YOUR AUDIENCE
Aspiring writers are always highly enthusiastic about their story. Ever so enthusiastic when sharing it with an artist and expecting them to be the number 1 fan right on. This is shooting yourself in the leg. At this point, you believing you have a good story is all that is needed. Then, what you need is not a fan but an artist who is able and willing to turn that story into killer images, page after page. The fans will show up once it is done. When looking for an artist, make sure talent and professionalism are prior over enthusiasm. Then, make sure you give them enough (even more than enough) information about your story via the script, which brings up the second topic:

THE ARTIST IS YOUR ONLY AUDIENCE
I said headers will be cocky. Being a writer in comics sucks in one aspect. Your part in the collaboration is writing a script. Yet no one will be paying for reading the script. They mostly show up for the art, which is the work of an artist based on that script you write. Words you put into the balloons and captions are also part of the finished book, but script writing is much more than just writing dialogue and captions. My point is, you are writing the script for the artist (or the art team). So treat it as more of a technical instruction than a literature piece. Don't be shy to show off when writing the dialogue, but be precise when you are on the rest of it. On the script, you are not telling a story; you are explaining how that story should be told in a medium using words AND pictures. That being said, this is no engineering feat; we are doing art, after all. If I may be a little fancy myself, allow me to say that the script should still inspire, provoke, and encourage the artist to draw each page like they are building the Sistine Chapel on the tightest deadline. With that, at any point, the artist should always know what's under the hood. This brings it to my favorite topic and the biggest reason I write this piece:

DON'T GO H.P. LOVECRAFT IN THE SCRIPT
I go BERSERK when reading a script and a scene is described with following words: something, somehow, somewhere, and so on. Or things like, 'They see some figure at the distance, but they are not sure what it is.' Well, as the writer, are you? If yes, for the love of god, explain what that thing is to your collaborator, then give the context that the characters (and/or the reader) should not be able to render it clearly. If you do not know what it is as the writer, please go figure it out first, then continue with the rest of the script. If it is something that needs to be worked on, then work it out with the artist before letting them draw the actual pages of the comic book. If you are creating suspense with your storytelling, remember the previous topic; you are not writing a novel, you are writing a technical instruction. Describe everything in the scene, then dictate what will be shown, what will be withheld. If somehow you are the fancy writer and you are after some abstract imagery within the page, also convey this intention as a clear instruction. 

Transfer of information from one creative to another is the whole point of a script. It should be rich, it should be clear, and it should be as upfront as possible. 

REALIZE THAT YOU ARE CREATING A PHYSICAL PRODUCT (EVEN IF IT WILL BE A DIGITAL RELEASE)
One and only thing that upcoming writers always overlook is what will be the format of the book they are working on day and night. Which is, the actual physical dimensions of the book that will be printed. Tech bro in you can say it will be a web release, but even then it should be formatted for vertical scroll, which has a set amount of width as in the quantity of pixels. Plus, drawing for vertical scroll means a whole set of different rules for visual storytelling, so this almost entirely becomes a different kind of job for the artist (at least for the guy who will do the penciling part). I've never done a webcomic, so I won't go any further in that direction. For print format comics, page size is an important factor. If you are printing on A4 (for people from the USA, it is approximately the magazine size. Think of Heavy Metal or MAD), you can pack more panels, hence more content in a single page. Standard American comic page is a bit smaller and much more narrow. You can add interesting vertical panels but horizontally you are more limited than A4. You can go smaller and cut some significant cost with A5 format or even smaller, the Japanese tankobon (B6), which they collect most of the manga, but now the amount of panels that can be drawn on a page is even more limited. And when thinking physical limitations, don't just think about the art. It also applies for the amount of words you are putting out via letters on the page (dialogue, captions, etc.). Speaking of cost-cutting, you need to consider the type of paper you are going to print. You can go for a cheap paper stock with black & white art like manga do. The art would be faster and cheaper as you eliminate the coloring process, but it will never look as good as a book printed on premium-quality magazine-size paper with vibrant color work. You can have lots of dialogue and still have enough space for artwork to breath on an A4 paper, but the same amount of dialogue would probably mean all walls of text and not much artwork on a standard American comic book size. 

Choices, choices.

Don't worry though; it is rather a much more straightforward process than a complicated one. You just need to go to a comic shop and check out what kind of formats are there on the shelf. Then learn the basic terminology, and then you know what you are doing. My suggestion is to just focus on the story and create an outline first. Depending on the kind of story you end up with, go with your gut feeling to choose a format for it. From then on, always keep that format back in your mind during your decision-making while constructing the script.

DIALOGUE BALLOONS ARE NOT AS STRAIGHTFORWARD AS THEY SEEM
Your most impactful contribution to the use of the physical space, as a writer, is the amount of dialogue (or captions) you write into the page. When you write too much of a dialogue, you end up with a wall of text on the page. If you don't know what the definition means, go check out Daredevil run written by Kevin Smith. With writing dialogue, you need to be sure you are leaving enough space for art as well.

There is another point that is usually overlooked: how is the dialogue delivered within a comic book? It is the balloons, of course. Each balloon takes up certain amount of space. So far pretty straightforward, right? But things can get very complicated when you have multiple characters in a scene. Too much of a back and forth dialogue means lots of balloons filling up the panels. And it will be a nightmare to arrange in most cases. If an exchange can be made by using three word balloons in total, but you set it up in a way that it now needs to be seven balloons, you are doing it wrong.

Avoid:
 MARK: Carrie, what's up?
 CARRIE: Good, you.
 MARK: Fine. You heard the news?
 CARRIE: What news?
 MARK: They've found an alien ship by the lake this morning!
 CARRIE: What the hell!

Do:
 MARK: Carrie, what's up? You heard the news about an alien ship they've found by the lake this morning?
 CARRIE: What the hell?!

On top of all these, when writing the dialogue in the script, do it so as if it is a movie script. The character giving the line should be written at the beginning. And every line delivered should be separated by line breaks. Use all caps. Otherwise, it will be a mess to copy and paste when adding letters to the comic pages.

FURTHER THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN WRITING A SCRIPT
Drawing a page and designing a character are different jobs. If your main character(s) doesn't have a visual design yet, pay for concept art first. Don't expect to hire up an artist for a standard page rate and make them design your character on the run while drawing the page. This is not a fair play.

Give the artist occasional opportunities to show off their art.

Format your script in a way that it can be easy to fish out information when crafting the pages. Characters, location, time of day, etc.

Adding a summary of the story in your script always gives you good karma.

Use a proper text editor. Every device has one. Notes app doesn't count.

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This is all the things I wanted to share with upcoming writers lurking in this subreddit to find a collaborator. The intention is to make writer-to-artist communication more clear and make sure nothing is lost in translation. On top of that, to give the artist proper direction so that they can be in a confident and motivated mood to create the best possible art on the pages.

Thanks for reading this lengthy post. Some of the observations might come as blunt, others irrelevant. Treat it as an open buffet; take what you like, ignore what you despise.

I'm a writer,with lots of comic-type and manga-type stories in need of a comic artist.I want us to form a comic company of two.

Hi! I'm the writer of a new comic, 'Revelation of Medea,' about the mythological figures of Jason, the Argonauts, and the witch Medea; starting from Jason's quest to claim the Golden Fleece, all the way to the end of Jason and Medea's marriage and Medea's subsequent revenge against her husband when he abandons her to marry another woman.

The first issue of 'Revelation of Medea' is out now digitally from Markosia, and I wanted to draw this community's attention to it in particular because my collaborators and I found each other here in r/ComicBookCollabs -- artist Fabio Guimarães and letterer Marina Leon, both of whom I hired as paid freelancers through a thread in r/ComicBookCollabs (they're both fantastic and a pleasure to work with, btw).

I'd love to hear what you think, and thanks in advance! https://www.amazon.com/Revelation-Medea-1-Alexa-Meyer-ebook/dp/B0DDQ1PQJ9/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2XFNZBMCGF703&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.p7avar3hjy8t5Q3niOJF5ql9ttnwMfjeWyp_s9gVO6Ea1x2EX1J2vAYsRnULgGDzCpXowdPvXbXqexAMLvXnIuaQZjXUB7L0FJAbQcREuA0mdwsHwAxei_qjSasxwCc1.lhWNpRIb-i7UfR9N60QLjhcJKzuD-3dSTiiNDRNkqIQ&dib_tag=se&keywords=revelation+of+medea&qid=1733000170&sprefix=revelation+of+medea%2Caps%2C152&sr=8-1

i created my first manga/comics volume 1. id love to publish it if anyone knows where and how.. and if someone can promote it as well

All information can be found with the links below. This is a PAID opportunity.

Currently searching for concept artist(s) and writers/editors. DM me ONLY after checking the links below and still having further questions. I have a budget of $2000 USD currently saved for this project, but will continue to invest as time goes on.

Here are summaries from the logline and plot description:

Logline:

When two estranged brothers find themselves as dragons in a fantasy world, they must reconnect and work together to search for a way home all while running from a government and an underground syndicate who wish to capture them for their newly awakened abilities.

Plot:

Out of place in this new world, Edix and Kine rely on each other in order to survive as they search for the Island of Tyse, their only hope to get home. Unfortunately, many consider the place to not even exist. But this is not their only obstacle; they find themselves in the middle of a great war between dragons and are forced to face it while they unravel mysteries shrouding the land.

x.com/hwaseries/status/1862713248694312988

or if you don't have twitter, follow the google form application link:

forms.gle/ZevicsGscwwVLnr28

Pitch bible is linked in the form, but I'll post it here too:

docs.google.com/document/d/1PQvYdPfzQ8aK7DD18snO-v3emQ9RsDk9P2gSWRypVLY/edit?usp=sharing

EDIT: Should have added a time frame, but application DEADLINE is at the end of the year Dec 31 2024
Also PLEASE do NOT DM me UNLESS you've read the documents, can't access them, and/or have further questions the documents do not address. Applications through the form please too as it helps streamline the application process for me.

I've tried submitting a post here 3 times for a project looking for artists and writers but it keeps getting removed. What's going on?

This is a Superhero Universe I have thought of similar to The Watchmen called The Circuit Universe

Our Story beigns in World War II where Superheroes in this world do exist with the big three being following heroes

Michael Afleck/The Rat (Think Batman Mixed with Rorchach)

Steve Christian/ATLAS (Think Captain America and the Comedian)

And Finally Madison Aniston/The Phantom Spider The Only one with Powers (Think Wonder Woman and Silk Spectre but with Spider Powers)

So they were all big stars during the war along with many other heroes calling themselves The Watch Syndicate (Think The Justice League) but their methods aren't as camera friendly but Madison was the only one who uses her powers and responsibility seriously but because of the other heroes around and including her they outlaw Superheroes in 1949 but the Government decide create an army of Superpowered child soilders to eliminate these heroes But in 1965 Madison ended up in secret saving one of these experiments a young boy with Lighting Powers who she named Hal so she took him in and raised him as her own in secret from both the Government and her former team mates But also a NEW Group of heroes who basically the counters to the old ones Think the

Howard Hefner/The Thinker (Think Iron Man)

George Kennedy/Goliath (Think) Superman

and Christy Rain/Midlight (Ms Marvel/Carol Denvers but with Green Lantern Powers)

With the 3 "Silver Age" Heroes along with many others calling themselves Revenge (Think The Avengers) who have been around since 1956 basically More traditional heroes we are used to in the media (IRL) who are trying to spread a good name to Superheroes again but believe most of the ''Golden Age Heroes'' like Madison and her "Commrades" were actually Psychopathic Monsters so Madison is trying to hide our young protag while she trains and raises him