#premierpulp!

Deadlines & Comic Formats:

The comics we ran in the past were at A4 proportions at 200PPI or higher (being at least 1654*2339 pixels) in a .PNG or .TIF format. We have no plans at the moment to move away from that format, so proceed with creating your comics in the same format for us.

Everyone should also be familiar with the deadline system we have in place for submissions. For the upcoming Spring 2017 issue (we’re trying to stick with the quarterly format), we're likely to use similar deadlines from before. Here's what we're looking at:

Entry Deadline: March 5th (bumped up from March 1st, sorry about letting you know so late, tumblr)

Progress Deadline 1: March 24th

Progress Deadline 2: April 14th

Final Deadline: April 28th

Release: May 5th/6th

Staff Status:

Initially the magazine was a project solely run between Jack Garren and Brian. Both of them split editorial tasks—Jack Garren handled layout and Brian managed various other tasks. With Brian assisting the relaunch of Premier Comics last year, we luckily have a launch pad from which to work ourselves.

Luckily we still have Vorked (Brandon) on the team, who is taking time out of Halo tabletop shenanigans to help with both editorial tasks and website management. Everyone is welcome to come by our Discord server (more on that later) and introduce yourself to the community that has gathered around that particular watering hole. Just be aware if no one gets back to you, to wait a bit.

Continuing rebuilding the Community:

Many of you probably remember the #Pulp IRC channel we had on rizon. Some of you never joined it and mainly hung around on Skype or the forums. With 'Discord', I think I've found something that will please both kinds of people. Discord is basically IRC 2.0, with features for voice chat, editable posts, and multiple channels on a single server. It has both a desktop and web based client.

Here is an invite to our server: https://discord.gg/0tD9RZu8RQWWHeds (I changed the settings so that it won't expire)

The community we (re)developed died out a little bit since the magazine re-launch, but it is still plenty vibrant and I expect it to pick up again as we get back into work mode. We will be able to continue to have people sharing ideas, offering feedback, and collaborating together once again. At the moment the old forum is still around, but whether or not we'll be reviving it is unknown. Many of the social media outposts will be updated as well, so remember to follow us.

Conclusion:

There are still a lot of topics I want to discuss with everyone, and I want you all to know that this project is just as much yours as it is mine, Brandon’s, and Jersh’s, but we want to stay true to Brian’s original vision—hell, if you notice, I took the formate of this email from the ones he used to send. If you have any feedback to give us, questions, ideas for the magazine, or topics you'd like me to discuss in the next newsletter, please do not hesitate to message any of us. You can reach me over email (the one that sent this) or find me in the voice chat of the Discord server. Until then,

- Bear

Having gone over how the deadlines work and what we expect from comic submissions, I'll now talk about the submission process itself. Since you're going to be emailing us for the deadlines, here's what what expect in the emails.

Subject Line: Be professional. Use this template: [ISSUE RELEASE DATE] SUBMISSION - [COMIC NAME] BY [AUTHOR/AUTHORS] Example: November 2016 Submission - Sprite by Oruguin Avoid: My submission / Here's my comic / I like comics / etc.

Email Content: Be straightforward. Hit these points:

Introduction: Hello, my name is… I am sending in COMIC NAME. My collaborator is/I’m working alone. This comic is a one-shot/ongoing and is X pages long. The basic gist of the comic is…

The Submission: I've zipped up the storyboards/attached the script to this email.

Contact info: Info: My site is… You can contact me over email/this website.

More on Submissions: Earlier I talked about what we'd like to see from submissions. I'll give some examples now from comics we've run in the past.

For a team collaboration, you can take a look at we received for Mouth by Schwarbage and Pal-el. -> Script Concept Art Work

For a solo effort, you can take a look at what we received for Nancy ‘n' Winston by Dustin. -> Example 1 2 3 Tidiness: If you want to earn my gratitude, go easy on my inbox and use the same email to stay in contact with me and for further updates on the submission. It should make things easier for both sides. Of course you can always send in a separate email if it’s easier for you.

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Continuing from the previous post, I'll now talk about submissions and what we’re looking for. There are three areas to keep in mind: Length, Content, and Technical Requirements.

Length: The recommended page limit for comic submissions is 20 pages. We prefer for comics to be around 10 pages, as comics around 20 pages can be difficult to sequence in the magazine. Often times they end up at the end or middle of the magazine, so we prefer to run two or less large comics per issue. If we have too many large comics completed for a single issue, we may ask to hold onto one or more for the next issue.

Because larger comics are a huge undertaking, it's not recommended for newcomers to tackle them. However, we don't restrict anyone from trying them. Why? We're a magazine about helping people learn to make comics. Failure is a huge part of learning, and people must be allowed to make mistakes and learn from them. If a larger project defeats you it'll help you learn to scale back your ambitions and accurately assess what you’re capable of.

That said, do a short comic as your first project. Seriously.

Content: Our magazine has no particular theme. Stories of any genre are accepted, though certain genres tend to work better for short comics than others. Some swearing and nudity is fine, but outright pornographic comics are not. We'd like to upload the comic to sites like Comixology in the future, and many have content restrictions, so think ahead as we may end up asking you to edit your comic to meet one of these site's standards.

You must hold the copyright to anything you submit (that means no fanfiction). Please ensure all creators of the work consent to its submission. Copyright of all comics included in the anthology remain with its creators. However, we will be trying to get the magazine hosted on sites like Comixology in the future, so contact us in advance if you have any objections to a particular site.

The most important rule is to tell a story with your comic. Focus on making one-shots or an episodic ongoing series. For the latter, each entry must be a satisfying read on its own and not require further reading to be enjoyed. Doctor Who or Adventure Time are examples of this kind of storytelling- it has a continuity but you can hop in at any point and still understand and enjoy it.

Technical Requirements: This is the most important section to read in this post. If your comic does not meet these requirements, we can't run it.

The magazine’s pages are A4 sized at 200ppi- 1654×2339 pixels. Send your images into us at a high resolution (we will adjust them in InDesign as necessary). Avoid JPEG compression and save your images in a high quality .TIF, .PNG or .EPS format. Do not use transparency and save your files in RGB color. Every comic must feature a title and full credits on its first page. Do not include page numbers on your pages.

--- In my next post, I will giving a tutorial on how to submit comics to us. It's nothing complicated but I do have a lot of good advice to share! I'm available for questions via the message section here, our email ([email protected]), or via our Discord server (https://discord.gg/0tD9RZu8RQWWHeds). Until then,