Comics numba TWO!

[Robin Firedrake]

So my little brother noticed me working on a comic and wanted to make one himself. He wants to send it in to a comic company and get it published. Whats wrong with that? Well... His hero and villains are almost exact copies of Batman villains. Worse is that i figured out he wants his character to be completely flawless and over powered. He wants a four armed super hero that has absolute control over fire (That only ever burns super villains but leaves everything and everyone else completely intact >_<) and can change into a wolf, pheonix and tiger ALSO with absolute control over fire. His hero can also fly, has super strength and is incredibly smart. And he wants him to be completely flawless. He never does ANYTHING wrong. Mind writing advice to him here? Please make it easy for a ten year old to understand because I'm gonna ask him to read it.

[Midori]

Well, Superman is basically invincible, except around kryptonite, and there are plenty of Superman stories without kryptonite. Yet people can still create problems for him. For example my parents are describing an episode where all of his friends were being attacked at once in different places, and he couldn't be at all of them at once. Of course, superheroes generally win in the end anyway.

Or take Jesus as an example. He was perfect, and always made the right decisions, and had miraculous powers. Yet there are plenty of interesting stories about him, too. But Jesus never fights super villains, so maybe that's not the best example.

I guess the main problem with his hero, though, is that there are just too many ideas in one place. Maybe he should have a team of superheroes, each one having a different power? Each one may not be as powerful, but together they are invincible.

Perhaps another thing to think about, is that to make a really involving story, it should be that the super villain almost wins, and it looks like he might win, but in the end the hero (or heroes) pull through and defeat him. If it's obvious that there's no way the villain can win, why is he even fighting?

Sorry if that's too much in one post.

[Robin Firedrake]

Tis fine. Thanks! I was beginning to think no one would post. And another thing is i was hoping you'd address his... uncreative to say the least, villains. I try to help him with them: Change different aspects of them, name change here and there and distinguishability from batman villains. Also i was hoping you'd adress the bit about the fire only working on the villains (I tried to help him out a bit. I said it wouldn't be very interesting if his hero could be blasting left and right and not be worrying about a thing.) And that's his main problem. I fail to see how a completely flawless, impossible for him to make mistakes kind of superhero is interesting.

[Raiden no Kishi]

Here's the main issue.

He's ten years old. Ten. You need to tell him that making real comics like grown-ups do takes years and years of very hard work. What he needs to do is practice drawing very, very hard right now, since writing is probably still years away for him. He needs to have someone teach him to draw and/or get drawing books and work through them and definitely start to copy real comics with good art and learn to copy them well, so that his hand learns how to make good art. He's not going to be making professional comics at ten. Tell him he needs to draw as much as he can and try every time to draw better than he did last time, even if it's just by a little.

What he wants to do is very difficult, but rewarding if one works hard. Don't candy-coat it for him.

.rai//

[Robin Firedrake]

You've never met him though. He's a VERY smart kid. When i see him I think Charles Wallace. He just lacks creativity. I'm not sugar coating it at all. (It's my mom that's doing that) I'm trying to bring him back to reality but me mumsy says I'm only allowed to help him with his ideas.

[Nate]

Between the ages of 14 to 16 I used to write godawful Sailor Moon fanfics with self-inserts, crossovers, and every other horrible thing you can do with fanfiction. I even had hopes to get Naoko Takeuchi to create new manga stories based on my works.

When I got older, I realized my fanfictions weren't good at all, and I kind of laugh at myself at how silly my hopes were.

To put it another way, this is a phase. He'll grow out of it. Don't worry. I'm sure Marvel and DC get all sorts of fanmail submissions from people that are older and more terrible than him. Just let it go.

[Maledicte]

Throw books at him. Like the DC line of Writing/Pencilling/Inking/Coloring/Lettering Comics, anatomy books, "how to write fiction" books, and books by Scott McCloud. If your brother is as smart as you say he is, he will read them.

Even though it's easy for kids to understand superhero comics, it's quite difficult to understand all the subtle, detailed work that goes into character and plot development. I doubt he'd be able to understand all that now. But for the moment, just let it go. I came up with some horrible/cliched/blatantly ripped off ideas in my younger years that I'm very glad I tossed aside, but if he doesn't have those ideas now he won't have any experience coming up with his own stories. Just introduce him to quality cinema, comics, and literature and he'll be fine.

Or, tell him his story would work great as a comedy.

[Raiden no Kishi]

You've never met him though. He's a VERY smart kid. When i see him I think Charles Wallace. He just lacks creativity. I'm not sugar coating it at all. (It's my mom that's doing that) I'm trying to bring him back to reality but me mumsy says I'm only allowed to help him with his ideas.

Regardless of how smart he is, it takes huge amounts of work. Being a "smart kid" (a subjective analysis) invalidates nothing I have said. Shoot, I'm twice his age and it would take me just as much work. A large part of good creativity is experience as well. You can be very intelligent, but you have to have done some living and analyzing the world to have something to say. He's ten. He just needs time and work on his basic skills.

.rai//

[Souba]

[color="DeepSkyBlue"]I just published my own comic this year. It's definitely not easy, you have a lot of competition out there and most of the big corporations will tell you that they will destroy material that is copyrighted, such as Dark horse who won't accept any Starwars scripts. So read those instructions for submissions on the Marvel, DC, or Dark Horse websites very well, they also require certain formats as well. I personally think the best route would be to create your own characters and publish them yourself, such as with Spawn's creator, Todd McFarlane or The Crow's creator, James O'barr did. Oh and as Sir said pick up all those How To books and draw draw draw!
Hope that helps a little.
Beloved in Grace,
Souba[/color]

[minakichan]

At the very least, protip:

DC doesn't accept submissions, and Marvel rarely does. Even if your 10 year old brother was amazing professional level (which I don't even doubt; I KNOW it's not true), it isn't an industry you break into by being good and working hard, you have to be good, work hard, and KNOW PEOPLE AND MAKE CONNECTIONS.

[Song_of_Storms]

Well, jumping back to where you said his hero was invincible, you could try this. Just as previously stated, Superman seemed invincible, but had a weakness. You could convince him that superheros that have no flaws do not seem to develop character that well. Also, how many THOUSANDS of times do superheroes seem to fall in dire predicaments, that always point at a bitter death? (yet, miracously, survive. This, of course, ignoring Marvel's horrible idea to kill off Captain America)

Still, this is a difficult situation. While you shouldn't crush your brothers dreams, you don't want him to make it seem easy. You should explain to him that if he really wants to get into the comic industry he needs to persevere and work hard. Until then, you could just help him write comics for his own enjoyment. That way, he could work out the plot/character bugs and still do what he loves! Also, pray about it. Nothing is impossible if you ask God!