Submit your ART to 2000AD

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An Old Friend
2000AD SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES FOR ARTISTS

Please include an self-addressed stamped envelope with U.K. postage or international reply coupon. Address submissions to:
2000 AD Submissions Editor
The Studio
Brewer Street
Oxford OX1 1QN
UK

Please send COPIES of your work - never send original art. You must include an SAE with sufficient U.K. postage or an international reply coupon, or there's no guarantee you'll receive a reply. 2000 AD is not responsible for the safety or the return of any original material sent to us.
You'll receive an answer as soon as we can evaluate your work. This may take several weeks. DO NOT PHONE to discuss your submission. We receive dozens, often hundreds, of submissions a week, and it's impossible for us to follow up on them over the phone. Furthermore, we do not review portfolios by personal appointment, except at conventions.
Remember, there's no guarantee you'll receive an answer from the editor whose main concern is getting out 2000 AD every week.
If you're showing your samples to the editor at a convention, be sure your presentation is neat and that you follow these guidelines.
Focus your skills on one medium: pencilling, inking, colouring, or lettering. Bad inking may be misread as bad pencilling, and vice versa.
Pencils
Pencillers should submit 4-6 COMIC BOOK PAGES in order, showing the progression of a 2000 AD-style story through a series of pictures. Don't send pinups and paintings. They don't tell us you can tell a comics story.
You can make up your own story sequence, visually advancing it from panel to panel and from page to page. Or you can work with a writer friend or rework an existing 2000 AD script - without copying the art! Your story should be easy to follow, moving along clearly and dynamically. It's better to draw a story well in traditional block panels than to try to impress us with sexy pin-ups, overly complex layouts, or artistic gimmicks.
Your samples should also show basic drawing abilities. In addition to knowing how to draw heroic action figures and expressive faces, you must be able to draw the average guy on the street, buildings, cars, animals, aliens -- ANYTHING you may find in a comic book. Your art should display an understanding of perspective and anatomy. You should be able to draw people in different types of clothing and in a variety of poses, from an old woman hunched in a chair to a giant war-droid punching through a wall. It's essential not to limit yourself only to comics as your reference and inspiration. Life-drawing and other general art classes and books are important parts of your education. The dedicated artist draws everything he sees, all the time.
Professional comics pencillers work in a 10" x 15" image area on a sheet of Strathmore bristol board that measures 11" x 17". They usually lay out their pages with a lead pencil or a non-repro blue pencil, and finish their art with a regular pencil. Don't use too hard a pencil (3H or harder) or bear down too hard on the page. This will leave grooves in the paper.
Inks
Inkers should submit photocopies of both your inks and the pencils you have inked, so that we can compare the two. We would prefer to see your inks over more than one penciller. If you have no access to pencil samples from a friend or professional, write to the editor for photocopies - but you must include a self-addressed A3 envelope with about £1 in postage. Inking on vellum over the photocopies or on bristol board with a lightbox is probably the easiest way for you to work.
A comic-book inker's job is to add DEPTH and CLARITY to the pencils without obscuring the penciller's work. This is done by spotting blacks and varying line weight to give the page variety and each panel a three-dimensional feel, not by adding unnecessary detail. Objects in the foreground must look and weigh differently from objects in the background. You must also know which pencil lines should be omitted in the inking. Storytelling is an important part of the inker's job, and knowing how to draw separates the best inkers from the rest.
Professional comics inkers use artist's waterproof india ink, applied with a variety of brushes and pens. Corrections can be made by using one of several types of white paint. Remember, your ink line comes from your brain as much as from the tools you use.
Lettering
Comic-book letterers are responsible for captions, word and thought balloons, balloon shapes, panel borders, title lettering, credits, and sound effects. Caption and balloon lettering have to be uniform and easy to read, with slight "breathing room" between letters, words, and lines. Too tight letter spacing is hard to read. Story titles and sound effects are usually lettered in a bold, open style.
All 2000 AD lettering is now done on computer using Quark Xpress. You do not need to letter your art samples - but always leave ‘dead space’ in the artwork for the speech balloons. And remember, the first speaker must be on the left!
Colouring
Colouring is an essential part of comics storytelling. The colourist must interpret the art and tell the story through colour, adding depth, dramatic effect, mood, and most important, CLARITY.
The most important characters and objects in each scene and page must be clearly visible to the reader. This often requires colouring people and things differently than they would appear in real life. For example, if a panel features Judge Dredd standing amidst a crowd of dozens of citizens, Dredd could be coloured normally, while the others could be coloured in a monotone (or a senes of related muted tones) to ensure that Dredd is clearly seen in the panel.
Colourists can create MOOD by taking further liberties with realism. For example, if an artist has drawn a sequence of panels in which Dredd gets angry, a variety of reds -- a colour often used to convey anger -- could be used on both Dredd himself and in the background. Blue and green, conversely, establish a placid feel.
All 2000 AD colouring is now done on computer using Adobe Photoshop, except for fully painted art. Colourists should submit 4-6 pages of fully coloured comic-art on CD or Zip disk, saved as 300 dpi mac-readable TIFFs, plus 72 dpi copies.
If you need photocopies to colour, send a self-addressed stamped A3 envelope to 2000 AD’s Submissions Editor with your request.

GOLDEN RULES

* Always send photocopies; never send originals!
* Include your name, address, and phone number.
* Always include a self-addressed stamped envelope with your submission, with sufficient U.K. postage.
* Please handle all submissions-related correspondence with 2000 AD through the mail. Don't call. Be patient, be polite.
• Anyone wishing to submit from overseas should include an International Reply Coupon with their SAE. If an IRC is not available, then local stamps equal to the value required to post the submission should be attached to the SAE.
• Emailed unsolicited scripts will not be accepted.
GOOD LUCK!






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http://www.2000adonline.com/?zone=submissions&page=artists
 
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