Prior to [starting the CBEA], I had already been in the industry for almost 30 years, actually 31 years. For 31 years I did not have any direct learning of how to be a comic book editor. My way of learning, because I didn’t have access to professionals in the industry, was reading magazines that featured interviews, or reading backmatter that editors had written, and following the careers of, in particular, three specific editors: One of them, Jim Shooter, was a former editor-in-chief at Marvel Comics; another, Karen Berger, was executive editor at DC Comics and created the Vertigo imprint in 1993; and another editor, Mark Gruenwald, would always post lessons in a magazine that Marvel was putting out called Marvel Age. 

Following their careers and reading as much as possible helped me. But because I didn’t have direct access, I wanted other editors to have direct access, to a point where they could ask direct questions, … get immediate results on [the] questions that they had, [and have] direct learning. The fact that the CBEA has at least a hundred professionals who’ve been in the industry for over 30, 40 years really helps, because those professionals are interested in helping the newbies. 

You know, it’s a complete mix. I do have editors from outside of comics who join because suddenly they realize, “Hey, I can actually edit comics! It is a possibility; I’ve read comics for this many years.” You wouldn’t believe the number of women who actually come into the group who are comic readers, who are editors in other media and genres. And they realize that they have this interest they can actually do something with. 

I’d say at least half of our members are editors from either outside of the industry or people who just want to learn comic book editing and maybe get into it; they’re aspiring or novice. About a quarter are creators who join either to learn about comic editing so that they have a better understanding of what editors do, or some of the processes. But a large portion of those creators are actually on there to hire editors. That’s one of the features of the CBEA: to promote editors so that these creators can see, “Oh, this person’s available, this is what they do, they do developmental editing, they do proofreading,” and so on and so forth. They can see who’s available to hire. 

Exactly. Over the years, I’ve actually kept it tight. A lot of the Facebook groups try to get as many members as possible. For [CBEA], I’ve always tried to maintain it so it’s tight and very focused on people who have a direct interest, whether to learn editing, strengthen their editing, or hire an editor.

About 20–25 years ago, because of the Internet—I can actually blame the Internet for something here—because the Internet created such a sense of immediacy, it created also the sense that you needed to get stuff out as fast as possible. During the early or mid-90s, what ended up happening was larger publishers were starting to concentrate more on production and getting as much out as possible to satisfy the shareholders, [such] that quality control started to be pulled back to the point where editors were being fired, and marketing and sales were being hired.

[Now] there are a couple of publishers that have relatively new editors-in-chief. One of the moves that they’ve made is to hire more editors. They’ve put quality ahead of production of more and more product. Those are the companies that are succeeding a lot more right now.

Yes. With regards to freelance editing, there was a long period of time of at least 10 years where creators did not recognize the value that editors would bring in. Nowadays, it’s actually changed, where more and more creators are recognizing, “Hey, maybe I need an editor.”

But part of the problem is that a lot of editors don’t know their own skill sets. Some people are very strong as proofreaders, some are great as art directors, some are great with structural editing, but aren’t necessarily skilled in everything. And no one should expect to be skilled in everything.

With regards to comics editing, some of those tasks are quality control, some of those are more administrative, some are management. [The traditional editing fields] are within the realm of quality control. Then [for administrative roles] you have the project managers, you have the teambuilders, you have talent scouts who put the teams together. [And in management] you have—I call them cheerleaders—you have counsellors. A lot of these editors have to take on a counsellor role as well, because when you have any form of conflict between creators, then they need to step in and take on that role. They can’t just let [conflict] destroy the product. 

For myself, they are submissions editing and learning how to edit the lettering. I will say that if you are entering as an intern into Marvel or DC, they don’t concentrate on those things. They’ll have you taking files from here, bringing them to a different office, making photostats, stuff like that. They’ll get you involved but you’re not really learning anything for the long, long term. Unless you really have an aptitude.

For myself, I always find that submissions editing is a great entry point because it doesn’t obligate you to make a choice. You’re just evaluating. If you’re looking at art, what you’re evaluating is anatomy. [If] you’re looking at settings, you’re [evaluating if an artist can] draw things like a quiet dialogue between characters versus a high action scene: can they draw space, can they draw any number of things?

The first step of comic editing is recognizing what works, what doesn’t work. That’s why submissions editing is so important.

[And then there’s lettering:] The reason that I say editing the lettering is so important is because it works off of everything that came before: how the word balloons are going to look, what font is going to work for that character [and] the art. Sometimes it’s a very clear, legible font, but the art can look really almost psychedelic. Using a font that does not match the art separates it from the story. And the same thing with if it’s a horror story versus a comedy, or a slice of life: fonts and word balloons and even placement are going to be different—caption boxes, sound effects, all those things. [Editing for comic book lettering must] determine: does it work with this? 

The other thing is, [editing the lettering] makes the editor aware of all of these other steps, and why those steps are not conducive to how the lettering finally turns out. All four: writing, art, lettering, and colour have to be able to work together. But because lettering is the very last stage and the simplest to correct, you need to be able to understand how all the other stages work and how they affect one another. 

Oh boy. That’s a tough one to answer. I would say if you have a background in writing, creative writing, if you are a teacher who teaches creative writing; those are ones that definitely have good lateral movement with regards to developmental editing.

If someone has experience with editing fiction…here’s the thing: you could be a copy editor of prose, but copy-editing comics has a lot of differences to it. And you really need to understand the language and the techniques that are in comics because there are so many differences.

It’s really kind of developing a new skill set. It’s almost like a new language altogether. Even though you can bring some skills with you from these other roles, the fact is, they might not apply. [Or] they might apply, but you have to manipulate them a little bit. It’s like fitting that square peg into a round hole and knowing that you have to chisel it. 

In comics, you don’t just have to understand characters when it comes to copy editing, you also [need] an understanding of [how] balloons affect [and] reflect character, so it’s not just the text that we’re looking at. Sometimes, for example, a balloon shape or a font might not be accurate for a particular character; visually and textually, you need to be able to understand how they function together. That’s where the copy editing comes in.

Education-wise, there are courses that are offered through editor organizations like Editors Canada or Editors BC, as I have coming up. And there is a site called comicsexperience.com that does have a course for comic book editing. But they don’t deal so much with the quality control. They deal more with the project management side.

As far as I know, I’m the only person who actually concentrates on quality control [when teaching]. I’m all meat and no milk, so to speak, when it comes to the kind of content that I add. I would rather somebody have a deeper understanding of the material than just a basic understanding, because if they [just] have a basic understanding, then they aren’t growing. There are so many introductory courses and introductory books that don’t really delve into the material, so all you get is surface. As a result, what is it you’re really learning? 

For editors, what I always suggest is, there are tonnes of books on drawing for comics. There are tonnes of books on writing for comics. There’s a book called The Essential Guide to Comic Book Lettering by Nate Piekos, and it’s basically a bible on comic book lettering. I suggest to editors that they read those kinds of books. They don’t have to be able to draw at the end of it or write a comic at the end of it, but at least it gives them an idea of what it is that goes into the process, so that they are able to edit it. Because my belief is you can’t edit something that you don’t know how to read or how to create.

Oh, I am. As a matter of fact, I’m starting publishing next year. What I’m doing is writing a series of books on editing for comics, but they’re all basically 24–32 pages, and they’re saddle-stitched so that each one doesn’t just include information, it includes tests and stuff.

When talking about fonts, I’ll have a page that has a graphic with balloons that contain five different fonts, and [I’ll ask] which one would you choose and why would you choose it?

The reason that I’m doing it in 24–32-page volumes is because I want to make it as easy as possible for editors to open [each one] up, lay it flat, [and] make copies of the tests, so that they can try it over and over again. [And] the other benefit is that because it’s not one large book, they can purchase each volume separately. But I will also be offering it as box sets.

But the biggest benefit is that I’m going to make myself accessible to people who buy it and who take the tests so that I’m working with them as a teacher and mentor, and not just leaving them hanging with, “This is the material and good luck with it.”

One of the things I try and do is I offer a quiz to any editor who wants to take it. I provide them with pages and I give them nine things that I want them to consider. The whole concept of this particular test is to see where their strengths lie.

Everybody has their own strengths and…I don’t want to call it weaknesses, because it’s not weakness; it’s just skills that have not been developed.

Like a blind spot?

A blind spot, sure. It really helps to understand where your particular skills are when you’re selling yourself as an editor. I’ve experienced a lot of editors who oversell themselves and then find out after the fact that they don’t know anything about these other things that they’ve said they’re capable of. And [they] are actually lacking in the things that they said they were strongest at. With this test, you’re identifying things, you’re explaining why that thing is wrong, and just growing from that. It’s a starting point. It’s an initial assessment of yourself.