Deep Dive into Art Submissions
/Hiya there! Riley here, art director for Wizards in Space. One of my duties is selecting art submissions for the issues. Today I’d like to go over how I approach this, a mistake I see every issue, and work I’d like to see more of.
Now, art is quite subjective. One piece of work will have different meanings to each viewer, and we see this a lot in editorial meetings. As the only illustrator in the meetings, I find it interesting to see how writers view art. Our mediums are different but serve the same purpose: visualizing ideas. So even though I usually have the final say, how an editor reacts to the work sometimes informs my decision - after all, many people who pick up an issue might not be artists. And then there come times where I must put on my art director hat and stand my ground for a piece that I know should be in the book. It’s a strange seesaw that I’ve learned to navigate on my own since issue one.
Since submissions are anonymous, I am seeing work for the first time like anyone else would. So the first impression is important. Can I see the work clearly? Is it appealing to look at? Is there a message here? Does this relate to the Issue’s theme or is more for the magazine’s values? These are all questions that I check off subconsciously as my eyes scan the work. Through out the submissions period, I put hard nos, and then hard maybes. Then I go through the hard maybes toward the end and see what kind of issue I have if I put all those pieces in it. Do I have two pieces that tell the same story? Is one piece just pretty while another asks important questions? Of course, I don’t want every piece to be the same in weight either, it’s important to have light and heavy pieces, so should I drop one piece in favor of something to act as a breather in the book? Once I answer these questions I can slowly thin out the pile into the accepted selection.
If you’re an artist wanting to get published, perhaps send some art to your friends and family and ask them for their input. It’s been helpful for me to see if what I want my art to say is actually reaching people, so I often pass my art through my friends first.
As I look through the pile from last issue, I can see one common mistake from other issues as well. Please do research or become familiar with the company or magazine you are submitting work to. A lot of people will tell you to just send your work out to anyone, and while that determination is correct, it’s also important not to tire yourself out with submitting work that doesn’t match with a magazine’s established styles and tastes. Make sure you read the submissions page, and click around their social media. We even post examples of work we have published. Often in submission periods we get black and white photography; that already tells me this person didn’t read the guidelines, because we cannot print photographs. Or a piece in color when we can only accept black and white. I know the idea is that if a work is good, it will get picked. But how a piece connects with the rest of the book is a bigger factor.
For what I would like to see more of, I have a few preferences. I’m a big lover of personal comics. Even if it’s a napkin drawing, if there’s heart, it will stop my eye. The books themselves are always looking for work that speaks from the heart and that doesn’t stop at the writing submissions. With issue 07’s theme being so open ended and personal already (bridges and barriers) I really hope we get art that relates to it. Technique wise, I love ink (digital or traditional) work, it prints best in the books since we can’t print in color. I also noticed that when we do print work that’s more detailed and greyscale, we get a type of screenprint texture from the printer. So if anyone wants to play around with screentones, that would be fun.