Aside from the economic downturn of everything now-a-days, I wanted to show you one helpful piece of advice that will make you a better candidate for employers to hire you.

Chances are if you are like many people who are unemployed by continuous comic companies going out of business, you may bethinking there will be no more comic work for you, and your dream of making comics is gone forever. Continue dreaming.

After taking a month off from religiously running and taking a break from my diets, I am back to running again. I told myself if I went over 145 pounds, I would start running again. After my vacation, when I was eating out everyday, I managed to hit 146. Hopefully, this will result in better posts for you, as well as keep me energized to continue to give you great content again.

Take a break from making comics, and lose your skills = disaster.

I’m not running marathons right now –barely a few miles. And the time it takes to run is a lot longer than it had been. I am weaker. I think in about 2 weeks of training I’ll be back to where I was. You will be weak too if you are not making comics.

You’ve probably taken a break after a big project, or after getting the pink slip. If it’s been more than a month or so, you’ll want to get back into it. The longer you let yourself lapse, you lose the skills that made you so valuable to get that first job. The longer you go without working on better content, the longer it takes you to get back to where you were when you last worked.

What Comic Book Companies Are Looking For

Comic book companies want to see that you are doing work. If you have no work, you have to fake it with authority. Find some work–even if it is work you create on your own or work with a team of collaborators who are also looking for work.

Keep up-to-date on your skills and push the boundaries. Remember when you were in full time production, you didn’t have time to work on refining those skills, or challenging the status quo. Now is the time to do that.

Comic Book Production is only good when there are comic books to produce.

When you are in the groove of production, you can keep pumping out products and services left and right. When everything dries up, search for the things that will allow you to keep your skills active. If your skill is coloring, grab some lineart and color some new material. If it is inking, ask a penciler if you can ink some stuff. If it is penciling get a writer to give you a script, if it is writing find something that interests you and write, or find a penciler and team up.

Use the Comic Book Networks.

There is still something to be said for bartering services. if you can get a whole team of people to barter their services, you may actually be able to put a comic together and start your own company. Then you won’t have to worry about ever getting hired again, or working so hard. But that post is for another time.

Whatever you decide, this new team of collaborators may actually find you new contacts within the comic community which will open the door for you to get in with new comic book editors to get you the job. The team environment will also give you a better portfolio that you can take to employers.

If you want to get your next comic book job, keep working.