How to survive the submissions process (whether that's comics, novels, shorts, or screenplays) by rejection-proofing your soul

In Chapter One of My Future Shock Hell! I revealed how the legendary British sci-fi anthology 2000 AD became my first port of call when I decided that I wanted to ‘break in’ to comics.

READ: My Future Shock Hell! (Chapter 1 of 4) How I broke into comics and why there's no such thing

Almost twenty years on and still making cold submissions or pitches to various other outlets in various other media, I’ve realised that my experience of submitting those first Future Shocks has taught me how to cope with submitting just about anything.

The truth is, cold submissions never get easier; you just get better at coping with them.

​Whether you’re submitting poetry or a short story to a literary magazine, a novel or screenplay to a prospective agent, or planning on writing a pitch for a Future Shock ready to throw at the next 2000 AD Talent Search, it’s always a good idea to do a little recon...

Multimedia ghost story creator Thom Burgess explains the techniques behind his latest horror project 'Mister Howl', as well as lessons learned piloting a host of successful indie projects

Hey, Thom! I’ve been following your multimedia ghost stories for several years now and had to reach out for an interview. You’ve received plaudits from several members of horror royalty, including Andy Nyman, Reece Shearsmith and horror director Corin Hardy. But, for me, it was Junji Ito who summed up the distinct creepiness of your work when he said that you understand very well, “that the most frightening tales are those told in whispers.”

I’ve just read your latest book, Mister Howl, and it’s an absorbing, innovative, and above all creepy-as-hell urban horror story. It’s like Rear Window as told by M.R. James (with a dash of Fright Night) and does brilliant work evoking a sense of horror gradually oozing from its hiding place over the course of the story. It’s another example of the brilliant work you’ve been doing within the grassroots horror scene.

For those horror fans yet to discover your work, can tell us who you are and the kind of projects you’ve created so far?
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Thanks, Alec. That’s very kind of you to say. I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember, but doing so professionally since around 2013. Horror is my real passion, in particular ghost stories and strange folklore. I started off writing in comics, but I’m really interested in using different mediums to tell stories. From online to film, video games, to augmented reality. It feels like we’re existing at an exciting point in history where all these mediums, which once might have seemed fantastical, are becoming a lot more accessible. I think that’s hugely exciting, and if it means being able to tell a story in a new and unique way then that’s something that should be embraced.

You wrote your first graphic novella Malevolents in 2015 (with artist Joe Becci). You followed that with The Eyrie (with artist Barney Bodoano), which won Rue Morgue’s ‘Graphic Novel of 2017’. Last year your Early Haunts became one of the most successful horror anthologies ever launched on Kickstarter.

You’ve built an amazing back catalogue of graphic novel ghost stories, in which you’re combining traditions from across the spectrum of supernatural fiction: literary ghost stories with oral folklore, bygone hauntology with very modern, very urban found-footage mysteries.
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When you first decided to write comics, why did you decide to self-publish? Why not save yourself some work and go pitch a story to 2000 AD instead? Or go to comic conventions in the States and chase editors at Dark Horse or Image...?

How I broke into comics and why there's no such thing

This four-part essay is an updated and extended version of a piece first published on my blog back in 2014, itself prompted by a popular talk I gave at Bristol Comic Expo the same year.

I submitted my first script to 2000 AD knocking on twenty years ago. Back then the legendary British sci-fi anthology was your most viable option if you were unfortunate enough to be living in Britain and deluded enough to want to work in newsstand comics. The venerable war title Commando took open submissions, but everyone else - Titan, Panini and The Beano - were a brick wall.

To get in with these publishers you needed to have gotten in somewhere else first. Similarly, the notion of writing for Marvel or DC was something akin to the whimsy of a crack-addled Leprechaun.Today, if you’re British and want to ‘break in’ to comics, there are several other doors to publication that await your crowbar.

​Crowdfunding is now an option if you’ve got the time, the know-how and the followers. And if you’re funding a project with nothing but passion, potential collaborators can be easily reached via social media. You can host projects online on the platform of your choice, forming the basis of a big shiny portfolio over which potential editors can then feign interest.

Taking these routes to assembling a complete comics project can take months, maybe years, in between day jobs and other commitments. On the other hand, writing a single four-page script can take only a week or two of solid focus. Almost two decades on from my first sale to 2000 AD, I can safely say that if I were starting out now then I’d still be making cold submissions wherever I could...

She’s the psychic cop who has patrolled the dystopian streets of Mega-City One for over four decades, and she’s nobody’s sidekick

I first met her in 1991 within the pages of the Judge Dredd/Batman crossover Judgement on Gotham. It was love at first sight. Her first scene had her answer the phone before it rang. What a perfect introduction to Mega-City One’s premier psychic. It was the promise of a bust-up between Dredd and the Dark Knight that got me to buy the book, but it was the supporting character of Judge Cassandra Anderson that got me hooked.

Written by her co-creator John Wagner and her long-time chronicler Alan Grant, she brought a goofball energy to every scene in which she appeared. Superstar artist Simon Bisley was perfectly tuned into Anderson's eccentric frequency and drew her more like a musclebound Tori Amos than the chic Debbie Harry lookalike she had been under Brian Bolland - who drew her first appearance 11 years before in issue #149 of legendary British sci-fi anthology 2000 AD.

​Smitten, I started tracking down the books and annuals that collected her previous adventures while discovering her more recent and harder-edged psychotropic epics, which were then running in the monthly Judge Dredd Megazine. Reading all these alongside Dredd’s regular adventures in 2000 AD, it was clear that Judge Anderson was a vital component of the Dredd saga. More open to introspection and enquiry, Anderson could open windows into the dystopian world of Mega-City One that remain forever closed to her stone-hearted colleague...