[Ground Floor is a blog series where I'm developing a new comic before your very eyes, from beginning to completion and publication. Previous installments here.]

So now we have the genre and the pitch and I’m working on the breakdown. That means time to start the hunt for an artist!

So far I’ve taken three steps in that direction. 1) I sent my first-choice artist an e-mail on Sunday, but have not heard back from him yet. If there’s still no reply after seven days, I will follow-up. 2) I’ve contacted a few close friends in the industry for artist recommendations, and 3) I posted the following ad today on Digital Webbing, MySpace and ComicSpace. I’ll also send a tweet linking to this very post in a few minutes. You never know what sort of gems you’ll discover with an open call like this. A similar classified ad is how I first came across long-time collaborator Noel Tuazon.

Pro Writer Seeks Pro/Semipro Artist

Published writer (Boom, Viper, Desperado) seeks serious artist with sense of fun and humor for 32-page action/comedy 1-shot. The pitch can be read here.

Must be able to start within 60 days. Printed experience a plus. Send links only of recent samples to submissions (AT calebmonroe (DOT com, along with a list of any relevant published credits.

I look forward to hearing from you. Let’s make a comic!

A few notes on the ad itself: I was aiming for a title that would attract immediate attention, especially from someone who’s about the same stage in their “career” as I am. But because “pro” and “semipro” are nebulous concepts at best, and tend to vary from person to person, I made sure to define in my first sentence exactly what my experience is. The “links only” thing is practical because it keeps my inbox from filling up, but it’s also a little test whether the responding artist has read the ad enough to follow directions. I gave them a link to the synopsis, so they’d know immediately whether the project appeals to their sensibilities, created a separate submissions e-mail so my regular e-ddress won’t get clogged, kept it short and sweet and ended on a positive note. We’ll see soon what the results are!