SIMPLE SAMPLES

Yesterday, I received another Email that made no sense to me.   It’s pretty typical of some of the submissions that I receive each week, and I thought it might be helpful to share it with you.

See these three images?  They were the entire Email. 

NO cover note.  NO info about the person sending the images.  NO details that put the images in context of WHY they were being sent to us, an agency that deals significantly with sequential comics art.

Were they a submission for something?  Were they sent to us in error?  Were they a spam?

Concerned they were, perhaps, meant for someone else, I wrote back, “What is this for?  Was it meant for us?  There was no information.”

This morning, the person wrote back, “Sorry men, these are not my best drawing today, and I did not know that the Glass House Graphics not hire minors. Anyway, they were for illustrator, but really excuse was pure ignorance. I hope in the future could send you a really good portfolio and organized. Sorry.”

So I sent a brief response to explain further:  “My Email didn’t say anything about majors or minors.  You sent four unidentified images, none of them sequential art or resembling the type of work GHG does, with NO cover letter.  I didn’t know if you sent them to me by mistake, or WHAT they are supposed to be for, nor did you tell me anything about yourself.”

Here I am, scratching my head again.  If these weren’t his best work, why submit them?  Why did he think it was a good idea to apologize for the work, which I hadn’t even reviewed?  Where did he get the idea that GHG hired artists — we usually don’t, we’re an agency — or that we wouldn’t give talented “minors” — I took him to mean artists starting their careers — a chance?  We have an enormous website with pretty clear information and submission guidelines, so why wouldn’t he take a moment to learn what we need?

So we are still back to, WHY did he submit THESE particular images, which don’t look like anything our company does?  And why did he think it was a good idea to submit them with no information?  Even after two Emails, I had no answers to such basic questions, and I suspect I’ll never understand it completely.

And by the way…where he wrote “these are not my best drawing”…?  The name of his file was BEST SAMPLES.