Dear Comic Book Creator, 

Black House Comics has successfully given the marketplace comic-books that deal with mystery (DARK DETECTIVE: SHERLOCK HOLMES), period action (THE SOLDIER LEGACY), horror (EEEK! and the AFTER THE WORLD), and will soon be premiering a science-fiction anthology (TERRA).

What we don’t have right now is a title in the popular genre of superheroics.

Enter ‘ParaHuman’, and an attempt to test the local waters for such things in an economically viable way.

We believe that dozens of local creators may have super-hero stories sitting in the drawer; labours of love, or pieces done for titles that may have folded early; and we think some of these pieces may be of a standard and style we would want to see into print. 

So, we ask the question, without any obligation to anyone:  Do you have an 8-page, done-in-one super-hero story?  The parameters are; 

• Must be 8 pages in length and we are looking for done-in-one stories. If you have a continuing story line talk to us but we would prefer a stand-alone story approach.
• Must be suitable for a general PG to lower end of an M-rated material, no full frontal nudity, on page sex, excessive violence or gratuitous language.
• We want clever ideas and fresh material. 
• We want an actual story, not a teaser or vignette.
• At this early stage, we prefer Australian-only contributions, as this publishing initiative may involve promotional opportunities that involve the local scene.
• Must be completely the original work of the creators involved; there must be no rights issues, and you must be able to contract on that basis. 
• The piece must never have seen print before (or if it has, it must be in a small-press print-run of less than 1,000 or so – if in doubt, talk to us).
•  The writing and art must both be of good quality.
• We do not want to read proposals, outlines, sketches, treatments.  We would strongly prefer finished, eight-page stories, with all the creators’ details clearly attached. 

If you have something that fits this bill, then get in touch via info@blackhousecomics.com and make sure you tell us full contact and personnel details of all the team responsible for doing the piece. 

We prefer stories in full colour but if you want it in B&W that’s fine. 

The piece you send must be the entire story, pencilled, inked & lettered.  We are not reading scripts or matching artists and writers at this stage. We want to see what’s out there, then do a trial run for a while and see if the market is interested. 

We are making this open call, but we are also talking to creators we know. 

We want super-heroes or distinctive-looking action-adventure heroes, to build a sense of excitement.  We want clever plots and fresh scenarios. 

We don’t want to buy your characters.  We’re not able to pay you to do that.  We just want to create a gathering of heroes of this type and build on whatever gets the best reaction.

Each 8-page story will be paid a total of $400.00 AUD (plus GST if you are registered) for the right to print the story in the issue it appears in (Australian newsagent run, e-comic issue, and international Diamond distributed run later).  The creative team will also receive 50 copies of their issue to split between them as they see fit.

If we want to include your story in a trade paperback we can do that too so long as it is only published in Australia. If we decide to do a trade collection through Diamond then an extension clause will be activated in the contract, and payment made.  If other options are exercised, the same thing, as per the contract. 

Sound good? Then get in touch – info@blackhousecomics.com .

UPDATE

We aim to put ParaHuman out every two months so submissions are ongoing, but if you wantto get on board early deadline for consideration for issue 1 is 30 April 2012.