My ultra-top-secret artist is on board now for what is shaping up to be a pitch to Dark Horse's New Recruits program. All I am at liberty to say about this artist right now is that he absolutely rocks.

(And that, dear reader, is an understatement along the lines of "The Beatles? They had a couple of good songs.")

Okay, I lied. Thanks to Samantha at Dark Horse, I learned that New Recruits is not the way to go for this project. So, we'll be submitting via the regular Dark Horse submission process.

In the interest of helping any other aspiring creators who may find themselves in a similar position of reading Dark Horse's submission guidelines and then reading about the New Recruits program and saying to themselves, "Wha-- huh? Where am I? What day is it? Do I submit through New Recruits or the regular way?", here is an excerpt from the Dark Horse Creating Comics message board in which Samantha very kindly helped me make sense of this (and I quote):

New Recruits is the place to submit completed projects - projects for which you have completed most, if not all, of the work. It is better suited for one-shot projects, like single volume graphic novels or short stories. New Recruits submissions are reviewed annually... with the best submission(s) earning publication. Last year, we published the best of the best in an anthology called New Recruits, vol. 1.

Regular submissions, on the other hand, cover a much wider territory - writing samples, art samples, comic series pitches...etc. They are evaluated year-round, rather than at one point during the year. Use our regular submissions process if you want to submit work from a project that is unfinished, any kind of 'sample' of your work, or something you don't want to wait that long to have reviewed.

Please note that Dark Horse does not review unsolicited scripts, story ideas, or proposals pertaining to properties currently published by Dark Horse or any property not owned by the submitter. Such material will be destroyed without review.

So, there you go. If you want to pitch a limited series, as I do, you should use the normal submission channels.

Thanks to Samantha at Dark Horse for letting me quote her on this.

When, at the age of eight, Elton Pruitt authorized his mom to sell all of his comics at a garage sale, he thought he had outgrown them. Sadly, these included numerous issues of Neal Adams’ now-legendary run on Batman and Detective Comics.

Years later, Elton regained his senses and rediscovered his love of comic books. Around this time he also discovered a passionate dislike for Southern rock – Lynyrd Skynyrd, 38 Special, you name it – and proudly attested to its worthlessness throughout the halls of his high school in Searcy, Arkansas.

So it seems only fitting that his first published comic book story¹ would revolve around an apocryphal Lynyrd Skynyrd song.

Prior to his work in comic books, Elton worked as a copywriter for a small ad agency in Little Rock, where his pitch to Roller Funeral Homes of Arkansas (“We put the fun in funeral”) never quite caught on. His work for Five Miles Out writing the screenplay for their Immercenary video game was better received and led him into the fabled land of The Internet, where he has spent the last ten years programming custom web applications for Aristotle Inc.

Today – at the exact moment you are reading this, in all likelihood – Elton is hard at work on his next comic book project, a little something he likes to call Descartes the Zombie. Watch for it – and check out EltonPruitt.com² for more information on Elton and his ongoing quest to become the 22^nd century’s second greatest living comic book writer (after Drew Melbourne, of course).