Anthology editing- dashboard (Patreon)

Right now, a lot of my time per week is devoted to editing the Alloy Anthology, a comic anthology project I've been dreaming of creating for several years, and which I'm finally able to make a reality. I said I'd give you all a peek into the process of what creating and editing anthology looks like, so here's the first post... the master spreadsheet of the live project.

Managing 26 artists and staying on a strict schedule can be a challenge, and my approach usually boils down to: make 1 billion spreadsheets. This one, shared with my co-editor Kiku, clearly lists all of our artists, their contact and comic information, and their completion status of various dates/ phases of our project so far (the blank line at the top has all of the due dates listed, but I turned that off since it's tmi for now~).

I've participated in several anthologies with various degrees of editing ranging from "none whatsoever" to "gentle handholding," and prefer to err on the side of handholding. Anthologies with lower amounts of editing tend to read inconsistently unless you're working with super-experienced industry professionals. I also don't like knowing that I could turn in half-assed work and it's getting printed regardless, that means that my work will be next to other people doing the same. So our editing has been so far fairly involved. I also prefer my projects to support up-and-coming artists, so both Kiku and I are willing to put in more time to make sure everyone gets a lot of personal attention from both of us. We also wanted to be very cognizant that artists have lives outside of this small project, and I built in a lot of schedule wiggle room in case a draft doesn't get approval right away, or for artist sickness, work, emergencies... even just miscommunications or forgetfulness (it happens). With a spreadsheet like this we can keep track of where each person is relative to the rest of the group, and ensure that I don't let anyone fall through the cracks.

This is my first editing experience, and so far it is going amazingly. Overwhelmingly the artists have been communicative, timely and receptive to edits, which I was hoping for but not realistically expecting... it is a true privilege to work with all of these folks. I believe that we've avoided any disasters so far despite my lack of previous experience because I spent so much time  building a framework for the project, and because my personal best-practices for group projects involves a lot of redundant information- which I'll talk about in more detail next time~

In the meantime, I'm curious: what are some of your favorite comic anthologies?