Jerry Bennett is a full-time artist creating comic books, children's books, and shirt designs for licensed brands (Lucasfilm, Marvel, DC, Saban). He storyboarded for Mattel and Dreamworks and created animated book trailers for Scholastic and Lerner Children's Books. He also art directed Even in Death, an award-winning animated short, with talented students on the autism spectrum. He served as the 2018-2019 Paseo Arts/Skirvin Hilton Artist in Residence, creating and involving the community in participating in the process of comic art. Jerry is currently drawing more comics and creating licensed hand drawn sketch cards for Star Wars, Walking Dead, Stranger Things, Outlander and MST3K that are randomly distributed in their trading card packs.

• Do companies pay for product placement to go in graphic novels?
  That possibly happens, and most likely the companies who want product placement will themselves have something specially created to have their products placed in.

• Is there a rule about when it is okay to use a name brand in your work versus changing it (i.e. McDonald's versus McRonald's)?
  I’ve seen too many graphic novels that simply place the name brand without any hassles from the companies that own the licensing. Usually the publishing companies would tell you if it can be included. 

• Do people pitch you ideas for what they think you should do for your next comic?
  Oh sure, I get approached often by writers with some great stories, but nowadays I have stories of my own I’m really wanting to see come to life that I can’t really entertain those other ideas anymore. (Unless it’s something that I’m absolutely stoked about.) :)

• What is the best thing someone should do if they are trying to break into the comic's businesses whether as a writer or illustrator?   
  Get your comic made! Just go out and make it happen. We are in a golden age of creator-owner comics, and a fantastic resource in the internet to get it seen by the world and build an audience for your work. If the audience is big enough, the big publishers take notice. If you aren’t an author/illustrator, then find someone you can collaborate with and make that comic! Learn all about making comics! Network with all the comic creators in the area. (There is a huge group of us!)

• If I am going to try and get my graphic novel published, do I need to have the whole thing written and drawn before submitting it or would I just need to write it and the publisher would find an illustrator?  
  Depending on what kind of story you want to tell, there are different ways to get a graphic novel published. Most of the time, publishers will want to see the whole manuscript if they are interested in your pitch. Having sample pages would hurt either, but be flexible in letting them change illustrators if you bring one along to collaborate with. Publishers usually match up artists with the stories they acquire, unless you’re an author/illustrator.

• When you write a book, do you get a say on who illustrates it or does the publisher just have a go to set of illustrators they use?
  Established authors will eventually get more input in choosing illustrators, but writers generally do not have a say, though they can suggest illustrators. The publishing companies don’t usually have in-house illustrators anymore. They usually get established talent or discover new talent from agents, and have even been known to reach out through social media, especially for those illustrators with a large following.

• What advice can you give me on how to condense my dialogue and story down to fit in a graphic novel format? I am used to writing novels and find myself being too wordy? 
  Writing a novel is definitely a different type of writing compared to writing graphic novels, which is a very script-based format. You can find tons of graphic novel manuscripts available to read online to study and find a style, of which there are MANY, that suits you.

• What resources could you recommend to improve my drawing skills? 
  I would find all the tutorials out there available to purchase or watch for free. Also find books on the things you want to draw or improve upon in your drawing. Find critique groups that will give you HONEST BUT KIND feedback of your work. There is, however, no substitute for improving your skills than PRACTICE, though. ALWAYS BE DRAWING. Set aside a time, no matter how large or small, to draw. So many people talk about how busy they are, and that’s true, we are all busy, but your desire to improve is only matched by the amount of time you are willing to give to improve.