It’s essential to clearly put a title and author credit on any work that you do!

the immortals

(from Above the Dreamless Dead)

That’s especially the case when you’re part of an anthology!  Because if you’re putting out a stand-alone graphic novel or mini-comic, you probably put your book’s title and your name on the cover.  And if you didn’t put it on the cover, you probably put it on the book somewhere.  No one will look at the title page, which says ‘Book Title by Author Name’ and say, ‘I am so puzzled about who this book is by!  It just escapes me.’

form flight

(from Flight)

But when you’re part of an anthology, it’s a whole different story.  There could be ten . . . twenty . . . even fifty other authors in the book with you!

Tale of chivalric Romance

(from Legal Aid Comics)

That’s a lot of people!  And if you don’t put your name and the story title at the beginning of your piece, it may be hard for readers to figure out that you wrote or drew it, even if you have a super-recognizable art style.  What if this is a reader’s first comic?

form little heart

(from Little Heart)

If you don’t put your name and the story title at the beginning of your piece, it may even be hard for readers to realize that what they’re reading now that they’ve turned the page is a new story than what they were reading on the previous page!

form little heart two

(from Little Heart)

(Of course, there are always stylistic reasons to do things differently.  Sometimes, that’s 100% okay!  But when you’re making that formatting choice, you should definitely ask yourself, ‘is it more important that the form/style of this pieces comes across well than that people are able to see it’s by me?  I know that it’s an origami cut-out piece, but are people going to be confused about that if it doesn’t say “Origami Dreams” at the top?’)

nursery rhyme comic

(from Nursery Rhyme Comics)

All the images in this post are the first page of pieces from anthologies.  Can you figure out what the titles of the pieces are, and who’s written and drawn all of them, from just looking at the images?

ghost road

(from Legal Aid Comics)

That’s why clearly titling your work and putting your name on it is important.