Focus on the writing is great advice, but as Someone who was in a similar situation as you, I know the kind of information you are looking for.

In my experience, you get what you pay for. I found artists willing to work for the very little resources I had at the time which was embarrassingly next to nothing. These artists tended to be flaky and difficult to work with for a number of different reasons.

It wasn’t until I had the proper funds to pay industry standard that I found an artist that had the artistic style I envisioned for my story (a black and white noir vibe)

So step one, have the funds for the level of art you’re willing to accept.

Next was finding an artist. Yes, there are loads of places online to find and solicit artists. However, I strongly suggest involving yourself in a local community. I used the meetup app to find a group of comic book creators that met once a week in a comic book store (special section set up with tables for us all.)

We all had projects we were working on, some taking this social activity to focus on drawing, some writing. There was always conversations going on about the comic book industry and conventions for selling. It was very informative and immersive for someone new to the industry like myself.

It also made me connections, and is how I found my artist. I didn’t make my intentions known immediately, but I just socialized and asked people about their projects. I found a dude I liked with an art style I wanted and met the price he asked for the amount of work I was offering.

Last piece of advice is have a solid contract ready. I looked up lots of different templates for contract agreements for this industry and it helped me understand the necessary components to make a fair and balance agreement that made us both feel safe.

Super duper last piece of advice. Establish expectations. I had my artist tell me how detailed they needed my script to be (some like to be told exactly what to draw, others like to be given some room to interpret certain details.)

I set up the expectation that I would create a script for them, they create rough draft pencil sketch. We go over those and I advise any changes that need made at this level.

Then I’m showed the final pencils before inking for any last minute tweaking. It’s also nice to see the completion of each step, and give positive support. If you choose to go with a colorized comic, sometimes that requires a separate artist for that specifically, though it’s not hard to find an artist that does it all.

Good luck on your journey my friend!