Is there money in comic books???

[Mahran]

Aloha fellow artists :rocker:
Been thinking about trying to break into the pro comic book scene in the not-so-distant future :lifedrawing:
The big Q is, can one make a decent living as a comic book penciler these days? Anyone have any ideas about the page rates for comic book companies like Marvel, DC, Image, Dark horse, etc...????
:yayca:

[J Wilson]

It depends. Some comic artists obviously make a pretty decent living at it. Others struggle to get in and get enough work, and they make very little for a while.

Ultimately, it's not really a matter of money. If you are concerned with money, art isn't the field for you. Art is what you do when you can't see yourself doing anything else and being happy. Anything less, and it's very probable you won't have the drive needed to stick it out during the hard times and keep going, growing, and improving.

[smugbug]

I do know that page rates were (10-yrs ago) typically 100-120 for a decent penciller and moved into the 200 and 200+ for the "name" penciller and more for the BIG names (Miller, Lee and those of their degree).

I'm sure things have changed since.

The only way to find out about where you stand now would be to talk to someone who is doing work for Marvel, etc. If there are any big pros at a nearby comic book con that you can talk to, then do it. Show them your work and get some critiques and advice.

That being said, the big con to go to IS Comic-Con since just about every pro and publisher on the planet is there. The next one is Heroes Con and after that there are Wizard World(s) and the NY Comic Con (both just held). Emerald Con in Seattle is getting to be big, too.

I agree with Wilson, though: if you're firstly concerned about the money, it may not be the thing for you. No matter the creative industry, it's TOUGH; sure there are the success stories, but they are few. When you go to these cons, the one thing that you will notice right away is HOW MANY artists there are attempting to both find work and break in.

Another thing: go to Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, Oni Press and any other publisher's website, they'll have a submission page set up with info.

[rpace]

Yeah -- rates are decidedly higher now and top artists aren't really paid on the upper end of a scale as much as negotiating a fee based on their value.

If you're very good and very savvy you can do very well. Only compare yourself to the best working artists and realise than anything less is falling short of what you need to be a real success.

Think you'll spend most of the first few years you're regularly working earning around 200 a page, averaging a page a day about 220 days a year for 44 000.00.

If you really hustle and keep pushing yourself and always try to work with the best people possible you might have a shot at making real money.

~R

[Mirana]

You can make a living at it, sure. You can't make a fantastic living at it unless you've spent some yrs at it and made a large name for yourself. The big companies pay much more, but because of this they can afford to be very selective. You will likely have to work up from smaller companies first.

If you want real money, then you should be looking at the illustration market. Less work, much, much, much more money. One cover image can make you more than a whole book of pencils. ;)

[Boolean]

then you should be looking at the illustration market
The term illustration confuses me as I've seen it used in so many different scenarios. Do you mean illustration as in graphic design type work? Do you mean book covers for novels? Or do you mean illustration as in, doing artwork for source books for people like Wizards of the Coast?

Or all of the above? I’ve never understood what area of artwork illustration actually covers.

[Ilaekae]

Illustration: Any (usually single) drawing/painting/photographed 3-d assemblage/hand-assembled montage in any media able to be reproduced in two-dimensional form by commercial printing that sells, communicates, educates, informs, announces, or decorates/supports appropriate text, usually but not always in the advertising or publishing industries. Can be B&W, multi-color, limited spot color, or process color.

Also obviously refers to all of the above if and as they apply to digital or broadcast communication (web and TV).

Just made that up, but if I was dumb, I'd believe it...

[Mirana]

As a general rule I make the distinction between Illustration as a graphic design/collage/photomanip, and Illustration as a drawn/painted image just because those are two different communities. However, that's just MY personal division for it and has no correlation to the real definition.

In this case, I'm talking about Illustration as drawing/painting...book covers, children's books, D&D manuels, advertising art, etc. These all pay better than comics, even for a nobody. You pay $3 for a comic (penciler, inker, colorist, letter, editor, cover artist, writer) and $20 for a children's book (writer, editor, ilustrator) and see if that doesn't affect payment for artists, right? ;)

[rpace]

Most children's books sell in the 2-5000 copies range. You may do one, possibly two childrens books a year. I haven't checked in on kids book illustration in quite some time, I'd hope they pay much better now than they did in the early 90s.

If you're working for Marvel and DC your book is selling a minimum 20 000 copies or its on the way to being cancelled. The average varies, but is closer to 40k and best sellers move over 100k. The book will have ads running to offset the costs of publishing and, if it's good, will be collected and generate additional revenue later. If you're working on a monthly book you can expect to do 10 issues a year.

The best deal right now is Image's creator-owned package. If you're good enough, promote enough and are lucky enough to get a book regularly selling over 30 000 copies (very, very difficult) it's making roughly a dollar a book sold. Of course, Robert Kirkman is the only guy I know who's regularly running those numbers.

Just presented for more info.

~R

[Fvallejo]

I though I'd put my 2 cents in on the illustration comments. I do have to disagree that you will make much more. The rates of illustrators hasn't changed at all in the past 30 years. Say you get a turnaround time of 4 days and you are getting $800 for a full page spread in a magazine circulating over 100,000 copies. Well that's the same as if you did a page a day and are getting $200 a day.... And starting off it's tough to get into those larger magazines and work is spotty. I've worked on comics and illustration and the work required is similar. Illustration might be slightly more stressful as you rarely sign on for multiple gigs at a time as you might sign onto a few issues and be guaranteed a check in comics, ya know. The rule generally is that the money is in advertising but you trade off creativity....and what artist is in it for the money?

[Pandora's Eyes]

a working artist who pencils for the dark horse star wars books told me they started him at $175/page. but they only gave him 10-12 pages per issue for the first two years before giving him an entire issue.

he now works on a regular series for dark horse. don't want to say his name in case he would get in trouble for revealing his page rate.

[Mahran]

I though I'd put my 2 cents in on the illustration comments. I do have to disagree that you will make much more. The rates of illustrators hasn't changed at all in the past 30 years. Say you get a turnaround time of 4 days and you are getting $800 for a full page spread in a magazine circulating over 100,000 copies. Well that's the same as if you did a page a day and are getting $200 a day.... And starting off it's tough to get into those larger magazines and work is spotty. I've worked on comics and illustration and the work required is similar. Illustration might be slightly more stressful as you rarely sign on for multiple gigs at a time as you might sign onto a few issues and be guaranteed a check in comics, ya know. The rule generally is that the money is in advertising but you trade off creativity....and what artist is in it for the money?

I don't know, from what I've heard, very few pencilers actually make $200/page. The rates do seem to be pretty bad for most artists... I worked on a couple of creator owned books in the past and the artists were willing to pencil and ink for as low as $10 a page. A few of them have been pros for a few years as well, so they were not really newbies. But you are right, ultimately, you either do it for the love of the artwork or you find work elsewhere...

[Mahran]

a working artist who pencils for the dark horse star wars books told me they started him at $175/page. but they only gave him 10-12 pages per issue for the first two years before giving him an entire issue.

he now works on a regular series for dark horse. don't want to say his name in case he would get in trouble for revealing his page rate.

That is a very sweet job :steph: