question about comics
Peter Porker
how much most comic book writers get paid? I know more well known writers
get paid more. But I'm just wondering an average or some idea. Thanks.
GrapeApe
http://www.enteract.com/~katew/faqs/miscfaq3.htm
http://www.enteract.com/~katew/faqs/
3-18: HOW MUCH DO COMIC CREATORS GET PAID?
The vast majority of comic book creators work freelance (though a number of
colorists and letterers work as salaried employees for studios, and one
newer comic book company--CrossGen--directly employees most of their
artists and writers, as well.) Freelance creators are almost always paid by
the page for their work, and their pay scale is stated as a "page rate."
The pay rates listed below assume a major work-for-hire publisher (i.e.,
Marvel, DC, Top Cow, TMP, Dark Horse). Smaller publishers often offer
substantially lower rates.
SCRIPT (per page)
Beginning Rates: $40 to $60
High End Rates: $80 to $100
PENCILS (per page)
Beginning Rates: $80 to $120
High End Rates: $180 to $200
INKS (per page)
Beginning Rates: $40 to $60
High End Rates: $100 to $140
COLORING (per page)
Beginning Rates: $20 to $25
High End Rates: $35 to $40
LETTERS (per page)
Beginning Rates: $20 to $25
High End Rates: $35 to $40
Some page rate notes:
BREAKDOWNS VS. FULL PENCILS: Artists who do breakdowns/layouts (loose, less
complete pencil art) are generally paid from $20-$25 dollars less than
their normal page rate. Inkers who "finish" such artwork (doing substantial
more drawing work than normal) are paid correspondingly more.
COVERS (STANDARD): Artists are normally paid more for covers than for
interior pages--anywhere from 20% to 50% higher. Covers normally take more
time, receive more editorial attention, and require more changes. Exact
cover rates are impacted by a number of factors, and are harder to pin down
than interior page rates.
COVERS (PAINTED): Depending on the popularity and skill of the artist,
rates for painted covers can run from the several hundred dollars on up
into the low four figures.
CONTINUITY BONUSES: In the past--when money was less tight--many of the
major publishers offered "continuity bonuses" to artists. These were bonus
payments for completing a run of issues (anywhere from eight to fourteen)
without requiring a fill-in. In the current market, this practice has
almost disappeared.
SALE OF ORIGINAL ART: Pencillers and inkers have an additional source of
income open to them. Publishers normally only buy reproduction rights to
the art. They almost never buy the physical artwork. Thus, once a publisher
has finished scanning their art boards, the art is returned to the creators.
Original art is normally split 2/3rds to the penciller and 1/3rd to the
inker (although the exact percentages can vary depending upon contractual
relationships and/or upon the relative contributions of the penciller vs.
inker to the finished art). Writers do not receive a share of the original
art.
Once an artist has their art back, they may choose to sell it to collectors
in the secondary art market. If the artist is popular, he or she may be
able to sell originals for as much--or more--than his or her page rate. On
the other hand, many originals go for $10 to $20 a page. And some never
sell...
A few important caveats about page rates and creator incomes:
1) Royalites (AKA "incentive") levels are almost never reached in the
current market.
2) You can't just multiply a page rate by 22 pages per month and get a
realistic approximation of your potential salary as a comic professional.
A number of factors make such calculations questionable: fill-in issues
being scheduled, getting work on non-monthly special projects, sickness (no
sick days for freelancers), being fired off a title, having a comic
cancelled out from under you, sale of original art, cover work, etc.
Furthermore, freelancers also have to cover self-employment taxes and
health insurance out of their earnings.
3) All this goes out the window for smaller publishers. Rates are usually
much lower: $5, $10, or $20 a page--or even nothing. On the other hand,
with small-press publishers, royalties are often higher, and royalty
thresholds are much lower. A breakout hit in the small press arena
(rare--but it happens) can net artists effective page rates of hundreds of
dollars per page.
4) Self-publishing is different. No one pays you anything. There are no
page rates. You live off (or fail to live off) of your profits.
Rich Johnston (who's had some experience as self-publisher through his
Twist and Shout Comics label) explains some of the economics:
If you can sell 3000 copies a month, you can make a living. A
3000 print run will cost between $1000 and $1500 (black and
white). Print at somewhere that Diamond pick up from and
there's no extra shipping cost. Retail at $2.95, you sell to
Diamond for $1.18. Profit of about 70c an issue. Multiplied by
3000, that's $2100 a month. Or $25,200 a year. Mind you, then
there's materials, inventory copies, conventions, promotion,
everything else to figure in. Plus the fact that you won't
sell 3000 a month. Few self-publishers do.
Don't quit your day job...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
J. Carl Henderson
--cut and paste to adopt this sig file---
Make Deja a useful Usenet Archive again!
John C. Baker
grap...@aol.comjunk (GrapeApe) wrote:
> SCRIPT (per page)
> Beginning Rates: $40 to $60
That's $880 to about $1,300 a month for a 22-page book. No tnearly enough
to live on these days. Does that mean that there are a lot of comic book
writers flipping burgers on the side? Kurt, Priest? Did you guys need side
work when just starting out? Do you know anyone who had to?
--
John C. Baker; jc...@humboldt.edu; AOL IM: jcbaker10
South San Francisco, CA, USA
http://www.humboldt.edu/~jcb10/
SETI@Home: 1061 units, 9548 hours
Ian Boothby
John C. Baker <jc...@axe.humboldt.edu> wrote in message
news:jcb10-22120...@10.0.1.51...
> In article <20001222003705...@ng-fi1.aol.com>,
> grap...@aol.comjunk (GrapeApe) wrote:
>
> > SCRIPT (per page)
> > Beginning Rates: $40 to $60
>
> That's $880 to about $1,300 a month for a 22-page book. No tnearly enough
> to live on these days. Does that mean that there are a lot of comic book
> writers flipping burgers on the side? Kurt, Priest? Did you guys need side
> work when just starting out? Do you know anyone who had to?
There's no set rate. You can average but it doesn't mean anything. If your
book sells well
then you can negotiate for good money on it. It's like asking what the
average actor makes.
Find a book comparable in sales to the one you're working on and find out
that that writer
makes. That is if they'd tell you. Which they probably won't. I know I
wouldn't.
Ian Boothby
Elayne Riggs
>> SCRIPT (per page)
>> Beginning Rates: $40 to $60
> That's $880 to about $1,300 a month for a 22-page book. No tnearly enough
> to live on these days.
Depends on where you live. In these days of overnight couriers and faxes
and e-mails, a writer doesn't have to live anywhere near a publisher. But
you're right in that $15,000 before taxes (even with all the deductions
freelancers learn to take) is not that high an income, which is why most
writers will look for work on more than one book or will have a second job
in addition to writing. Artists don't have that time "luxury," and since
art is more labor-intensive and specialized it pays better, so a penciller
or inker can pretty much survive on one title. Of course, it helps to be
married to someone who also works, who has health insurance, etc. :)
- Elayne
Robert Carnegie
jc...@axe.humboldt.edu (John C. Baker) wrote:
> In article <20001222003705...@ng-fi1.aol.com>,
> grap...@aol.comjunk (GrapeApe) wrote:
>
> > SCRIPT (per page)
> > Beginning Rates: $40 to $60
I suppose that these figures in the FAQ are updated from time to time,
for inflation? There are plenty of old FAQ copies littered around
the Web, to check on...
> That's $880 to about $1,300 a month for a 22-page book. Not nearly
> enough to live on these days.
But Joe Comicbookwriter can write more than one book per month.
Art takes longer, per page, than plotting and scripting
(which are done before and after the art, in a "Marvel style"
programme), but the artist eats the same as the writer (with
exceptions...you see 'em at cons...)
Robert Carnegie
Glasgow, Scotland
"Customers should beware of their personal belongings" -
sign in a busy Clapham Junction pub.
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
Johanna Draper Carlson
> I suppose that these figures in the FAQ are updated from time to time,
> for inflation?
You're assuming that the rates are updated from time to time. :)
Johanna Draper Carlson joh...@comicsworthreading.com
Reviews of Comics Worth Reading -- http://www.comicsworthreading.com
Robert Carnegie
Johanna Draper Carlson <joh...@comicsworthreading.com> wrote:
> Robert Carnegie at rja.ca...@mailexcite.com wrote:
>
> > I suppose that these figures in the FAQ are updated from time to time,
> > for inflation?
>
> You're assuming that the rates are updated from time to time. :)
Well, I do understand that the business isn't going so well at the moment...
Todd VerBeek
>> Beginning Rates: $40 to $60
Our friend John C. Baker said:
>That's $880 to about $1,300 a month for a 22-page book. No tnearly enough
>to live on these days. Does that mean that there are a lot of comic book
>writers flipping burgers on the side? Kurt, Priest? Did you guys need side
>work when just starting out? Do you know anyone who had to?
Two points:
1) Whether you can live on that (or come close) depends on where you live, how
you live, and whether you support anyone else with your income. In a big city
on either coast, forget it. But here in the American Midwest, I know a single
person who actually =does= live on roughly that much, with a very-part-time
delivery job on top of that to pay for his comics habit.
2) Most "full-time" comicbook writers do more than one book at a time. If
they're not, they probably have a "day job" and the writing =is= the "side
work".
Cheers, Todd
--
Radix malorum est stupiditas.
KurtBusiek
Yes. Very much so -- and even then, I couldn't afford to live in New York,
where the work was. I didn't start supporting myself as a full-time freelancer
until late 1990, eight years after I "broke in."
>>Do you know anyone who had to?>>
Practically everyone, I think. Even if you're lucky enough to get a regular
book right off the bat (which is unusual), one book alone is not generally
enough to support a writer, not at beginner's rates. And for most people
breaking in, the work is irregular at best for a while.
kurt
WESTWIND, by Busiek & Perez, appears in SECTION ZERO #6!
Visit the home of Gorilla Comics at:
http://www.apenation.com/
Paul O'Brien
<jc...@axe.humboldt.edu> writes
>
>That's $880 to about $1,300 a month for a 22-page book. No tnearly enough
>to live on these days.
Yes, but a lot of writers do more than one book a month.
Paul O'Brien
THE X-AXIS REVIEWS - http://www.esoterica.demon.co.uk
From the relatively fashionable west end of Glasgow.
Carl Henderson
>In article <jcb10-22120...@10.0.1.51>,
> jc...@axe.humboldt.edu (John C. Baker) wrote:
>> In article <20001222003705...@ng-fi1.aol.com>,
>> grap...@aol.comjunk (GrapeApe) wrote:
>> > SCRIPT (per page)
>> > Beginning Rates: $40 to $60
>I suppose that these figures in the FAQ are updated from time to time,
>for inflation? There are plenty of old FAQ copies littered around
>the Web, to check on...
This is from a FAQ question I wrote in July of 2000. Those rates are current.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carl Henderson rec.arts.comics/rec.arts.comics.misc FAQ
carl.he...@airmail.net http://www.enteract.com/~katew/faqs/miscfaq.htm
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Justin Bacon
>That's $880 to about $1,300 a month for a 22-page book. No tnearly enough
>to live on these days. Does that mean that there are a lot of comic book
>writers flipping burgers on the side? Kurt, Priest? Did you guys need side
>work when just starting out? Do you know anyone who had to?
>
>--
>John C. Baker; jc...@humboldt.edu; AOL IM: jcbaker10
>South San Francisco, CA, USA
Depends where you live.Here in Minneapolis, as a single bachelor, I could live
quite happily on $1000/month. It wouldn't be luxury living, but it would be a
decent apartment in a decent part of town with a small budget for extraneous
expenses.
I mean, obviously, you're living in near poverty. And as you begin adding a
family into that picture it becomes intolerable. But you're living.
In San Francisco, of course, you'd be teetering on the edge of homelessness.
But I would say that the average comic book writer who is making a living at it
is doing so through one of two methods:
1. Getting paid far more than a "beginning rate".
2. Writing more than one book.
Justin Bacon
tria...@aol.com
KurtBusiek
the side?>>
"What's the difference between a comic-book writer and a large pizza?"
"A large pizza can feed a family of four."
I'm not the best guy to tell that joke, but I heard it a few months back,
thought it was pretty funny, and too often true these days, and thought I'd
share.
Matt Adler
"KurtBusiek" <kurtb...@aol.comics> wrote in message
news:20001223025157...@ng-fy1.aol.com...
> >>Does that mean that there are a lot of comic book writers flipping
burgers on
> the side?>>
>
> "What's the difference between a comic-book writer and a large pizza?"
>
> "A large pizza can feed a family of four."
>
>
>
>
> I'm not the best guy to tell that joke, but I heard it a few months back,
> thought it was pretty funny, and too often true these days, and thought
I'd
> share.
You know, when you think about it, the pizza's got quite a few advantages
over the comic book writer... I mean, how many comic book writers come to
your door smothered in mozzarella cheese and tomato sauce?
pop slut
Matt Adler <mad...@ic.sunysb.edu> wrote in message
news:3a44f...@dilbert.ic.sunysb.edu...
More to the point, how many of them would you want to?
--
b m c ____ will swear for food
icq47130468
______________________________
www.misterridiculous.com/columns/briancaffrey.html
http://wecome.to/intelligentinsanity
www.savantmag.com
Mark Evanier
<mad...@ic.sunysb.edu> posted:
>You know, when you think about it, the pizza's got quite a few advantages
>over the comic book writer... I mean, how many comic book writers come to
>your door smothered in mozzarella cheese and tomato sauce?
ME: Just Tony Isabella. So far.
---------------------------------------------------
Now online! www.evanier.com
A website about comic books, cartoons, movies, TV
shows,comic strips and possums in my backyard.
hoc...@attglobal.net
KurtBusiek wrote in message
>>>Kurt, Priest? Did you guys need side work when just starting out?>>
>
>Yes. Very much so -- and even then, I couldn't afford to live in New York,
>where the work was. I didn't start supporting myself as a full-time
freelancer
>until late 1990, eight years after I "broke in."
>
when did you know you had "made it"? Is there is one moment/event you could
pick that made you feel like that?
Gary H.
KurtBusiek
Post-college? I was a reporter for the fan press, an assistant editor for
MARVEL AGE, I wrote articles for a magazine or two -- including a 100-word
article on Hank Williams Sr. for, of all places, PENTHOUSE HOT TALK; go figure
-- I was a literary agent, an associate editor at a book publishing house, and
a sales manager at Marvel. And I worked at Burger King in there somewhere too.
>> And when did you know you had "made it"?>>
After we bought a house in 1991, I expected to lie awake nights worrying that i
couldn't pay the mortgage. Instead, I realized that I never actually worried
about paying the mortgage, I just worried about meeting my deadlines. That
suggested to me that I had enough work...
>> Is there is one moment/event you could pick that made you feel like that? >>
Ultimately, I guess the response to ASTRO CITY #1 was what made me realize that
things weren't going to dry up and vanish overnight, and I could figure I had
an actual career going. Of course, by the time Roy Thomas had been in the
business as long as I had been at that point, he'd not only been editor in
chief at Marvel, but had been a writer/editor for years and wasn't that far
away from leaving Marvel for DC. But I was hardly what you'd call an overnight
success...
Matt Adler
"KurtBusiek" <kurtb...@aol.comics> wrote in message
> >> Out of curiosity, what were your work experiences before "making it"?
>>
>
> Post-college? I was a reporter for the fan press, an assistant editor for
> MARVEL AGE, I wrote articles for a magazine or two -- including a 100-word
> article on Hank Williams Sr. for, of all places, PENTHOUSE HOT TALK; go
figure
> -- I was a literary agent, an associate editor at a book publishing house,
and
> a sales manager at Marvel. And I worked at Burger King in there somewhere
too.
If you could go back in time, would you do it all over again? (asssuming
that's what it would take to get you where you are now)
KurtBusiek
Sure.