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When is a story not a story? When is the story about a story actually the story? Well strap yourselves in because you're about to find out!

A page of Brian Churilla’s art for Big Trouble in Little China #10.

Being in comics is great, it’s a golden era, new readers, yadda yadda. But this golden era is mostly the product of people slaving away at drawing boards and computers for long hours and a meagre living. And now here are some numbers to prove it. David Harper, formerly of Multiversity, has just launched his own site, called Sktchd and he’s continuing the valuable longform pieces that were the best part of the old site. Recently he sent out a survey for artists to explain who they are and what they do and 186 of them responded. You’ll want to read the whole thing as it has some metrics on gender, income, publishers and much more. (David lives in Alaska and they have free time there, I guess.) Broken down with a ton of charts and graphs it’s a non-statistically valid snapshot, but the numbers are sobering. Let’s just get to the bottom line here., since that’s what you came for.

Forget getting rich though. Can artists even make enough to get by off their art? Mostly, the answer is no, they can’t. Almost 60 percent of artists who responded shared they can’t make a living off their work. What that means is many artists live interesting double lives. While many mentioned that they did freelance illustration, animation, advertising work, storyboards or other art related jobs to supplement their income, there were others who worked in factories, as bartenders, or even in one special case, lived off earnings as a figure drawing model and a tarot card reader.

Others bring in income from alternative sources, including working in a shared income household with a spouse and leveraging Patreon and other crowd-sourcing outfits to help them get by. Artists may not be making the big bucks, but they are a resilient and resourceful group.

There’s much more to chew on, including satisfaction with publishers, with DC?Vertigo getting high marks and Boom and Dynamite getting low marks, formats, art methods and so much more. Like I said read the whole thing, quote it, make it a part of your life.

In a subsequent post, Harper goes even further into the maw of the cyclone and breaks things down by gender. And it looks bad.

While this seems to make the case that cis men are generally paid more for comics than non cis males, Harper points out that more women, trans and non-binary creators just started their careers, and more work outside the relatively lucrative field of monthly floppies:

When you take the data for the comics creators work on and cross-reference it with the variables based around money, that’s when you see an additional correlation. More than half of floppy artists make enough money for that to be their only job. It’s the only format where that is the case, with over 80 percent of webcomic creators being unable to make a living off their work. Additionally, the majority of graphic novel and webcomic artists who responded make less than $12,000 a year off their work, and as a whole make less money than those who work on floppy comics.

As shown above, while men work more frequently in floppies, women, trans*, non-binary and agender artists most often work in graphic novels and webcomics, per the survey. Because of that additional correlation, the question becomes a chicken and the egg one: were the non cis male artists who responded more poorly compensated because of their gender or because of the format they work in?

Or perhaps because most floppy decision makers are cis males?

Lest ye despair at all this, it’s worth pointing out that the fast growing field of kids and YA graphic novels is dominated by women—and there are a few trans creators doing well there too. This is far from being a universal money spout, but it’s an alternative.

I’ve written here a few times about how page rates in comics have not gone up except for the tippity top guys, and a few other recent posts have driven that home. Janelle Asselin recently pointed out that today’s page rates are about where they were in a 1978 creators bill of rights. Thats unadjusted for inflation.

Adjusted for inflation, those rates today would be:
Artists: $1080
Writers: $360
Letterers: $144
Colorists: $252

It’s not an overstatement to say that these rates, adjusted for inflation, dwarf most creators’ rates today. There are maybe a few very, very top level creators who make similar or higher rates, but primarily only writers and artists working at top-tier publishers. In fact, there are a lot of creators in comics today who don’t even make as much as the 1978 rates quoted without adjusting for inflation. And there are a lot of creators in comics who can’t afford to make comics full time because they don’t make enough doing so.

At Special Edition a few days ago, Alex De Campi put together some numbers on page rates:

WFH/PAGE	MAINSTREAM	INDIE
Script	$80-100	$25-50
Covers	$600-700	$200-500
Line art	$200-300	$100-250
Colour art	$120-150	$35-100
Letters	$20-25	$10-20

These rates are, shockingly, about where they were when I edited comics 15 years ago. The 1978 document called for a lettering rate of $40 a page, so there one thing that has become significantly devalued with time.

Finally, here’s another much linked to piece, from artist Brian Churilla, creator of Hellbreak and The Secret History of DB Cooper and currently Boom’s Big Trouble in Little China comic. Sounds like a guy who works steadily and makes a living at it, right? Not so fast. Basically Churilla backs up Harpers stats on living well below a “middle class” level, as if that even existed any more. Even more dismal is his time breakdown:

So. Here’s the schedule I keep:
7:00am – Wake up, feed the kids and get them ready for school.
8:30 – Take the kids to school
9:00-9:30am – Start work
12:30pm Pick up kid #1
3:30pm: Pick up kid #2
4:00-9:00pm – Family time.
9:00pm-3:00am Work
3:00am Sleep.
Yep. That’s four hours of sleep per day, best-case scenario. Weekends too. Due to the sleep deprivation, I feel like absolute garbage all the time. Depression, anxiety, nausea, fatigue, weight gain, compromised cognitive abilities, even hallucinations – I suffer from all of these.

40% of the artists in Harper’s survey report not even taking a day off a week. Not quite as awful as that manga-ka schedule we posted a few years ago where the poor guy had a total of three hours free time a week. But not that much better.

What does this all mean? I’m writing this on my own five-hours-of-sleep-a-night schedule, so I’m probably too brain befogged to figure it out. Clearly a lot of the success of some publishers is predicated on paying low rates; we all know that even if we don’t like saying it aloud. And younger creators seem willing to takes these rates in hopes of graduating to the comics 6% that makes a wage that allows for things like insurance, vacations and saving for retirement. I know that the happy face of the convention or small press show often masks a fraught life of financial stress.

Some of this is tied up in the increasing feudalism of society, with the few at the top becoming patrons for the peons slaving away at their Manga Studio or the local Wal-Mart. It’s harder to make a living at ANYTHING creative now. But comics have a low level economy to begin with.

I think a lot of people are going to drop out over the next few years, if you define dropping out as not trying to make a living at comics, while maybe making the occasional tumblr post. As comics become an accepted outlet of individual self-expression, it’s a lot like being in a band. You do it for a while while you’re young, but eventually you quit to concentrate on the kids and the mortgage. And that’s okay, because it’s the game of life.

But in the larger picture, an industry where an artist makes 33% of what the living wage was 37 years ago, maybe isn’t the healthiest place to be. And that’s something we all need to do something about.

The Fresh Romance Kickstarter campaign is in its final hours but it’s already made nows. Not only is it well over 150% funded, but editor/publisher Janelle Asselin’s plan to bring back romance comics in a contemporary guise with Rosy Books has definitely struck a nerve.

As the last few hours count down, we caught up with Asselin for a quick check in on how the campaign got going and how she prepared for such a time consuming but ultimately successful task. And as a bonus, here’s a look at the story from Sarah Vaughn (ALEX + ADA) and Sarah Winifred Searle (SMUT PEDDLER) about a couple headed to the altar for all the wrong reasons.

You can still support the Fresh Romance digital anthology in the link above and The Beat endorses this action!

THE BEAT: Obviously this has been a very successful Kickstarter. But they are known for being a lot of work. How did you prepare for crowdfunding?

ASSELIN: I’ve backed quite a few Kickstarters over the years, so I’d already spent some time noting what worked and what didn’t work. I knew what I liked as a backer and a lot of that went into the decisions I made for my own Kickstarter campaign. The biggest thing, though, was that I spent a lot of time before we launched setting up the actual business and getting people not just on board as creators but actually working on their comics. I didn’t want to leave backers waiting around for months after we ended, wondering if they’d ever see their rewards. I did a lot of calculations to figure out the bare minimum I needed to get started, and went over not just the goal number but all the pricing numbers over and over again.

THE BEAT: Did you seek the advice or support of any Kickstarter veteran?

ASSELIN: I did email a bit with Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan of Oh Joy Sex Toy about their campaign. They had that great post they did about the numbers behind their Kickstarter that was really helpful and my lawyer put me in touch with them to talk a little more about specifics. I’d also done some interviews over the years with folks like Spike Trotman and Kel McDonald about their crowdfunding stuff, before I was even really sure I wanted to do it myself! Some of the KS campaigns I’ve backed over the years have been run by friends, like Jeremy Haun, so I’d heard some of the behind-the-scenes commentary on that. And also, a bunch of the creators I have on board have been a part of other KS campaigns, as has my publicist.

THE BEAT: Is there anything you would have done differently?

ASSELIN: I definitely would’ve given myself more lead-in time. I also probably would’ve hired some pros to do my video, because the stress of trying to do it myself was not worth it in the long run. I eventually got help from a friend who is a video pro but the whole process was pretty unnecessarily stressful. And I would’ve offered individual international shipping costs for some countries, like Canada. I’ve had some complaints about my international shipping costs, but as I’ve said honestly to folks, if they can find me cheaper options, I’d love to see them, but most of the international shipping I looked at ran at least as much as I’m charging, if not more. I know a lot of campaigns get into trouble where the shipping costs have to come out of pocket or end up being so astronomical they can’t afford them, and I did NOT want to be in that place. Still, I would adjust some of the individual country pricing so that it wasn’t just one flat international rate.

THE BEAT: The success of the campaign has allowed you to increase payments to creators and put out even more stories. How far do you have Rosy Press planned?

ASSELIN: I have pitches that could take us well beyond the first year – and we’ll open up to submissions soon, so I anticipate planning even further into the future. As I’ve tried to reinforce throughout the campaign, our initial funding goal was just the start – I never intended to just put out three issues and then call it a day. This is an ongoing monthly and as long as it is financially feasible, I’ll keep putting it out.

THE BEAT: And of course the inevitable question: now that you’ve done a Kickstarter for one title, would you consider doing this again?

ASSELIN: Possibly? It’s really stressful and it’s a ton of work, but it is also super exciting and validating. It’s a great way to test the waters on a project because you can get preorders and also gauge interest, and there’s a lot of value in that. I’m not sure how many people would’ve believed that a magazine like Fresh Romance with a Regency romance, a queer high school romance, and a paranormal romance would’ve gotten as much support as it has, but it’s been amazing. If there’s another project that I feel needs that extra push, it would likely be worth it.


There was a time not too long ago when you could fit all the “women in comics” at a big table in a coffee shop. Now there are more than 300 women who work in comics shops ALONE. That’s the membership of The Valkyries, a private organization for female comics retail employees. And it turns out the group has been instrumental in promoting a couple of books that have had great success this year, namely Saga and Lumberjanes. Janelle Asselin interviews group founder Kate Leth for all the details:

CA: One thing I think people don’t necessarily understand about the Valkyries is that it goes beyond a support network – you actually have an effect on the way shops are run and the ultimate consumer experience. I know that there are a few books the group has specifically supported – can you tell me about what you do when you think a book needs your advocacy?

KL: Sometimes it’s that a book might need our support, and other times it’s just titles we love. Our first “campaign” was for the Lying Cat t-shirts, from Saga. It happened really organically, because we all realized we had pre-ordered them, and so we decided to wear them on the same day and post photos. It became a way to show the comics world who we were, and what we were about – supporting the titles and creators we love. Saga doesn’t need our help, god knows, but we wanted to make a statement on how much we appreciate such an amazing title with a female artist and great, diverse female characters.

When we did Lumberday (we all wore plaid and tweeted photos for Lumberjanes) that was more of a push. The book is indie, and creator-owned, and we wanted people to check it out. That book was extra-special to the Valkyries because of the all-female cast not only in the book, but making it. We all bought those Batgirl boots, too. We wanted to show how excited we were that DC was taking note of and tailoring a title to their younger female audience. Also, those boots rule.

As suggested, Saga doesn’t exactly need a ton of support, but Lumberjanes has been a genuine sensation this year, and is now Boom!’s best selling non-licensed title, with more than 10K copies per issue sold.

There have been a few other retailer organizations that worked directly with creators to promote their work, but several have dwindled. (ComicsPRO remains strong, of course, but it seems to work directly with publishers most of the time.) The Valkyries seems set up to be a fantastic retail asset:

CA: Do you work with creators at all – beyond the breakfasts and general book-selling – in your work as Valkyries? Like, do you ever give creators advice or receive information from them to promote books?
KL: Yeah, we have! We do get advance copies and promos from time to time. We actually have a girl in the group now who manages all of the previews and promotes them when we get them. We’ve had some creators run things by the Valkyries for feedback, which is really, really cool.
CA: If a creator wanted to do that, how would they go about contacting the group?
KL: Send an email to [email protected]! We’re always on the lookout for things that are lady-friendly, all-ages, and/or feature things like LGBTQ+ and POC representation.

You can learn more about The Valkyries at their tumblr.