Mark Millar looking for an artist for a Hit Girl series

[James Dilworth]

(There are alternatives. If you can get really good at drawing women's arses, there's always the Eric Basaldua route, whereby you can draw cheesecake variant covers for Zenescope at over $1000 a pop.)

Zenescope, you say?

[Jim_Campbell]

The publisher that he's working for at the moment is one of the big two and he's quite happy with the page rate.

I'm honestly very pleased for him, and he must have a metric shitload of talent if he keeps getting work despite struggling with deadlines. Nonetheless, his experience is very much an outlier.

I, too, can point to artists of my acquaintance who make a tidy living. The fact is, however, that there are very many talented artists seeking far too few opportunities, leaving people who could kick major ass on a mainstream book scratting about for irregular work on piss-poor page rates.

I'm not entirely sure what point you think you're making... the existence of Tom Cruise doesn't change the fact that most actors work as bartenders, just as the existence of JK Rowling doesn't alter the fact that 90% of authors make less than £10k a year from writing.

[Jim_Campbell]

Zenescope, you say?

And arses. Never forget the arses.

[Old Tankie]

Not sure I was trying to make any point, Jim, apart from trying to encourage someone, to keep following their dream.  As I said in my previous post, my lad would totally agree with PJ regarding the difficulty of finding continuous work.  I was querying the page rate he quoted regarding DC and Marvel because I don't think he got that right.

[GordonR]

Is your successful comic artist son's name or the titles of any of the work he's done a closely-guarded family secret, or something?

[Jim_Campbell]

I was querying the page rate he quoted regarding DC and Marvel because I don't think he got that right.

Pretty sure he did -- he was talking about starting rates. On top of which, I know for a fact that when you start as a penciller for either of the Big Two, you're expected to spend about a year doing pencils sufficiently detailed that they can be darkened off in Photoshop to the point where an inker isn't required (ie: you have to spend a lot more time on them) before they'll assign you an inker.

I'm not trying to dissuade anyone from pursuing their dream. I'm just pointing out that, from the perspective of someone who works on a LOT of books from a LOT of publishers, there are many more lucrative ways of reliably monetising artistic talent than becoming a comic artist.

[Old Tankie]

Thanks for that, Jim.

[Jim_Campbell]

Thanks for that, Jim.

You're very welcome.

On the off-chance that was sarcasm, my last illustration* of the point: a fan-favourite 2000ad artist told me he got as much money painting one trading card for a well-known CCG company as he did for a page of fully painted strip. The card would take an afternoon, the page would take three days.

The maths isn't difficult when you've got bills to pay and a family to feed.

Edit to add: That's not a dig at 2000AD page rates. Just a corollary to my general observation that drawing comics is a fantastically inefficient way of monetising artistic talent.

*Pun intended.

[TordelBack]

Thrilled to hear your son is making a decent living doing what he (and all of us here!) loves, Tankie.  A father can't hope for much more than that.

[Old Tankie]

Thank you, TB, much appreciated.

[James Dilworth]

Is your successful comic artist son's name or the titles of any of the work he's done a closely-guarded family secret, or something?

*cough* tank girl *cough cough*

_{this is just a guess btw}

[pauljholden]

As happy as I am for Tankies son (not really -I'm a seething bag of resentment) I'd suggest he's a bit of an outlier.

http://www.comicsbeat.com/being-a-cartoonist-by-the-numbers-and-the-numbers-are-ugly/

[James Dilworth]

As happy as I am for Tankies son (not really -I'm a seething bag of resentment) I'd suggest he's a bit of an outlier.

http://www.comicsbeat.com/being-a-cartoonist-by-the-numbers-and-the-numbers-are-ugly/

I'm wondering who's making $200,000 a year from comic books?  Good grief.

Seeing as how cagey everyone else is being on this thread I'll just tell everyone how much I made from my comic book.

£35

It would have been £45 but RBS charged me a tenner to exchange a US cheque into sterling.

[Professor Bear]

My last comic made nothing.  Admittedly I give it away for free, but my point stands.

edit to add: Actually, tell a lie, I had an OGN out a few years ago that never broke even, and when I finally wanted the damn thing purged from history on the basis that maybe having sophomore work out there isn't the best advertising in the world, the publishers said I'd have to buy the remaining stock off them, so it would actually end up costing me 3 grand.

[COMMANDO FORCES]

Is your successful comic artist son's name or the titles of any of the work he's done a closely-guarded family secret, or something?

*cough* tank girl *cough cough*

_{this is just a guess btw}

I know but that's not for me to say but you've all seen his work.