Spent a bus ride yesterday reading a 1997 book by Gary Martin called The Art of Comic Book Inking that someone recced in the Cartoonist Co-Op server. I'm not the target audience for it (it's geared towards traditional inkers working in the print comics industry and is more for b&w comics imo) but it's an...interesting look into how the industry was back then. And by interesting, I mean bleak as fuck!
More below:
So I got curious and tried to find what the page rates for being an inker are like now, and had a look at this list of rates from Comic Book Resource, which are all self-reported by industry professionals.*
You'll notice 'inker' isn't even its own category here. The closest one is 'line artist' which is both pencils and inks, which for the sake of argument let's say is twice the amount of work as inking by itself. (It's not, pencils are harder, don't at me.) I took the average of rates from 2020-2022 for line artists and got $227/page, for both pencils and inks.
The very lowest rate of $100/pg in 1997 for JUST inking would be $190 today. If line artists do twice the work (again, an underestimate) by doing pencils too, that ought to translate to $380/page at the lowest end today. It doesn't somehow! Huh. Have a look through that rate list and you'll see rates even lower than $100/page in today's money (mostly from the usual suspects.)
Here's some more fun math:
Forget the $28k number above--he's including covers in this number, which pay differently. Say you do 22pgs/month at $100/page--that's $26,400 (1997)/$50,282 (today). Subtract a third for taxes** and your take-home amount would be $33,522 in today's money, which works out to a wage of $16/hr.***
At the high end of Martin's numbers, let's say 44 pages a month at $150/page for a total of $79,200, or $52,800 after taxes, and an hourly rate of $25/hr. Adjusted for inflation, that's $150,845 gross/$100,563 net/$48 hourly.
Average these numbers together, and the rates in today's money would be $67,042 net/$32 hourly.
Assuming line artists do twice the work, these numbers ought to be doubled, at $120k/yr or $64/hr.
But by the actual numbers we have, if a line artist works that same amount at the average rate of $227/page, that works out to $59,928 before taxes, $40,132 after, and an hourly wage of $19.
The kicker: the living wage in my metro area (same one Gary Martin lived in when he published this book, incidentally) is $21/hr, assuming no kids. Lol.
This is also assuming you can pencil AND ink at least 22 pages a month every month sustainably without destroying yourself, which is an EXTREMELY generous assumption. Also, no one gets health insurance working in comics, so take that into account with this shoulder-destroying pace.
I'm sure I'm mostly preaching to the choir here, and none of this information is really a surprise to me--oh comics is also a bad industry that doesn't page a living wage? shocker!--but it's interesting**** to actually be able to run the numbers on it to see how much, exactly, rates have stagnated. A lot, as it turns out!
Anyway, here's a little look into how comics pays, in case you're unfamiliar. It pays bad.
*this isn't even including companies like Webtoons and Tapas, who are fairly notorious at this point for underpaying and overworking creators. This is largely print publishing.
**the self-employment tax rate in the US is something like 15.1% and has been since at least 1990 but advice is usually to pay a third in quarterly taxes--easier to overpay and get it back at tax time than underpay and owe.
***based on 40hrs/wk, and I'm showing this number bc I think more people understand hourly wages than rates. I wouldn't include the amount for taxes in this bc if you're working an hourly wage you're probably not self-employed.
Rian Sygh is a brave man. Rian is a comics artist who’s worked at BOOM!, Oni and Z2. Here’s his Patreon page... He’s put his finances on a Twitter thread for everyone to see.
Yikes... kind of a rough read, but definitely informative.
The survey aims to build a resource about standard rates in the comic book industry for comic creators. Additionally, we hope that this data will encourage professionals not to accept work that pay…
The survey aims to build a resource about standard rates in the comic book industry for comic creators. Additionally, we hope that this data will encourage professionals not to accept work that pay…
Does anyone know what a reasonable, competitive page rate for indie comics artists is these days? With regards to pencils+inks and also colorists. Asking for a friend.
Announcing the 2016 Comic Creators Survey - digging into page rates and royalties
Announcing the 2016 Comic Creators Survey – digging into page rates and royalties
As we make our way through the current era of disruption, there’s an ever greater need for clarity, verifiable information and real news. In that spirit, I’m presenting to you the 2016 Comic Creator Rate Survey. Developed by Graphic Policy’s Brett Schenker in conjunction with current comics freelancers (with a little copy editing by myself) we hope this will be the start of assembling reliable…
The goal of this survey is to build a resource that allows creators to have more information about standard rates in the comics industry. We also hope this data will encourage more professionals no…
Page Rates for Mainstream and Indie Publishers, all data gathered anonymously from a sample size of 60 cartoonists. Survey is still open, and available at bottom of page, these results will be upda...
Interesting insights here for those who are wondering how much (or how little) it pays to make comics for various publishers.
