Working for a Living

A lot of cartoonists—and many blogs, ahem—have taken to PAtreon as a means to finance the creation of comics. There are quite a few (a round up post is called for, maybe later this week) and Patreon doesn't make it clear who makes the most, the way Kickstarter does, but Jason Shiga recently hit $1000 a month for his Ignatz winning webcomic Demon. Given his analytic background, there's much of that in the post, but here's an excerpt:

Last week Denise Dorman, wife of veteran artist Dave Dorman, who is best known for his excellent painted covers, wrote a post on her blogm which is called Comic Book Wife. The post was titled: The Hidden TRUTH About Comic Book Convention Earnings: For Creators, Have Comic Book Conventions JUMPED THE SHARK? in which she pointed out that sales for her husband were off at several shows this year, and given the costs of exhibiting—hotels booths, food, travel—it made more sense to stay at home and do actual money making work.

privateeye8The good news is that a new issue of THE PRIVATE EYE is available. This webcomic by Brian K. Vaughan, Marcos Martin and Muntsa Vicente posits a world where an eruption in the cloud has made privacy the most valued social element. Oh did you say "torn from today's headlines"? When this started running last year it seemed a little far fetched but after the burst cloud has spilled all of our secrets, BKV looks prescient again.

I just arrived at SPX and the thrill of excitement over comics is a palpable thing, as the young and the young at heart (Saw Jules Feiffer walking around) gather to talk about what they love....

I totally stole this from the blog of Marie Javins, a long time editor (most recently at DC) and colorist and adventurer:

Mike Dawson is talented cartoonist, a witty raconteur and a fine podcaster— you can hear his work with Alex Robinson here at Ink Panthers. And as of yesterday he was a Tumblr king with a post calledAdvice to the mid-career cartoonist who has failed to build an audience. It's honest and in some parts brutal.

On Tuesday we posted writer Alan Brennert's pique over not getting equity participation for the character Barbara Kent Gordon, who will appear as Jim Gordon's wife on the Gotham TV show. Although we're all...

Alan Brennert is a well-established DC Bronze age writer who was one of the first to cross over between comics and TV in the 70s and 80s. And he's made several contributions to DC's...

I've been hearing a lot of conspiracy theories of late about DC, and some of them involve their participation/royalties system. In addition for quite a while, people have been complaining about the fact that colorists aren't eligible for royalties—and neither are digital-first comics. But that is changing. I understand a letter has just gone out to DC creative folks announcing a complete overhaul of the DC royalty system. For the first time colorists will be eligible for royalties and will get cover credit. And digital first will also be eligible for royalties. Little things like direct deposit and electronic vouchering will also be available.

When thinking about the crazy world we live in today, where The Walking Dead is the most successful thing on TV and Marvel is the most successful thin in movies, I often think back to a seminal moment in the debate between creator-owned and company-driven: the 2008 debate between Robert Kirkman and Brian Bendis which took place at that year's Baltimore Comicon. The think kicked off when a pre-Talking Dead sharpened Kirkman posted a video editorial calling for more creators to band together to make creator owned comics more of a thing, He even had an agenda for the process (emphasis mine.):

A couple of incidents this week of creators who spoke out, and editors who took offense at the speaking out. First off, we've noted many times that Jim Starlin and Marvel seemed to have reached a happy place in terms of Starlin created characters Gamora and Thanos getting the big screen treatment in Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy. Starlin, whose various cosmic works such as The Infinity Gauntlet have been hugely influential in that end of the Marvel Universe, created a new Thanos graphic novel for Marvel and all seemed to be well. But then....things weren't. Newsarama has a full rundown of the matter but The Beat first noticed something might be up when Starlin posted this on his FB page:

After spending a year chairing the Society of Illustrators' annual illustration show, Jillian Tamaki pens a rah rah intro for the annual, but I think she's right: Young illustrators, seemingly unfazed by the fact...