Eh...nope.

Frankly, I have better things to do than fight with people online, but let me just say that I acknowledge that many (and, in fact, most) people in comics have trouble making a living. Not just because comics is comics (financial instability is the norm for the arts, period,), but because the entire business paradigm of the industry has been going through major shifts for over twenty years, and the arts are being gutted from corporate on down.

The fairly small, tight knit group of professionals mostly centered in the Northeast as when I broke in, now consists of a huge pool of creators from around the world. These aspirants are willing to trod the boards for peanuts year after year until they finally burn out entirely and run off and do something else, which is the fate of most journeyman creators, anyway. I know people who got their starts in the 1970's who were done with comics before the year 2000.

A certain person asserted that there are only "about ten" people who actually make a living full-time in comics - that is, a living comparable to money you would make at a day job.

This is absurd, of course.

But it is true that the number of financially stable creators is something like ten percent of the work pool. I could be here all day naming the creators I know who make a good living in comics. I make a solid living, too, though I am no Alex Ross.

When I got very ill recently, I had one person after another and one organization after another offering me financial assistance, which I assured them I did not want.

The first thing I pay every month is my health insurance. My car is paid for. My house is paid for.

I know plenty of creators who apply for aid when there’s money in their bank so they don’t have to touch the money in that bank. I have mixed feelings about that and I’m not one to judge other’s choices, but even though I was fully insured, the whole experience cost a lot of dough.

So I have a lot less money in the bank.

I didn’t go out of my way to take on more work to cover expenses either, and canceled jobs and appearances besides. I made hash of a few gigs I kept because while I was able to work during the ups, the downs were pretty bad, and I don’t do good work on a bad day.

However…

I got through it, the bills got paid, and I finished a major gig.

Go me.

Anyway, it's simply not true that only "about ten" creators are making a solid "day job" living in comics.

Stuff happens.

For example (and I know several creators in this position) you have years where you make a lot of money, and then a dead year or two, and you're stuck with the high income tax year to cover in a low income year.

It's easy to get caught in that kind of squeeze.

Companies go under and don't pay huge bills.

The big culprit for me was not a comics company, but a tech company. I'll have tax deductions for YEARS from that deal.

Every creator is a key person business, and every single creator can be undercut by people willing to work for less at companies that only care about filling a slot. Every publisher will pinch pennies when they can. I don’t care what anyone is saying right now, I have no doubt corporate will turn around and decide AI is just fine by them.

If you are a creator who has been around awhile, and you own your own IP, and you make good money on royalties, and your art is worth some bank, you are not starving or even close to it, even if you are, like me, covering a five figure medical bill load and months and months of lost work time.

The real issue is, young creators break in, they see the famous creators getting big money for their art and commissions, and they see the museums, the long line at conventions, the appearance of wealth and fame, and they think that they get into comics and that's going to happen for them, too.

And it might.

But more likely it won't.

If you're looking at a creator who is over 50 years old, they have decades of work behind them. It is not even remotely reasonable to expect that you are going to sail in as a newbie and have the same advantages as someone who took three decades to get there.

I get so many letters from young fans who look at pics of my studio and sigh.

Fun space.

But here’s what my studio looked like for much of the 1980’s. It’s a corner of my tiny bedroom. I slept on a couch.

Still fun space. But tiny fun space while getting back problems sitting on a wicker chair.

I still have those file cabinets and that taboret at the right. After DECADES. It took my DECADES to accumulate the things some young creators think they’re going to get in about 2 years.

Eh…probably not.

It's not that there aren't some creators who break out when they are twenty-five and go on to sail into glory, it's that few do. Those who do might be discarded a few years later when the industry trades them in for someone younger, and newer, and shinier.

It's not binary. Everyone in comics isn't starving.

Everyone in comics sure as heck isn't rich.

And there isn't much of a middle class.

But the more people who try to get into comics and make a success of it find that there is a tiny success point at the top and a very long tail.

It has never been easier to break into comics.

But it has never been easy to make a living in comics.

And frankly, I think it's harder than ever now.

None of this is about scolding you for asking for higher page rates, or royalties, or anything else. Many young creators are working for free CONSTANTLY on their webcomics.

I'm just saying that it can take a very long time before the benefits of your visibility as an artist start to pay off.

It can take decades.

And it might not happen at all.

Remember that post I wrote about how fame doesn't rub off and how working on Spider-Man won't make you famous?

There is a very, very long line of creators who came before you who never got the long term benefit of having worked on Big Name IP.

Folks, not everyone who works at Marvel ends up Todd McFarlane.

It isn't just about you.

Maybe I did deep dive after all.

Good luck.