Make a Career in Comics
Love comic books? Want to create them for a living? Great! A lot of students would give just about anything to have a career writing and illustrating comic books.
That means the competition for jobs is fierce. If you want it Make sure you have the talent! Besides talent you must master:
- Human anatomy, including the twenty-three bones that make up your own hand
- Basic grammar, spelling, and vocabulary—nobody pays much attention to a writer who misspells words.
Work for a big firm
If a major publisher offers to hire you, it will be hard to turn down. The Big Four of the comic industry are:
- Marvel in New York City
- DC in New York City
- Dark Horse in Portland, Ore.
- Image, in Berkeley, Calif.
Marvel and DC are the biggest.
A beginning editor at either of them can expect to make $25,000 a year. If you chose to work for one of the Big Four, you will have to live where they are.
Editing Is Not a Creative JobMany writers and artists have found fulfillment as editors.
For someone who really wants to write or draw, these positions will be stop-gap measures.
CloseWork for a small firm
Smaller firms pay less than the majors, but still provide a good living for freelancers. For example:
Want to see a larger image of Night Club? Night Club
These are finished color pages from NIGHT CLUB, which made its debut in April 2005, from Image. Copyright Mike Baron and Mike Norton.
Close IDW pays writers $500 per script for a twenty-two page book. This is less than a quarter what DC and Marvel pay.
IDW pays artists $125 dollars a page for completed art, or slightly less than DC and Marvel pay for pencil drawings alone.
Both Oni and IDW have sold comic book titles to the movies, which benefits the creators.
Send Your Story to Paramount!If a production company such as Paramount wants your comic book title (your story) such as Invincible, here's what happens:
The company pays you option money. Option Money means that in exchange for a fee (in the thousands of dollars), they have the right to develop your title for a certain length of time.
If, at the end of that time, they decide to renew their option, they pay more option money.
If they actually go ahead and make the movie, they pay a production advance, which can be sizeable.
That's your money!
Close Try freelancing
In comics, you can make a good living as a freelancer.
Working On Your OwnA freelancer is someone who works on his own, without a boss. It can get strange. Without social interaction, freelance writers and artists can feel disassociated from people.
If you become a freelancer, get out of the house at least once a day! Make sure you hang out with real people for part of that time.
Close 
Want to see Detonator in progress? Detonator
This is what one penciled page from Detonator, which writer Mike Baron owns, looks like. Copyright Mike Baron.
Close On the plus side, you're the boss:
- You choose your own hours (and days).
- You live wherever you want.
- You are free to let your artistic vision soar.
But you're also responsible for:
- Health insurance
- Filing your taxes every three months
- Turning in your material on time. Fail to do so and you're out the door.
Freelance income
If you're an artist don't worry. The Good News for ArtistsAs recently as ten years ago, original art belonged to the company. Fortunately, courts have since ruled that the art belongs to the artists. So you can sell it, sometimes for sky-high amounts.
Collectors prize these pages. An original Superman cover by Jim Lee can go for almost $10,000.
Close Writers usually make more money than artists. A focused, creative freelancer can write as many as five comic books a month.
It takes longer to illustrate a comic book than to write one. Even the fastest artist can only do two comics a month, and have them look good.
| Freelancer | Pay/page | Number of pages | Comics/month | Annual income |
| Writer | $80-$150 | 25-30 | 4-5 | $96,000-$270,000 |
| Artist | $100-$180 | 25-30 | 1-2 | $30,000-$129,000 |
Their character or yours?
Mike Mignola spent over a decade developing one character before it became a movie. Stick With Your CharacterMike Mignola spent over a decade developing his character before it became a movie.
Comic fans appreciate an artist or writer who sticks with a character, creating a consistent body of work. It's more fulfilling for the creator as well.
Specifically, it's better to work steadily on a single title, such as Avengers, than to jump around from title to title doing fill-in issues.
Today's superstars make their mark by charting the destiny of characters for at least 12 issues (or a year). Marvel and DC reward them by giving them exclusive contracts. This guarantees work (and good income) for years to come.
Close You can succeed in comics in two different ways:
Become an Overnight Success Lightning can strike at any time. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles began life as a black and white self-published comic by two fans from Massachusetts.
It is now a multi-million dollar industry. The creators, Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman, receive enormous royalties from movies and merchandising.
Close - Become a new writer or artist for Batman or Spider-Man. Everybody reads these comics. You will become an instant star and doors will open for you.
This is how Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, and Kurt Busiek made it.
- Create your own character, McFarlane did. After he left Spider-Man, he created Spawn, which was an instant success.
If you're an artist, it's easier to succeed with your own creation, because an editor can tell at a glance if you have what it takes.
Writers who have original characters can succeed too.
It just takes longer.
J. Michael Straczynski's Rising Stars is an outstanding example.
The surest way to break into the comics industry is to create your own comic...
Heritage Trust. A Better Place to Start.