Cartoonists: Put Your Mouth Where Your $ Is

[eheitner]

Over on the Discord we were chatting and the topic came up again, as it frequently does, about how much or little cartoonists make, how few are actually supporting themselves, and I said we need a lot more transparency and honestly and specific figures from working artists, because "I make enough to get by" can mean a WHOLE LOT of different things.

So I'm starting this thread: let's put your mouth where your money is. How much did you make last year? Was that what the past few years have looked like? How much of that (roughly) was from comics? Illustration? Selling originals? Other?

I'll start!

I have a full-time day job that supports me!

I made about $70 selling zines through my webshop last year that I put absolutely zero effort into that I donated entirely to the Rawa Creative Palestinian Communities Fund.

I haven't checked recently but in the last few years, World War 3 Illustrated (which now comes out roughly annually) prints about 1000 copies of each issue, of which AK Press sell around 500-600 directly through their site, 20-50 go to some smaller distributors, other copies are sold by contributors. No WW3I artist is paid (or, as Seth Tobocman likes to say, any new artist at WW3I is entitled to be paid exactly the same as the founders-- bupkiss)-- all money made by the magazine goes to cover print/distribution costs.

I made a zine where I interviewed Eleanor Davis and Joe Sacco, two artists that I regard as absolutely top of the game. Their books are widely positively reviewed by mainstream press and regularly appear on "best of" lists and get awarded major prizes. I very specifically asked them about how much money they made the previous year (2019).

Eleanor:

Last year, we did not make very much money. It was $42,000 between my husband and me. In the past we usually try to get closer to $60,000, [*In 2019 I was working on a lowpaying book, my husband’s mom died, and we had a baby.—ED] But the key thing for us is that I inherited money from my grandparents, which let us buy a house. And even though we make the money we actively live off of, it means we have savings. We would not be able to save any money with the amount we make. That’s been very difficult for me to talk about. I think that’s probably the case for a lot of successful artists. You watch artists thinking “I work so hard, why is it so difficult for me to make ends meet when it seems easy for this other person?” And I think often the case is, they literally do have it easier, they come from money, they have all these advantages.

I got paid more for The Hard Tomorrow than I’ve gotten paid for any other of my personal books. And it was only $12,000, which is a decent chunk of change, but not when it takes you half a year to work on, eight hours a day. I make my money mostly from editorial illustration. And in editorial illustration it feels like there’s less and less opportunities there, and the jobs pay less and less. And more and more opportunities are really ethically hairy.

Joe:

It’s probably something like, as far as what I netted, maybe 70,000 bucks, something like that. But I’ve had better years than that. And my income has definitely gone down over time. That was actually a bit of an upswing, but I have a girlfriend, she doesn’t make any money. She’s feeding homeless people. I mean, that’s what she does with a nonprofit.

So when you think of two people, it’s actually not great. When you think about it, I mean, the idea of working $15 an hour, which basically translates into $30,000 bucks, I don’t know anyone can live on $30,000 bucks, unless they get roommates and they’re really living low to the ground. You cannot live in Portland, I’d say, for under $45,000 bucks, and not worry.

I mean, if you want to put things in some perspective, I didn’t know how I was going to pay next month’s rent until I was about forty years old. It was very rough for many years. And I was going to give it up. Little by little things began to turn my way. And at some point, I thought, okay, now, now, it’s really everything coming, flowing quite well. But the last few years have not been easy at all. You’re working on books that take a long time to do. And any advance you get, isn’t that great. Often royalties is how I make most of my money.

The Palestine book and the Gorazde books did well over time, because at the beginning, especially the Palestine stuff was a disaster. But over time, it’s done well. But after many years, that begins to diminish. I’m sure some people are gonna think, oh, that’s a lot of money for someone. Well, I’m not unhappy, I’ll tell you that, I’m not unhappy with it. But I look about two or three months into the future, and I think, how am I going to pay this, or how am I going to pay that? The bills are quite considerable. I’d say, just paying, like, mortgage, insurance and all that stuff, just to keep things going on a very basic level, that’s $45,000, and I’m not talking about food or clothes or anything like that.

But I gotta say this: I think it’s a lot harder for a lot of new artists who are starting out, I think it’s much harder for them than it was for me. At least when I started out, when I was working on Palestine, I could spend 250 bucks for rent and I could have a part job and I could skate by. I don’t know anyone who can skate by now. I didn’t have the kind of student debts people have now. If I was in my early 20s or early 30s, I would be just furious. Probably what keeps them from being totally furious is they don’t know how much easier it was. You cannot live in Portland the way I lived in Portland 30 years ago, finding my way, learning the ropes, being able to do stuff that wasn’t going to sell.

What are your numbers like?

[devin]

Well, I mean, I'm not a cartoonist, but I just saw Alex Graham (and my impression is that she's been kinda a hot thing the last year or two) post this on Instagram.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CrHYli7Pwhi

Sheesh.

[bakertoons]

On Patreon I made $2,149.19 in 2022, a slight increase from 2021.

Not counting earnings I made selling books I made through my store as well as art commissions I do, but yeah.

[Scott Gerard Ruhl]

I only just started self publishing 2 months ago, I have an online store and tabled at one comic show. I don't have exact numbers but I made somewhere around $500-$600 dollars in sales.

Most of my sales have gone to friends and family, outside that I've had to work hard for every single sale. Investment wise I've spent around 3k. The majority of sales were when I went live, since then it's been crickets. I've got my books in 4 stores around the country, but after shipping I don't make a profit. And if it's consignment and they don't sell I may lose money, twice (gulp). I just want to get the work out there and hopefully create some interest, no one knows who I am or that this book even exists. That's quite the hurdle to overcome that no one has an answer for. I do have plans to commit to it for 6-7 issues, I hope I can gain steam along the way. Right now it does feel like a VERY expensive hobby/vanity project and that was a fear of mine.

I have a day job that supports me. I'd like to eventually do my own comics and art fulltime but I'm not sure that will ever happen. Since I've started this endeavor about 9 months ago it's all I've done in my free time. I've had to put A LOT of things to the side. I think that's why I put this off for so long, I knew it was going to be a lot of work, not just creating it, but also trying to sell the work and all the millions of little things that go along with that. I'm not sure I have it in me but I'm not going to stop trying.

[mikesheawright]

I'm a full-time public school art teacher in Manhattan which at the moment pays me about $68k per year. I make like $200-300/year on online shop sales (although that has gone up a bunch in the last 6 months or so) and then anywhere from $400-600 per in-person show, usually 1-3 times a year. But travel and printing costs usually offset that to about zero haha. Totally worth it though.

I just bought a refurbished color xerox machine for $800 and that has already almost paid for itself compared to what I would have spent on other companies printing my stuff. Highly recommended!

I fell ass-backwards into web design (got a job painting murals in a start-up office, their designer quit, they gave me the job for some reason, I faked it til I learned it, team then got acquired by a much bigger company) for a few years before I went to grad school to become a teacher in 2017. I was making a completely irresponsible $115,000 salary for doing basically no work and going on 2-hour lunches every day. Eventually the existential ennui threw me into a deep depression and I had to bail on that industry entirely. Just soul-sucking work. But I was able to save enough during that time to have a comfortable safety net in the background of teaching/drawing for a living now. My wife has also always been a good saver and runs a successful business as an acting coach, brings in about $50-60k per year.

It seems next to impossible to make comics for a living and IMHO doesn't seem worth the mental anguish. I can't recommend highly enough working with kids doing creative things, whether that's teaching or tutoring or after school programs or summer camps or whatever. It's hugely rewarding and inspiring work and takes so much pressure off of doing your own thing. Drawing and making comics has been so much more loose and fun for me since I started teaching and stopped trying to make a full-time living doing it.

[varye]

I appreciate the time you spent finding that information for me.

[mikesheawright]

www.tcj.com/inside-rust-belt-review/ some interesting monetary stuff in this article, sounds like a pretty well-organized operation. i just ordered the new issue, enjoyed the first 4 for sure.

[patersinister]

this is a great topic. would love to see answers from more people.

I've been full time freelance illustrator since 2017. I've never made more than 20-30K and COVID + some family stuff set me back a lot. I'm in Toronto but luckily have cheap-ish rent and my mom helps me out from time to time.

Fairly new to comics, started posting comics online in 2018, 2023 was the first year I really tried to make a go of it financially + spending less time on client work and more on making comics.

I made around 12K doing trad illustration stuff, and I made about around 10K (!) doing book fairs and comics shows. I average ~$500 a show and did 10 last year, only 2 were comics specific. I would guess I made at least a couple thousand more in just one off selling to buds and consignment $ from shops.

I would guess around half of the show sales was prints and other stuff. Travel/accommodation expenses brings that down but personally I don't worry too much about that because I want to always be travelling and also, the shows are much more important for career development and socializing than they are for sales.

I'd love to get to 60K a year in comics, it will be a hustle but I can see the path. My main barrier right now is just - gotta make more comics!

[pentimento]

Feb 1, 2024 19:51:42 GMT patersinister said:

this is a great topic. would love to see answers from more people.

I've been full time freelance illustrator since 2017. I've never made more than 20-30K and COVID + some family stuff set me back a lot. I'm in Toronto but luckily have cheap-ish rent and my mom helps me out from time to time.

Fairly new to comics, started posting comics online in 2018, 2023 was the first year I really tried to make a go of it financially + spending less time on client work and more on making comics.

I made around 12K doing trad illustration stuff, and I made about around 10K (!) doing book fairs and comics shows. I average ~$500 a show and did 10 last year, only 2 were comics specific. I would guess I made at least a couple thousand more in just one off selling to buds and consignment $ from shops.

I would guess around half of the show sales was prints and other stuff. Travel/accommodation expenses brings that down but personally I don't worry too much about that because I want to always be travelling and also, the shows are much more important for career development and socializing than they are for sales.

I'd love to get to 60K a year in comics, it will be a hustle but I can see the path. My main barrier right now is just - gotta make more comics!

Forget it, you're in Canada, a civilized country. Try pulling that shit here in teh USA, where a mild head cold or a flat tire will set you back six figures and if you can't pay you go to debtor's prison.

[pentimento]

Feb 3, 2024 3:23:52 GMT @contourh said:

I quit drawing comics when I realized the George McManus days of Cadillacs and steak dinners capped off with a Cohiba were long gone.

Thank you, comics needs more quitters. Of course it's the quitters who are probably the best cartoonists, just as the people who refuse who to have children who would make the best parents.

[JerrryJames]

Fuck it, I'll join in to throw some numbers around just for the sake of transparency & furthering what I see as a very helpful dialogue to have. Especially since I don't exactly imagine many people want to be that transparent with any real kind of money talk. More people oughta talk numbers honestly though, because it eliminates the stigma around doing so; I think there's a lot of folks who don't Want to be honest or transparent because they'd rather keep hiding their little secrets & avoiding any kind of judgement at all. Because we all have subconscious feelings about how much money you or the next person actually makes off of art, or how little, and how much their job pays them, or how little, how much assistance & money people get from their families. Even if we tried to not judge somebody for these things, they all effect our view on people in their own subtle ways, & it's pretty fucking wack. I'm literally from a trailer park in the middle of nowhere with a single dad, I'm the opposite of coming from money, I come from debt. Literally, when I first opened up a bank account, I was already in debt because of some stupid shady shit from my mom's psychotic ex.  
  
I'm kind of a poser in a way here, I don't have a legit comic in print yet, (just a bunch of zines through the years, my real "debut" comic will be done/printed in a couple months) but I've been making various types of art pretty consistently for the last 8-10 years & I sell a decent amount of small shit throughout the year & selling drawings, zines, stickers, pins, shirts, & rugs for the last couple years, but it's really not something I've been that focused on at all until somewhat lately. I'm way more of a maker than a seller, I'm kind of one of the worst marketers I know, & it's kind of an issue I'm always battling in my head about.  
  
That being said, I work full-time Night Shift "Security" to actually pay my bills, currently only three 12hr shifts a week (36hrs), but sometimes I pick up an extra day to make rent or if we're low on people to cover, & last year I worked less overtime than I usually have in the last few years. All in all, it added up to 37 grand BEFORE taxes & union fees & everything else (I actually get 27something after Uncle Sam, & I live with two roommates which is the only way I can afford rent where I live. The thing is, I COULD have had several slightlyyy higher paying jobs instead of what I do, but this is literally the most boring job in the world & I have nothing but hours to kill where I draw, surf the web, read forums like this, read comics, play harmonica, watch youtube/movies, for $19/hr with health insurance through my union... it feels a lot more worth it to ME in MY life to draw my hours away instead of spending them in a warehouse slaving away, or at a restaurant where I actually have to do the job at hand. I work in a quiet industrial part of town where there's very few people to cause problems & I'm pretty much just a human key who opens doors when I get called to, & then I trade & I just sit at the front desk making overhead pages & repeat, I'm not fighting off drunks or anything crazy. It's been my own kind of sacrifice to keep this weird little lifestyle of making art all the time; I effectively have no real "Day or Night" anymore, I just live on a 24hr clock, I'm awake when I'm awake, I sleep when I'm tired, & it's put me at odds with society in a way since everything & everybody only really operates during the day, but whatever. I'm thankful I live near a Winco that's open at 3am.  
  
Got sidetracked, but back to numbers. I'm pretty sure I made more money off of my art last year than any other year, & 2022 before that, so little by little it's been adding up to a little bit more. But that's mostly from a couple of tufted rug commissions that I did for people last year, at around $165-300 each depending on size/colors/difficulty. This is probably going to make me sound extremelyyy lame, but I made a bootleg Keep On Truckin' rug & sold it for $200 on Etsy to the most "famous" person I've sold anything to so far, some meme-lord dude from NY who's username is @thefatjewish (LOL) & has a few million followers hahaha as goofy as sounds, it made me stoooked at the time! It was like the 5th thing I've ever sold to somebody who I don't know in person or isn't just my friend. I also managed to sell some vinyl shirts I printed after getting a cricut cutter, probably around 15-20 shirts at skateparks & different skate events for about $15-25 depending on how many layers of vinyl (let's just say somewhere around $300 all in all), a handful of pins for $2-4 each (probably made $30), & like 15 zines throughout the year to random friends & acquaintances off of ig ($60ish). I also do this flyer every year for a skate competition in Newberg, OR, & it was like the 8th or 9th time I've done it, but the second time it ever actually paid besides getting a free t-shirt, & the guy hooked me up since I've stayed loyal & did it for the love instead of the money for years, so he paid me $300 & it honestly blew my mind haha that's officially the most money I've made off of a drawing to this day. I did a few random small graphic-design type things for people too & probably made another $300 off those, just small logo's & whatnot or drawing cheap flyers. The most money I've made off of any piece of art is $350 for a very large framed rug, (it's easilyyy worth over $1000 for how much effort, materials, & time went into it, I just really wanted it to be appreciated by somebody else rather than keep staring at it myself, plus, nobody that follows me has probably ever had $1000 to spend on one piece of art, I know I haven't). All in all, I haven't actually laid everything out in front of me to add it all up... I'd probably have shot myself in the head if I focused on how much I've put into my art & how little I've realistically gotten back from it all haha that simply just isn't why I do any of it... but I probably made about $2000-$2250 off of every piece of art I sold last year. So even though I'm not paying my bills with it because the sales are so sporadic, every dollar sure fucking helps haha paying my phone bill from a drawing is the most it occasionally gives me back. It's every time that I actually put the effort into creating listings online & trying to promote it to everybody that I find out how little support I actually have & start feeling disappointed, when I need to pay a bill & hope that SOMEBODY will buy ANYTHING... rarely seems to work out that way though lol it's always the things that I want to sell the most that sell the least, & the things that I care the least about that get the most attention. That can be sort of disheartening at times. But I'm on a lifelong mission here regardless, & I don't know what the goal is other than to make what I like making, draw what I like drawing, do what I like doing, etc... I have too much else that I want to have made by the time I croak to EVER fully give in & stop, even if my hands or my eyes give out on me after all social media shuts down. It's literally just what I do, "it's who I ammmmm, mannnnnn." - None of my favorite cartoonists ever Really QUIT creating, they just get over it in one way or another & approach it differently. Even if comics aren't the medium all the time, I just don't know how to stop making things.
  
(Edit: I guess it's also a bit important & relevant to mention that I'm 27, no kids, single, a bit naive & still quite passionate about some of my ideologies, & quite a hermit. These factors obviously effect my ability to live how I do since it's just Me relying on me & I don't have any extra crazy responsibilities.)  

[bakertoons]

Apr 21, 2023 23:52:43 GMT bakertoons said:

On Patreon I made $2,149.19 in 2022, a slight increase from 2021.

Not counting earnings I made selling books I made through my store as well as art commissions I do, but yeah.

Update: Last year I made $4,092.60 on Patreon, nearly 2k increase! Very welcome sign.

[pentimento]

I supervise a color lab, we create compound hues for industrial applications. $125,000 / year.

Most I ever made from comics was $5200 / year, just prior to the 90s industry crash.

Most I ever made from gallery art was $7500 / year about five years ago.