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To the writers…

faitherinhicks:

joshfialkov:

I’ve got some bad news, writers.  In comics, the artist works harder than we do.  On a simple one to one basis, they just plain work harder.  A writer can easily write a script a week (or at least, should be able to.) An artist has to spend an entire month on the art.  That’s a 1:4 ratio.  That means that when there’s money to be had, the artist deserves to be paid first.  You, as a writer, can take other jobs.  You can have a day job and still do your job.  An artist, delivering on a monthly book, 99.9% of the time, can’t.  It might be ‘your idea’ and you might have spent ‘months researching it’ but, this is a collaborative art.  It’s a partnership.  You and your artist are married, but, as unequal partners.  You can sleep around with other artist, they’re stuck only with you.  

And. They. Should. Be. Paid. For. That. Loyalty.

I’ve heard a few stories from a few friends who are in situations where there’s an advance or a page rate and the writer takes 50% leaving the artist with their ‘fair’ share, which is not enough money to actually live on AND execute the project.  I was shocked BOTH times, but I suppose I shouldn’t be.  

Everyone THINKS they work hard.  Hell, I think I work hard. I’m writing 5 creator owned series, a work for hire comic series, plus working on a tv show and a cartoon series.  And y’know what? I still have more free time than any of my collaborators.  

Should everyone profit from the collaboration, absolutely, but, advances and page rates those are not profits. Those are costs.  Those are the hard costs of the sacrifice your partners are making in order to complete the project.  Do I wish I could get paid up front for my creator owned work? Absolutely.  But you know what I prefer?  My partners making a living wage that allows them to actually MAKE THE BOOKS. 

Caveat, obviously, every situation is different, and in full disclosure, on one of my books, there is no page rate, and the profits are minimal, and the artist and I split that money 50/50, but it’s by agreement, not by greed.  Y’see, we’ve always treated each other fairly, so when we saw what the financial outlook of the book is we had a conversation about it.  I didn’t just decide to take that money.  

Long story short. Don’t be an asshole. Appreciate that your partners are undoubtedly working as hard, more likely, harder than you are, and give them the support and love they deserve. 

Pretty good breakdown of the hours/money artist/writer balance in comics. I write and draw comics, and I draw other people’s scripts (and now I’m writing one of my own for another artist to draw, a new challenge), and writing always takes me less time than drawing. That is not to say writing is less difficult (it certainly isn’t), but in terms of hours spent with my butt in a chair writing a comic vs. drawing it, I spend so much more time drawing.

It took me a month to write the script for Nameless City book 1. It took me a year to draw it. There’s a complicated page in the book that probably took me about 20 hours to draw, pencils to final inks. Writing it probably took … I dunno, like 10 minutes? 

There is kind of a zen to drawing that writing doesn’t have. I can plug in an audiobook or podcast and draw for 12 hours straight. I think I’d go crazy if I wrote for 12 hours straight. Writing (for me) is done in short, quick bursts. I’m writing the script for Nameless City book 2 now. I worked for like 2 hours yesterday and got 17 pages scripted. There is no way on earth I could pencil 17 pages in two hours. But that’s the difficulty of writing: it’s so focused and intense in a way drawing isn’t (for me, at least). It’s exhausting in the brain, rather than the body (again, speaking from personal experience). I feel beat at the end of a long day of drawing, but I don’t feel wrung out the way I feel after writing for an unusually long period of time.

Anyway, I feel like this is an issue every comics writer should think about when collaborating with an artist. Think about the hours that artist is putting into your script, and how it may be four times as many hours as you spent writing. It’s something I’m thinking about while working on my very first script for another artist. I’m not the one paying her, but I hope she gets paid more than I do, because I know she’ll spend more hours with her butt in a chair, working away. :)