They're casting too wide of a net. It inevitably causes factions to form in the industry.
They're casting too wide of a net. It inevitably causes factions to form in the industry.
I can speak to this somewhat: I don't create comics but I have industry contacts in the editing phase of production who have told me a thing or two.
For established writers pay has gone up, not down. The brand names especially get paid big bucks. The comic book industry has become like Hollywood, where you have got your "A" actors (Bendis, Johns, Hickman, etc) who do very well for themselves, and have absolutely no trouble getting work. These guys are making way more now than they were 10 years ago. The reason is that as comic books fall on harder times, they get paid even more as publishers become more desperate to utilize their name to boost sales.
Unfortunately, this level of talent, which is very in demand and very well paid, represents a single digit portion of the talent out there. It isn't necessarily because they are superior writers; in fact, a lot of them are lazy and from what my contacts tell me, these writers are in their own little worlds resulting in continuity errors that editing has to catch and didn't really used to happen. At the same time, there is a glut of talent who works for indie comics who can't break into big publishing. This is like 95% of the talent out there. Meanwhile, the number of titles has decreased, worsening things. Some make a name getting a limited series but work isn't steady. Most desperately want work but can't get any, sometimes working for free. So people get the idea that writers are paid less than they used to be. But that is only true for the ones who can't find work anyway.
Anyway, harbor no illusions: there is not a lack of talent out there.
Last edited by TiaraPenny; 06-18-2021 at 09:51 PM.
The manga creators are more famous and bigger celebrities than American comic book creators. More people in Japan are familiar with manga artists' names than people in the USA with American comic book artists/writers.
If an elementary school student brags to his classmates that his father is a politician and mother an actress, and one of the classmates would respond, "my father is a manga artist", Everyone then looks at the son of the manga artist and asks him several questions like "what manga does he work on".
I don’t know the stuff from US… but I remember the magazines Tintin, Pilote and a little more recent “À suivre”: the comics were first published there before they were published in hardcovers.
It was a good way to test new comics: the comics were serialized, few pages were published each time and there were a great variety of genres. I particularly liked “À suivre”: they intertwined the comics with articles on the subjects broached by the comics.
“Strength is the lot of but a few privileged men; but austere perseverance, harsh and continuous, may be employed by the smallest of us and rarely fails of its purpose, for its silent power grows irresistibly greater with time.” Goethe
It is that: an habit. Batman, Superman and the X-men are an habit. People are not looking for stuff they don’t know. Publishers are guilty of not arousing the curiosity of their readers… They want them captive of work they know so well. However, there is a world outside series with well-known characters…
“Strength is the lot of but a few privileged men; but austere perseverance, harsh and continuous, may be employed by the smallest of us and rarely fails of its purpose, for its silent power grows irresistibly greater with time.” Goethe
There is a rising market in South Korea as well. One of my colleagues does her reporting from there. It's a digital boom, stronger online than in print. Their graphic storytelling industry is blossoming while ours is... well I don't know what it's doing. Stuck with print floppies? There will be more tumultuous restructuring ahead, I believe.