Comic Book Jobs.

Ratteler · Forum Member Joined: Jun 10, 2002 Posts: 561 Location: NYC

In the interest of creating a common launguare among everyone seeking work. Here's my own little breakdown of what jobs you might need to fill to get your comic done.

Int he case of tradtitional comic styles, I've included the going rates for what that artist would be paid in a real comic book company. None of these rates apply to small indy books or self published titles.

Editor: $30,000-50,000 a year.
In comic books the editor is the like the Director of the film. He's the one who makes sure everyone else is on schedule and usually guides the look of the book with comments like “His arm should be raised hire.”, “That should be gray not blue.”, or “That dialog sound way too corney.” In addition, he is also responsible for final spelling and grammar.
In the real world, this the guy who will “Green Light” your book, or hire you to work on a book.
Many artist/creators will have a problem with having an editor, especially when there is a creative difference. Most artist HATE editors because when they change something it means “doing it again”, but don't underestimate the value of this position. In a worst case scenario it could mean the difference between not getting a project done, and getting it done well.

“Being a comics editor is like being a symphony conductor - getting a lot of disparate elements to come together. For me it combines some of the best aspects of editing and art directing, because you're a little bit of a text editor, a choreographer, an art director, a colorist and a set designer. You do about half of ten different jobs at once. I really enjoy being able to jump from one job to the other.“
Women in Comics: Joan Hilty, Joan of Art
http://www.nyccomicbookmuseum.org/exhibits/women_Joan.htm

Writer: Averages $100 per page.
The writer is pretty self explanatory, and in this modern age of comics too frequently overlooked. A good writer not only has a style and vision, but is a master of the format he's writing in, and has the discipline to write EVERY DAY. A writer and editor may share a vision and it's the writers job transcribe it into written words that the artist can then realize. The writer is usually the one who set up the panel guidelines, but many artist interpret things their own way.

Penciler: Averages $175-$200 per page.
The penciler is the guy who does the first artwork for the book done in 2D. He will usually start out by drawing “roughs”. These are the equivalent to story boards for for a comic books. After the roughs are approved by the editor, the penciler decides how to visualize the action in every panel. These pages are traditionally done with very thin light lines that serves as the guide of the Inker.

Inker: Averages $175-$200 per page.
The inker is the one who defines the hard line of the 2D comic and large black areas. He serves in a capacity that on a film would be called “Lighting Designer.” How shadows fall on the character and where the light sources are coming from is his area of expertise. He will usually work on pages after the penciler is finished with them, unless the penciler has decided to both pencil and ink work.

Background Artist: $????
This is position usually paid out of the Penciler and/or Inker's Pocket. They are some one who specializes in drawing back ground details like buildings, cars, crowds Etc. They are hired speed up the work flow of the allowing the artist to concentrate on the details most likely to be noticed.

Color Artist: Average $100-$120 per page.
The colorist of color artist these days plays a much bigger role in comics than they used to. Computerized coloring has completely replaced the flat color art that was popular up until the 80's.

Flatter: Average $10-$20 Per Page.
Usually paid out the colorist's cut, this is a Color Artist Assistant. His job is to do the grudge work of isolating every major detail of the line art so the Colorist only has to select what he's going to work on.

Letterer: $$??
This used to be a great job, but with today's font technology this has devolved into a glorified typist.

This is where traditional Comic Art jobs ends.

In the case of some one like Alex Ross who paints his pages, you can first of all combine the Pencil, Ink, and Color Page rates to get almost $450 - $500 per page. Add to that his “Name” status now that he is a known artist, and you can through the book out the window.

John Byrne is another one. He frequently Inks his own Pencil work to get a better page rate, and writes. Plus he's John Byrne, so the book goes out the window again. But with the Writer, Pencil, and Ink rates... you would still be looking at $450 - $500 per page.

When we move into 3D... there are no hard and fast pay rate rules because not that many books have used the technology yet.

But here's a tentative breakdown of what jobs MIGHT exist.

Writer:
Remains the same as the traditional comic job.

Penciler:
In this case the job would more like that of a storyboard artist. I would expect a lower pay rate because there would be no need to refine the pencil work, but the skills of page layout, visual story flow, etc would still be in demand.

Modeler:
If you don't have something it's got to be built. Weather that involves custom morphs targets or whole cities is up to you and the editor. ;-)

Texture Artist:
This would be the person responsible for adding texture details to the model including bump, displacement, and specular maps. They may even be required to make custom UV Maps or edit materials in an Object to get things perfect.

Rigger:
If there is a need for a completely custom character that no stock figure will work for, once the modeler has made the figure, the Rigger will make it move and bend properly.

Layout Set designer:
This would be the person who sets up the scene file and puts everything where is needs to be.

Poser:
This would be the person who takes you character model and give it just that right position and emotion for the scene.

Lighting Designer:
Once the scene is set up and the actor is in place, the lighting designer will create the mood and cinematic style.

Compositor/Page Layout Artist:
When everything is done and rendered, you will have many separate images that need to be placed into the comic book page medium. That will be the job of the Compositor. To finish the books assembly so it can be printed.

As with the traditional comic jobs, many of these jobs will be combined by creators, or even a single person could do it all.

If your book sells to a traditional publisher, you can expect to get the Pencil/Ink/Color rate for any book you render in 3D, putting you in the $500 to $550 per page range. Of course you will need to figure out how to split that among any one you hired for any of the above jobs.

samcclung65 · Forum Member Joined: Sep 22, 2001 Posts: 31

Another comic job you might add would be Cover Artist. I think this would be a great area for 3D artists, considering how much work one image can be.

I took my portfolio to Wizard World Texas to see what people would say. Most people didn't know what to make of 3D art. I was told I should get into video games, as that is where the money is.