off to produce Moth City. Luckily for
Tim, it was snapped up by the subscription-
based web comic publisher Thrillbent, and
by online comics outlet comiXology.
THE WEB COMIC ROUTE
As a publisher of a web comic, you have
total control of your creation, but you also
take all the risk of getting it out there, and
making it all happen takes a huge effort.
“You might control your own destiny a
bit more than an artist waiting to be
commissioned or assigned to a comic,”
says Tim. “But you also can’t succeed
without all the associated tasks of running
a web-business: regular blogging, site
management, social media outreach and
store management.”
He adds: “There’s no guarantee that
you’ll ever see any money from them, and
building a site and audience that will allow
eventual income is a dark art of its own.”
And like Matt, Tim finds that a comic page
earns him between 10 and 20 per cent ofwhat he would normally receive from an
illustration commission.
Dennis Calero is an artist who’s seen
comics go from page to screen. He helped
Platinum Studios to present its property
Cowboys & Aliens to the film companies,
and saw the fallout when the management
and creators wrangled over
the royalties. Today he writes
and draws The Suit, which he
owns and which appears in
Dark Horse Presents.“Publishers are reaching out to foreign
markets in order to save a buck,” Dennis
says. “Now, there are some incredible
European, South American and Asian
artists who are kicking a lot of ass. But
there are a plethora of mediocre illustrators
who just aren’t cutting the mustard and are
clearly only getting work because they’re
charging 30 cents on the dollar.”
Artists today feel undervalued compared
to writers. The writer on a comic is paid
roughly the same amount as the artist, even
though drawing it takes a lot longer than
writing it. A writer can appear in five or six
titles a month; an artist features only in one,A writer is paid roughly
the same amount as the
artist, even though the
drawing takes a lot longer
A page from Matt
Taylor ’s self-published
graphic novel The
Great Salt Lake.Wolf features Antoine
Wolfe, a paranormal
hardboiled detective.Moth City by Tim
Gibson. “It has
bio-weapons, the
Chinese Nationalist
army, communism and
a cowboy,” he says.Feature