Insight | The comics business
So what’s it like to be working
for Boom?
They are very laid-back and easy-
going. The Woods is a project that
will run for 36 issues, so that’s nine
trade paperbacks. I have a page rate
and partnership cut of whatever is
made. They have a pretty good deal.
What’s your view on the way
the comic industry works?
The industry is at a high right
now with creator-owned books
booming compared to a few years
back. But it’s a weird place for artists
compared to the ’90s, when we had
major selling power and people
would say, “Have you seen the new
issue of X-Men? Jim Lee’s art is
fricking awesome!” Then buy 10
copies and put them in a safe.
What’s changed?
Things have shifted to the other
extreme, where writers are held
as the sole creators of comics and the
artists are interchangeable. It’s odd
when you think that we work in a
visual medium and most artists work
all day pencilling and inking one page.
What would you change?
Artists should have higher page-rates,
even if it’s an advance of royalties.
Because of the time it takes to make
each panel communicate to the reader,
design the characters, build the world
the story takes place in and act out
every emotion on the page. Comic
artists have the role of a whole film
crew and should be treated as such.
What else are you doing?
In December [2015] I had my
childhood dream come true when
the first issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles that I drew came out from
IDW. I’m psyched!Based in Greece, Michael draws
The Woods for Boom! StudiosMichael was laid off during the financial
crisis in Greece, so pitched an idea to
Dark Horse and became a comic artist.http://www.madart84.blogspot.co.ukYou do it ‘for the love of
comics’, but you still have to
put food on the table
The creator-owned indie model seems
to be emerging as a favourite among artists- witness the success of Saga, drawn by
Fiona Staples, for instance (see page 68).
The downside is that you can end up waiting
three or four months for your royalties to
come through.
Like Matt, New Zealander Tim Gibson
became a comic artist out of sheer love for
the genre. He was a 3D and concept artist
at Weta, then became a
freelance illustrator, but
always wanted to do comics.
A grant in his home country
enabled him to take a year
In The Woods, drawn
by Michael Dialynas, an
entire school is ripped
from reality and
transplanted into some
woods on another planet.Tim Gibson’s web
comic Moth City is set
during the Chinese civil
war in the 1930s.What about the artists – are they seeing
much trickledown of funds from these huge
films? No, not really. A survey on the site
SKTCHD.com in mid-June 2015 showed that
nearly half of comic artists who responded
were earning less than $12,000 a year from
comics, and that 28 per cent are on less than
$100 per page. That’s borderline poverty.
“I’m new to the industry, but it does
feel like there’s a lot of work for not a huge
return in comics,” says Matt Taylor, who
draws Wolf, published by Image. “A
common recurring phrase I’ve heard is that
you do it ‘for the love of comics’. Which
may be true, but at the end of the day you
still have to put food on the table.”
THE DREAM OF ROYALTIES
Like many other artists, England-based Matt
takes commissions outside of comics to
bolster his income. One half-page illustration
for The New Yorker pays as well as 24 comic
pages. Because Wolf is published by Image,
which allows artists and writers to own their
work, Taylor will earn royalties from the book
as it keeps selling, and if it’s snapped up by a
film company then he might make a fortune
from it... one day.
INDUSTRY INSIGHT
MICHAEL
DIALYNAS