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A Cartoonist’s Life: Sunshine, Rainbows, Lollipops?

 


Self portrait © by Stephan Donche

Comics journalist and author Chris Arrrant asked

Comic industry people:
What’s something about your job that you wish more people understood?

Chris got quite a response from cartoonists in various genres. A sampling:

Making comics is HARD work.

Just how labor intensive it is. (drawing, penciling/inking)

Or how long it takes to come up with an idea, even before putting pencil to paper.

How much revenue comic actually generate. No one, not creators, not publishers are in comics for the money. You only do this out of love.

It’s skill that takes constant practice. It is like being an athlete and a musician. You have to warm up or you can pull a muscle and you have to practice your scales or you lose your edge.

the very long sustained concentration and dedication it takes to simply have a career is something I’ve never been able to express without sounding like an insane person.

That just because you work from home doesn’t mean you’re not working 14+ hours a day

We all choose to do this because we’re idiots

Nearly 200 responses on that thread.


© Dan Rosandich

Chris’s thread begat others, like this one from cartoonist Steenz:

I am a professional cartoonist but my income and my stability is not just from drawing comics. It’s because I also edit, I also teach, I also illustrate (which is not comics). I am paying for my own healthcare and I have one day off.

And this from kindred’s thread:

My thing is that you can’t count on comics to provide a stable enough living to do it full time.

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Comments 1

  1. I can only imagine the work that must go into writing comics. Thanks for the insight!

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