Archive for September, 2010
So The Beat has done a couple of posts on the economics of comics, which I thought would be interesting to share here. Personally, I find myself at once fascinated and repulsed by these sorts of article. Fascinated because I love this sort of behind-the-scenes info into the business model of my favorite hobby, one which, for better or worse, I’m also participating in as a part-time professional. Repulsed because this is also the sort of thing that sucks all the magic and joy out of just enjoying comics as comics. The more you know about the nuts and bolts of the comics publishing industry, the more you lose the magic, you know?
By anyway, on to the numbers. It all started when The Beat linked to an informative article by Glenn Hauman at ComicMix about the cost of making comics. In a very clear manner, Glenn breaks down how your average Marvel or DC comic book costs about $500 a page to make:
“Figure $100 for the writer, $150 for the penciller, $130 for the inker, $90 for the colorist, and $30 for the letterer. Those numbers go up and down depending on talent and publishers, but that’s a nice round number for us to work with.”
So your average 22-page monthly comic costs $11,000 in just creative talent alone. Add to that the cover, editor salary, publisher overhead, printing and distribution costs, etc. and you can see just how expensive it is to produce (minus printing costs, the $15K/issue figure for a Marvel comic has been bandied about, and seems to be in the ballpark). An original 120-page graphic novel would cost over $60K to make. On the flip side, extrapolating from that, we get an annual income of around $40K for a penciler, and $27K for a writer. And that’s if they’re employed the entire year without a break. From the many pros that commented on the figures in The Beat’s thread, those numbers are pretty accurate for your average Marvel?DC book. Obviously, they’re a lot lower as you go down the scale to IDW, Dynamite, etc. and a fair bit higher for your comics superstars like Bendis, Cassiday, Morrison, etc.
Kurt Busiek chimmed in with this joke:
“What’s the difference between a comics professional and a large pepperoni pizza?”
A large pepperoni pizza can feed a family of four.”
By the way, speaking of those printing costs, The Beat also links to this Publishers Weekly article from a couple of years ago by Todd Allen, looking at printing costs and break-even points. The basics:
“The direct market isn’t very complicated. You’re selling to the distributor at approximately a 60% discount. For our purposes, we’re going to call it 61% for a little bit of hidden costs fudge factor. So the amount of money a publisher gets to keep from a $2.99 cover price is $1.1661. A $3.99 comic gives you $1.5561 from the distributor.”
There are lots and lots of other facts and figures in Allen’s article, but this pretty muchs sums it up for the folks publishing their creator-owned books through Image:
“Especially when Image is charging a $2500 listing/production fee off the top, which would suggest a color comic doesn’t start to put a dime in the creator’s pockets until the sales start climbing to the 4-5K range.”
And guess what? The vast majority of Image books sell in the 3K range or lower, so at best you’re breaking even, but most likely losing money. Of course, there are lots of other factors at play here. There’s the hit-or-miss IP ownership value, where a movie option will put a few grand into your pockets, but how likely is that? Also, you have to wait 3-4 months to get paid. But then, you’re the sole owner and creative director of the work, and there’s something to be said about that.
And finally, for a retailer’s perspective on the numbers game, there’s the always informative Brian Hibbs, owner of Comix Experience in San Fransisco, and his latest Tilting at Mindmills column. In it, he takes aim at two of the biggest mistakes the Big Two are making that are hurting the business: obfuscated storylines aimed at hardcore continuity fanboys, and the $3.99 price point. There’s a lot to read, but this is the snippet relevant to our discussion of economics:
“As a working retailer, I’m finding that a growing number of “mainstream” books are selling merely token copies off the stands – and by “token,” I mean under five copies, to a regular customer base that numbers in the hundreds. There isn’t money to be made at that scale. In fact, at that scale, the game plan becomes how to minimize losses, rather than how to maximize profits. In dealing with non-returnable product, the general rule of thumb is that anything below an 80% sell-through isn’t making you a profit. Therefore, if you’re ordering 5 copies, you must sell 4, just to break even. If you’re ordering 3 copies, unless you sell each and every one of them, you’re losing money.”
So…what does it all mean? To be honest, I’m not quite sure. On the one hand, when fans constantly decry the high price point of comics and make it sound as though publishers are greedy price gougers, it’s good to see the numbers and realize that it’s actually really expensive to make a comic. You know, if you actually expect the folks making them to earn a decent living, as opposed to working for peanuts. On the other hand, I can see the frustration of comic retailers, increasingly left with unsold comics that nobody is willing to take a chance on because they cost $4 for 22 pages. So what’s the solution? Switch over to a direct-to-graphic-novel model, instead of the monthly pamphlet? Well, that’s no inexpensive task, and either the publisher or the talent will have to be willing to go several months without seeing any money. For all their problems, monthly comics provide steady income to the talent, and help as loss leaders to the eventual TPB collection. Along the way, they bring in a bit of ad revenue too.
I don’t know. It’s all a bit too much for me. It kind of makes me depressed to even think about it.
Maybe I should just go write my next script and try not to think about all this…
I just have to share: I stopped by Half Price Books today and found a copy of a first printing of Spawn #1 in their clearance bin for a mere quarter! Don’t bother going to look for it, I snatched up that incredibly rare collectible first issue. Those fools at the store were obviously deluded regarding the powerful investment potential of this 1992 milestone.
Seriously, someone with the crappiest collection I’ve ever seen must have recently dumped their boxes and boxes of 90′s gems there recently. There were multiple sets of the first dozen issues of X-Force available as well, but only if you hurry– some sharp-eyed speculators are probably headed there after reading this post already.
My favorite part about this comic: the back cover features an ad from a mail order comic service offering the latest hot comics for investors, including a listing for the second printing of Spawn #1. I repeat: the first printing of Spawn #1 carries an ad for… the second printing of Spawn #1. It’s as if they knew when they solicited the advertising that it wasn’t humanly possible to produce enough copies to satisfy the demand for this book in a single printing.
I have one more Spectre series to post, but I figured this week I’d take a break from that series and post something else. I saw something recently about artist Eric Canete’s latest work, and it made me think of this post from back in January, which made me look up his works on the Grand Comics Database to see if he’d done many covers. Although not really a cover artist, I did manage to find 7 pieces that I dig. So without further ado, here are 7 Covers from the incomparable Eric Canete:
(Have a favorite series of your own? Or an artist? Character? Submit your own set of 7 covers by sending me small files (i.e. 72 dpi for the web) to ferret at ferretpress dot com and include “7 covers” in the subject line. Also, let me know if you have a blog or website you’d like me to link to.)
So the press has been all aflutter for Marvel Comics’ kind of borderline offensive “Girl Comics” anthology. Billed as a sort of “celebration of female talent” in the industry, it seems more to me like a consolation prize, and more than a little exploitative. But that’s not the point of this post. I’ve just seen this promo image too many times, with no comment, to just let it go.
Among the high-quality work by some of my favorite creators like Ming Doyle, Colleen Coover, Valerie D’Orazio, and others, there are also some “pinups” of questionable taste – most specifically this one by Sana Takeda (click to enlarge – if you dare):
Am I the only person who’s noticed that She-Hulk has two left feet, LITERALLY? Was that a subversive move, or just a careless one?
I don’t know much about Sana Takeda save from what I’ve Googled. But, as we’ve suspected all along, having Aspen Comics on your resumé apparently gives you free rein to play fast and loose with basic anatomy…
One of my collaborators, Chris Arrant, interviews the comix destroyer over at CBR. Besides the new DJ’ing gigs, Pope’s noodling away on Battling Boy and other things that won’t leave his studio. I think that’s one of the oddest admissions that’s never mentioned. Paul Pope is drawing every day. Really. It’s not mentioned in this interview, but he’s probably sitting on a hefty pile of warm-ups, unfinished comics, finished comics and the in-progress THB. He said as much the last time he talked at the Wexner.
Adhouse apparently dropped a new THB mish-mash at the Baltimore Comicon last weekend. You can still purchase THB #2 over at Adhouse’s site. It’s about $8 with shipping (for a 32 page comic). I’m kind of curious as to why this wasn’t offered in the DM. Given he’s an established cat, this would have done alright. That publisher’s a curious bird. I’m hesitant to drop $8 on some b-sides, unless I can find some guys who want to go in on grouping an order. Ahem…
I’m not a big fan of all these “break into comics” competitions, as by and large they tend to be gimmicks, designed more for the sake of publicity than actually finding talented newcomers. But this one looks to be pretty solid: Eagle Awards Initiative. Organized by the same folks behind the long-running British “Eagle Awards,” they are open to previously unpublished creators (self-published books seem to be ok, as they define professionals as ones that have received a page rate from a publisher).
Entries, which will be considered on their individual merits, will be judged by a panel of the industry’s top talents. Each should be a clearly told, self contained story of between 4 and 10 pages with no restrictions as to genre. Entrants can be a single writer/artist, a writer and artist, or a writer, penciller and inker team…The winner will have their story published in print and digitally, in multiple languages, and have it available to anyone on the planet.
A cash prize is on offer to the top three entries as voted by the judges:
First: £1,000
Second: £500
Third: £250
They’ve definitely rounded up an impressive list of folks as judges:
Stan Lee
Karen Berger (Executive Editor, Vertigo)
Ellen Abramowitz (Chairman/President, MOCCA)
Tom Brevoort (Editor, Marvel)
Diana Schutz (Editor, Dark Horse)
and a ton of other prominent editors, writers, and artists, including Jeff Smith, Bryan Talbot, Mark Waid, Dave Gibbons, Becky Cloonan, Peter Bagge, etc.
Deadline for entry is November 1, 2010. So head on over and read the submissions guidelines.
I had no idea PANELista Craig Bogart was a batman character created by John Ostrander and Jim Aparo:
(Batman Annual #24, October 2000. Cover by Michael William Kaluta)
Or do you not get royalties because they spelled your name the “extreme” way?
Insert my usual complaints here, then follow the LINK.