#inker

So I got curious and tried to find what the page rates for being an inker are like now, and had a look at this list of rates from Comic Book Resource, which are all self-reported by industry professionals.*

You'll notice 'inker' isn't even its own category here. The closest one is 'line artist' which is both pencils and inks, which for the sake of argument let's say is twice the amount of work as inking by itself. (It's not, pencils are harder, don't at me.) I took the average of rates from 2020-2022 for line artists and got $227/page, for both pencils and inks.

The very lowest rate of $100/pg in 1997 for JUST inking would be $190 today. If line artists do twice the work (again, an underestimate) by doing pencils too, that ought to translate to $380/page at the lowest end today. It doesn't somehow! Huh. Have a look through that rate list and you'll see rates even lower than $100/page in today's money (mostly from the usual suspects.)

Here's some more fun math:

Forget the $28k number above--he's including covers in this number, which pay differently. Say you do 22pgs/month at $100/page--that's $26,400 (1997)/$50,282 (today). Subtract a third for taxes** and your take-home amount would be $33,522 in today's money, which works out to a wage of $16/hr.***

At the high end of Martin's numbers, let's say 44 pages a month at $150/page for a total of $79,200, or $52,800 after taxes, and an hourly rate of $25/hr. Adjusted for inflation, that's $150,845 gross/$100,563 net/$48 hourly.

Average these numbers together, and the rates in today's money would be $67,042 net/$32 hourly.

Assuming line artists do twice the work, these numbers ought to be doubled, at $120k/yr or $64/hr.

But by the actual numbers we have, if a line artist works that same amount at the average rate of $227/page, that works out to $59,928 before taxes, $40,132 after, and an hourly wage of $19.

The kicker: the living wage in my metro area (same one Gary Martin lived in when he published this book, incidentally) is $21/hr, assuming no kids. Lol.

This is also assuming you can pencil AND ink at least 22 pages a month every month sustainably without destroying yourself, which is an EXTREMELY generous assumption. Also, no one gets health insurance working in comics, so take that into account with this shoulder-destroying pace.

I'm sure I'm mostly preaching to the choir here, and none of this information is really a surprise to me--oh comics is also a bad industry that doesn't page a living wage? shocker!--but it's interesting**** to actually be able to run the numbers on it to see how much, exactly, rates have stagnated. A lot, as it turns out!

Anyway, here's a little look into how comics pays, in case you're unfamiliar. It pays bad.

*this isn't even including companies like Webtoons and Tapas, who are fairly notorious at this point for underpaying and overworking creators. This is largely print publishing.

**the self-employment tax rate in the US is something like 15.1% and has been since at least 1990 but advice is usually to pay a third in quarterly taxes--easier to overpay and get it back at tax time than underpay and owe.

***based on 40hrs/wk, and I'm showing this number bc I think more people understand hourly wages than rates. I wouldn't include the amount for taxes in this bc if you're working an hourly wage you're probably not self-employed.