Emily Adamo
Making Web-Comics Your Day Job
You love your
web-comic. You love your readers. You'd like to spend more time with all of
them, but that pesky day job or yours seems to be getting in the way.
Maybe your next plan of action is
turning your web-comic into your "real" job.
It's difficult, but it can be doable if you have developed a
reasonable number of readers. Personally, I know that I would LOVE to spend the
bulk of my time working on my comic scripts and all of the other artsy stuff
that I do, but I also love eating food on a regular basis and having a place to
sleep.
Web comic creators need
food and shelter just like every other human being out there so they usually
end up getting a job (unless they're still in college and mooching off of their
parents:-D). As most people have
experienced, jobs/classes cost time and sometimes sanity. When web-comic
creators have to donate large chunks of their time to their day jobs, they just
don't post their comics as often, or the quality of their comics goes down.
When comics are posted too irregularly, readers begin to lose interest or
express frustrations.
R.K. Milholland of
Something Positive
recently posted a response to e-mails about his spelling problems in which he
said, "If you are really bothered by my lack of updates or my need of
extra proofreading, help me quit my day job so I can devote the time to doing
it". As is evident here, some readers just aren't aware of how difficult
it is to maintain a web-comic. It only takes a few seconds to read one but it
takes hours to create one. Rants must be posted, e-mail must be answered, the
website must be maintained, and the writer must be allowed to stare blankly off
into space until she or he gets whacked in the back of the head by the muse.
Those who take the
plunge and try to live off of their web-comic alone can find that their
situation isn't pretty. You've seen the rants and the splash pages. "I'm
always broke, and I get no recognition," explains Vaz of
Underpower.
Vaz works his butt off as so many web-comic creators out there do and just like
so many other webcomic creators out there he's found that it takes time to
figure out the best way to support himself by doing what he loves to do.
Some people find that
their web-comics slowly develop into jobs when they aren't looking.
Aeire of Queen of
Wands said, "I was hanging onto this other job
that I do as my 'real' job, and calling the cartooning thing a 'hobby' - when
in reality I'm making MORE off of cartooning than I am the other job".
Whether you are trying to turn
your comic into your "real" job or your comic is transforming into your "real"
job on its own, it's important to take time and plan ahead as you make the
switch.