Apparently a lot of people are talking about an article on “Hollywood nepotism babies” from the other day. Basically listing all the performers with either famous parents or rich ones, giving them a real leg up in their respective industries. Which begs the question: are there nepotism babies in comics?
Of course there are! The most famous of these was Stan Lee himself, whose cousin was the wife of comic book publisher Martin Goodman! There are lesser known cases as well, like how Kieron Gillen is actually Alan Moore (first-degree nepotism) and how Ryan Stegman is the heir to the Stegman Printing empire, the printer that gives Marvel an amazing deal on printing their books provided they let Ryan “do his thing, whatever that is” in comics.
But these are the exceptions, really. For the true inside track toward surviving a comics career, I want to tell you about a presentation I gave over twenty years ago with my friend Ben.
Ben and I went to Sheridan College, a school in Canada that was a big part of the animation gold rush that swept the industry around the time of Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin or whatever. If you were in the Animation program, you had a 95% chance of getting a job in animation. The other 5% died of boredom from drawing the same shit over and over again. The Animation program was a guaranteed career in the arts! Unfortunately, Ben and I were taking the Illustration program.
Sheridan’s Illustration program focused on editorial art for newspapers and magazines, art for storybooks and technical drawings, things of that nature. It had probably a 10% success rate in finding careers for their students in “art,” which mostly meant gigs like doing layouts for Auto Dealer magazine. Upon graduation all of us hustled, showing our portfolios all over town like desperate perverted flashers, and once in a while we’d get a gig doing a single spot illustration for a Canadian lifestyle magazine that paid $250. This would be enough to pay your share of the monthly rent on the place you shared with five other Sheridan grads, so it was very exciting.
When we were in our final year at Sheridan, the faculty would bring in big name illustrators to give us lectures on their career. These were amazing. Stories of coke-fueled benders in the 80s, charging ten thousand bucks to ad agencies for a Magritte rip-off, high-powered negotiations for re-selling previously done work; basically dudes living that popped-collar #illustrationlife.
These were exhilarating prsentations. And made us all quite excited to graduate. But, as you may have guessed already, the reality of the early 2000s did not match those stories of excess. Ben and I did many odd jobs trying to eke out enough money to live. It was not lucrative.
So we talked to one of our old teachers about the realities of the industry and how all those fancy lectures didn’t prepare us for the Mr. Noodles lifestyle we were currently engaged in. We had a suggestion: let us, as recent graduates, tell the class under us what life as an illustrator was really like.
He agreed, so we went back to our recent alma mater and proceeded to give a presentation that illuminated the students about life on the outside. We showed our successes and our failures. I told them about going for a portfolio review at a magazine and the Art Director flipping through my work and saying, “If you can’t paint hands don’t put them in your book” and me walking out of that building and throwing that painting away in the nearest garbage can.
This lecture may have been our finest moment. It’s possible we broke a few students with it, but I also think we showed them it can be done, that it’s just going to be a piecemeal career full of interesting moments. But the real lesson, the point of this too-long anecdote, are the slides we showed the class that laid out how we actually were able to be freelance illustrators.
It was photos of our respective girlfriends, and underneath their beautiful faces was the dollar amount they made that year in their salaried jobs.
“Hook!' Up! With! A! Non! Artist!” Ben punctuated each word with a clap, years before such a thing was popular. We stressed to the class that they needed to get with someone who had a real job. Didn’t have to be high-paying, but it did have to be secure! Illustrators have lean years and good years and can’t be relied on for literally anything, either financially or emotionally. Having a partner who can pay the bills in a month when you’ve done one illustration for a Christian magazine that only pays 120 days after receiving your invoice is essential.
The class laughed, but we insisted that we were dead serious. I asked if anyone in the class was dating a fellow classmate and a couple raised their hands and I told them to break the fuck up. Two freelance creatives in a relationship? You couldn’t even get a joint credit card let alone pay your electrical bill!
All this to say that comics is not much different. If you want to have a career where you scramble from gig to gig, where every second company is on the verge of bankruptcy, where one year you’re “hot” and the next you’re writing backup stories about a forgotten Adventure Time character for ten bucks a page, then you need to seduce someone who knows that a 401k is not a Warhammer game extension.
Basically, sleep your way to the top. And by “top,” I mean a roof over your head.
And that’s my big comic book lesson for today! Here’s a photo of Ben and I from those lean days, using our partners’ money to buy nice Christmas photos:
I’M SORRY SO YOUR BIG CAREER ADVICE IS TO MARRY FOR MONEY
Yes
Okay, so, it’s end of 2022 which means there’s a lot happening and a lot to cover, so: BULLET POINTS!
SKTCHD kindly gave me the BUSIEST MAN IN COMICS award in their 2022 roundup! I’m never too busy to tell people how busy I am!
MULTIVERSITY named Public Domain the Best Digital First series AND put it on their Best New Series list!
POPVERSE put Public Domain on their Best Comics list as well!
Sacré bleu! Public Domain is coming to France! Urban Comics is published our first volume there in April!
Also, I am fascinated by this custom-made omnibus of Sex Criminals. It’s definitely better than anything Matt and I would have done:
Also! Also! This week I signed all the Public Domain bookplates and shipped ‘em off to the UK! So, if you’re interested in getting them, don’t delay!!
Have a nice day!!!!
-Chip!
This is when you find out that one of those students took your lessons to heart and went into video games. Their big hit? Super Seducer.
Thanks for the tip about SKCHED. Until I read that you were the "busiest man in comics," I was unaware that I was dead.