Sugar & Spicy Duck

Makin' money! Cox! Howard! Kaptara! wow this has it all

I’m about to fly to L.A. for its Comic Con and I noticed some DISCOURSE on the INTERNET about how hard it is, financially, to work in comics as a freelancer. Now, obviously I’ve been pretty lucky to eke out a living doing what I love (hurting Batman), but that wasn’t always the case. I went to school for Interpretive Illustration, which was not the most … lucrative career choice. During our final year they brought in some guest lecturers: older, established illustrators who rode some real high waves doing advertising illustration in the ‘80s and ‘90s. You could practically see the cocaine sprinkled around their nostrils as they talked about how much money they made. At the time I found it a little misleading as those jobs were so few and far between. But a lot of the students had dollar signs in their stupid, stupid eyes.

A year later, I was eking out a meager existence as an illustrator. It involved a lot of running around trying to cobble together a living, but it was still better than the many retail and service jobs I had before that point. I was doing editorial illustration, textbook illustration, background animation painting, information graphics, graphic design, whatever it took to pay the bills.

At some point I was talking with my friend Ben Shannon, who was also a recent graduate of the program, about how different our experiences were than of those guest lecturers who floated through our school in their million dollar shoes (we assumed). So we approached the school’s coordinator with a pitch: we would be the guest lecturers that year and tell the students what it’s REALLY like to be a recent graduate.

Shockingly, he agreed, and so we soon found ourselves giving a slide show in front of the soon-to-be-graduating class about our experiences out in the big, bad world.

We had much to say, and we did not gloss over our many, many failures. I showed off the painting I had in my portfolio that I had presented to an Art Director at a fancy magazine, where she said, “if you can’t paint hands don’t put them in your portfolio.” We showed off our embarrassing last-minute jobs, our jobs that went horribly wrong, our jobs where we had to threaten legal action to get our payments (I should never have worked for a company called “Player Productions.” It was right in the name!). We talked about the feeling of having a month where you only made $250, of the constant hustle, the grind. But we were young! And we had a secret weapon, the crucial element that every freelancer needed to survive in the world.

Our final slide was photos of our respective spouses and their annual salaries. This of course prompted laughter in the room, but we quickly let them know that we were deadly serious. We paced back and forth in the room, looking every student in the eye and told them they needed to seduce someone with a real job, that none of this works unless you have someone who can make the rent if your job drawing cereal mascots falls through one month.

We then asked if anyone in the class was dating someone else in the class. Two people sheepishly put their hands up. We told them to break up immediately. TWO freelance illustrators?! Insanity. Together they wouldn’t qualify for a mortgage on a YMCA locker!

It’s been—Jesus—twenty years since we gave that lecture, and my advice is still the same. I was lucky enough to have a full-time job while I did comics on the side for many, many years. And when Sex Criminals took off and I had to quit my newspaper gig to focus on it, I was very comforted by the fact that my wife was still working. Everyone has their own relationship to money and anxiety. The older I get, the more I worry about what the rest of my life looks like. I know I’m one of the lucky ones, but it sure doesn’t stop me from waking at three in the morning, worrying about the demise of the comic industry.

This morning someone pointed me to the Gofundme for Sean McKeever. Sean’s a great writer, having worked on characters like Spider-Man and the Birds of Prey. It’s heartbreaking that, even with his experience, he’s still one of the comic creators out there who needs some help making ends meet. If you can throw some dollars his way, please do.

For anyone out there considering a career as a freelance creative, it’s immensely rewarding. But please, I’m begging you, seduce a sugar daddy/mommy.

DOES YOUR WIFE ENJOY YOU CALLING HER SUGAR MOMMY

I consider us sugar PARTNERS, thank you

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Okay! In more uplifting news, Mr. Daredevil himself, Charlie Cox, was recently at a comic convention and talked about catching up on the Daredevil comics and enjoying the bits between DD and Iron Man! Which would indicate that Daredevil has been reading my Daredevil, which is very fun (for me). This probably means they stopped production on the current Disney+ show because Mr. Cox was reading my work while on set and shouted, “What are we doing? Stop everything! We need to be adapting THIS!”. I’m assuming that’s what happened.

YEAH MAKES SENSE

Finally, we agree on something!

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I forgot to post last week that KAPTARA: UNIVERSAL TRUTHS #4 is out!

It’s maybe my favourite of the series: THE BALLAD OF SKULLTHOR. Of course my keen paid subscribers can read it for free here.

And this week, I’m … back at Marvel?? It’s true! The very fun HOWARD THE DUCK 50th Anniversary Special is out! Featuring a new story by me and Joe-Joe Quino-No! I don’t want to spoil anything, but it’s the debut of a hot new character:

It also features some truly funny stories by some amazing creators, including the Marvel debut of writer Merritt K, who you may remember from a previous newsletter with her Spider-Man fan comic that I loved!

Go get your Howard fix! It’s very fun.

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And that’s it for today! If you’re in the L.A. area this weekend, come on out to the comic convention! I’ll be doing my dumb sketches and signing books like a madman. My new rule is that all of my personalized signatures are free! Your name + my name = FREE!

And apparently my Joker sketch is being auctioned off soon at The Beguiling?

You may be able to sneak in an absentee bid, as I believe it’s NEXT Wednesday that it’s being auctioned off! Good luck!!

-Chip!