New Fantastic Four #1 4 4

[Not A Clone]

7 minutes ago, revat said:

another thing I would add is that for MOST of the characters that we love, they've been around for 30-40+ years and drawn by dozens if not hundreds of people.  Its hard to do something that captures the spirit of the character, matches the tone of the story, is distinctive to the artist, can satisfy old and new fans (which may span in age range from 15-65), but still shows respect to those who came before, AND is ACTUALLY GOOD ART.  AND to do it consistently, timely, and in a professional way.  I get that a LOT of GREAT (and so far undiscovered) artists would KILL for the opportunity, but that doesn't actually make it any easier to accomplish the goal.

With that being said, the new FF art doesn't look great, though I have seen worse FF art.  But really FF hasn't strongly connected with fans consistently in a LONG LONG time, so I don't know if its WORSE than it was.

Sara Pichelli (pencils on FF) became pretty well known, mostly for her co-invention with Bendis of Miles Morales. She did the work on that book for awhile & made a name for herself. She isn't known for her speed or for sticking on a book for long, so don't be surprised to see another artist on the 2nd arc. Ribic who does the FF covers is pretty much world-wide popular. I think he's Croatian if I remember correctly. He did Thor-God of Thunder & it was pretty awesome. Joe Bennett (currently drawing a killer Hulk) & Stegman(Venom) are 2 who have that classic comic look that most of us are famillar with & want to see. A few retired from comics pretty recently which hurt, like Stuart Immonen. 

[Not A Clone]

12 minutes ago, revat said:

Jim Lee's dude, Scott Williams is VERY GOOD, and a boardie! 

Also good - Mick Gray.

But a lot of the good inkers 'evolve' to be artists, but don't rise to the quality or popularity as artists that they had as inkers, though they do get paid more.  That also leads to a shortage of inkers.  I wonder what the pay gap is....I'm guessing no one would blame inkers for wanting to get paid like artists.

Forgot about Scott, but you're right. Why bother just inking if they can make more doing pencils? 

[Real Elijah Snow]

1 hour ago, Not A Clone said:

That doesn't sound right. Besides ownership, I thought that $$$ was a big reason everyone left to start Image. I do know that Marvel & DC both give a royalty ownership on new creations now, which never used to happen. I think the "average" per penciled page is between $1k-$2k now. If they ink themselves they get more. I think that might be where the slowdown is. Not enough good inkers. Like someone else mentioned above, those inks on the Thing look blah. I can name plenty of modern artists that I like, but can't think of a great inker off the top of my head.

If you're talking "average" you are super high on your rate per penciled page by multiples. 

[Not A Clone]

3 minutes ago, Real Elijah Snow said:

If you're talking "average" you are super high on your rate per penciled page by multiples. 

Excluding the newer artists that are just breaking in, what does a top-book artist get? 

[Real Elijah Snow]

It's all case by case obviously, but I know plenty of guys who get a few hundred dollars a page that have been in the business for years. 

[ComicConnoisseur]

8 hours ago, Not A Clone said:

That doesn't sound right. Besides ownership, I thought that $$$ was a big reason everyone left to start Image. I do know that Marvel & DC both give a royalty ownership on new creations now, which never used to happen. I think the "average" per penciled page is between $1k-$2k now. If they ink themselves they get more. I think that might be where the slowdown is. Not enough good inkers. Like someone else mentioned above, those inks on the Thing look blah. I can name plenty of modern artists that I like, but can't think of a great inker off the top of my head.

I think the artists/writers got a huge percentage commission if the title sold over 100,000 copies. So that was done repeatedly in 1980s and early 90s compared to comics now that can't break 20,000 on average.

I am pretty sure I read somewhere that Claremont saying  he cleared a million a year writing all those mutant titles.

 

Edited August 21, 2018 by ComicConnoisseur

[Cat]

2 hours ago, revat said:

With that being said, the new FF art doesn't look great, though I have seen worse FF art.  But really FF hasn't strongly connected with fans consistently in a LONG LONG time, so I don't know if its WORSE than it was.

Since Hickman's run, so.. 2011ish? More like a SHORT, SHORT time. 

[FoggyNelson]

The artwork for new ff #1 is amateurish to me⁉️???

[Not A Clone]

1 minute ago, ComicConnoisseur said:

I think the artists/writers got a huge percentage commission if the title sold over 100,000 copies. So that was done repeatedly in 1980s and early 90s compared to comics now that can't break 20,000 on average.

I am pretty sure I read somewhere that Claremont saying  he cleared a million a year writting all those mutant titles.

 

I think I heard one of them saying recently that they get commissions now depending on book expectations. Some may only have to hit 20k, etc.  Surprisingly every comic in the Top 100 topped 20k on the July charts. I don't think that's happened in awhile. Maybe a good sign. 

[FoggyNelson]

Just now, FoggyNelson said:

The artwork for new ff #1 is amateurish to me⁉️???

Looks like computer bot generated artwork , also very cartoonish ?? I guess little kids might like it⁉️

[Not A Clone]

1 minute ago, Mecha_Fantastic said:

Since Hickman's run, so.. 2011ish? More like a SHORT, SHORT time. 

Great run. Loved his Avenger's run up to Secret Wars also.

[revat]

1 minute ago, Not A Clone said:

3 minutes ago, Mecha_Fantastic said:

Since Hickman's run, so.. 2011ish? More like a SHORT, SHORT time. 

Great run. Loved his Avenger's run up to Secret Wars also.

good call, the Hickman stuff was actually quite good and I remember it fondly.  But were sales up?

[Artboy99]

2 hours ago, Not A Clone said:

That doesn't sound right. Besides ownership, I thought that $$$ was a big reason everyone left to start Image. I do know that Marvel & DC both give a royalty ownership on new creations now, which never used to happen. I think the "average" per penciled page is between $1k-$2k now. If they ink themselves they get more. I think that might be where the slowdown is. Not enough good inkers. Like someone else mentioned above, those inks on the Thing look blah. I can name plenty of modern artists that I like, but can't think of a great inker off the top of my head.

In the 90's Marvels penciling rate per page was $100 USD. Trust me I know.

Perhaps Byrne commanded more than that being a top tier artist. He could have negotiated a percentage of sales in addition to the page rate. They sold a lot more comics in the 90's than they do now.

He may have owned character licenses, who knows but I think a million dollars is far to much. McFarlane himself says he never made his millions doing art, it came from toy design/ development.

[Artboy99]

3 hours ago, bc said:

What is HERBIE doing with She-Hulk ?????

what everyone is supposed to be doing with She-Hulk.

[Artboy99]

3 hours ago, Not A Clone said:

That doesn't sound right. Besides ownership, I thought that $$$ was a big reason everyone left to start Image. I do know that Marvel & DC both give a royalty ownership on new creations now, which never used to happen. I think the "average" per penciled page is between $1k-$2k now. If they ink themselves they get more. I think that might be where the slowdown is. Not enough good inkers. Like someone else mentioned above, those inks on the Thing look blah. I can name plenty of modern artists that I like, but can't think of a great inker off the top of my head.

this is extremely high.

In the past the company owned the pages the artists worked on and it was work for hire. Now the art belongs to the artist and becomes something additional to sell and the page rates are still relatively low. If the artist becomes successful/ desirable by fans then the pages can sell for a significant amount of money and then the artist becomes wealthy and well compensated.

The rate per page depends on the work you are doing, sometimes it is negotiated as a percentage of sales of books ( and NEVER take that deal, ever. ) I have a friend local to me who is currently doing work for Image who has learned the hard way to not work for percentage of sales. There are to many potential situations that can arise where you receive no income for the hard work you have put in.

-the book doesnt sell

-it never sees publishing, or is improperly distributed.

My friend spent some time homeless because he did not get paid for his work, and he tells stories of working on the tables of restaurants or on the kitchen tables of friends he has stayed with to try to complete the work for which he was under contract.

Read his story for yourself:

http://www.vueweekly.com/roche-limit-took-illustrator-kyle-charles-to-some-weird-places/

 

Edited August 20, 2018 by Artboy99

[Cat]

17 minutes ago, revat said:

good call, the Hickman stuff was actually quite good and I remember it fondly.  But were sales up?

I'm gonna go with 'probably'. I checked 2 random issues, and by pure coincidence they were the months of 587 and 588. 587 sold over 115, 000 copies and was number 1 on the charts, with no. 2 coming in around 73k. 588 was number 5, obviously dropping because we're now in post-death territory. But those are pretty respectable numbers. 601 sold over 51k copies, again respectable considering the New 52 had just launched, and was doing bonkers sales, and pushing Marvel down the charts. And yes, I do realise my numbers are all based around events. I randomly clicked years and months, and this is what I got. Decide for yourself what that means. Just found a random Millar month, and early Hickman (574) was below that. I'd wager it became bigger than Millar/Hitch, and that it's still evergreen in reprints. Wouldn't say that about Millar's run. 

 

[ComicConnoisseur]

52 minutes ago, Artboy99 said:

In the 90's Marvels penciling rate per page was $100 USD. Trust me I know.

Perhaps Byrne commanded more than that being a top tier artist. He could have negotiated a percentage of sales in addition to the page rate. They sold a lot more comics in the 90's than they do now.

He may have owned character licenses, who knows but I think a million dollars is far to much. McFarlane himself says he never made his millions doing art, it came from toy design/ development.

It was the commisions more so with Claremont/Byrne than page rate. We got to remember their comics were selling 300-400 thousands a month every month, plus they were both machines who were writing and drawing multiple top selling comics per month.

Quick glance with Claremont and he wrote Uncanny X-men,New Mutants, and Excalibur monthly. That's about 1 million a copies a month right there in sales not to mention numerous annuals and mini-series he did in that era.

 

Edited August 21, 2018 by ComicConnoisseur

[DavidTheDavid]

My vote for best Thing rendition is She-Thing. Now you fellas have something sweet to dream about tonight.

Edited August 21, 2018 by DavidTheDavid

[Not A Clone]

Ok, I just re-watched a video with Ethan van Sciver on youtube. He said for beginners, rates range from $150-$300 ($250 is avg) for pencils & a fraction of that for inkers. If you're doing both & yo ucan ink well, he said you can expect to make up to $450 a page max as a beginner(Marvel & DC only). He said with Indy's you can expect to make almost nothing starting out & often don't get paid at all. He notes doing a book for $500 & a case of books & never getting the $500.

He said if they want you as "exclusive" your page rate gets bumped up "REALLY REALLY HIGH". He said if you're in the business for awhile it becomes really easy to make 6-figures, but only after doing a lot for a little.

-Artists also own the original art which can be good $$$. He said he puts his pages up on EBay the week the book goes on sale and doesn't hang onto any of it. The average page (with people talking on it) goes for about $300, some lower & some much higher.

-Then there are royalties.He said the standard benchmark is 40k copies..05 cents a copy after that for pencilling & old issues are included. He said it ads up quickly once you have a large catalog of back issues & somewhere around a $1 for TPB work because everything is already paid for & it's all profit for the company.

-Original character creations get them equity in that character. He said twice a year they get royalty checks if that character is used, including toys, movies, video games, etc) and they are substantial.

-He reiterates that if you're with them long enough you should expect to make 6-figures and that there are a few that currently make 7-figures.

He suggests young artists work on a style that can be used on any book (names John Byrne as an artist that could work on anything) and learn to ink your own work. Interesting stuff & it does show that the established artists aren't starving these days.

[RockMyAmadeus]

4 minutes ago, Not A Clone said:

Ok, I just re-watched a video with Ethan van Sciver on youtube. He said for beginners, rates range from $150-$300 ($250 is avg) for pencils & a fraction of that for inkers. If you're doing both & yo ucan ink well, he said you can expect to make up to $450 a page max as a beginner(Marvel & DC only). He said with Indy's you can expect to make almost nothing starting out & often don't get paid at all. He notes doing a book for $500 & a case of books & never getting the $500.

He said if they want you as "exclusive" your page rate gets bumped up "REALLY REALLY HIGH". He said if you're in the business for awhile it becomes really easy to make 6-figures, but only after doing a lot for a little.

-Artists also own the original art which can be good $$$. He said he puts his pages up on EBay the week the book goes on sale and doesn't hang onto any of it. The average page (with people talking on it) goes for about $300, some lower & some much higher.

-Then there are royalties.He said the standard benchmark is 40k copies..05 cents a copy after that for pencilling & old issues are included. He said it ads up quickly once you have a large catalog of back issues & somewhere around a $1 for TPB work because everything is already paid for & it's all profit for the company.

-Original character creations get them equity in that character. He said twice a year they get royalty checks if that character is used, including toys, movies, video games, etc) and they are substantial.

-He reiterates that if you're with them long enough you should expect to make 6-figures and that there are a few that currently make 7-figures.

He suggests young artists work on a style that can be used on any book (names John Byrne as an artist that could work on anything) and learn to ink your own work. Interesting stuff & it does show that the established artists aren't starving these days.

Both Wolfman and Perez have mentioned the fact that the New Teen Titans is the property that still pays them well, to this day. 

Good negotiation.