Can a web cartoonist make a real living? That's what I want to know. And I'm not just being nosy. We are in the midst of a transition period between the Old World of Print and the New Frontier of Pixels. And that's fine. I love Print but Digital is great too. I just want to find a way to make the kinds of comics I like in this new realm and make a living at the same time. The Web Comic Project is my year-long attempt, starting today, to share publicly my successes (and failures) as I attempt to find my way to a profitable path.
First off, a web cartoonist needs a web comic and I have one -- Java Town -- which you can find here. You can find out more about Java Town in this post.
And here's our first bit of data:
Number of hours spent drawing Java Town web comic and preparing this blog and other supporting blogs since June 18, 2009 right up to the moment of this post: 57 hours, 35 minutes, 49 seconds.
4 comments:
Hmmm. Perhaps the most important factor should not be "are webcomics profitable?" but rather "is YOUR webcomic marketable/capable of turning a profit?"
The internet is a trough of garbage sometimes with the occasional "diamond in the rough" as it were. Not just any piece is capable of sustaining the market, and this is a market. Make no mistake. Each comic that turns a profit has to have that certain je ne sais quoi that makes it palatable to your target market.
Well, yes. This is an imperfect experiment. A lot is riding on the hope that I can attract enough of an audience to sustain me. Too much of what I know about the "success" of some web comics is based on vague anecdotes or weak data ("I can pay my rent!"). I want hard data so I'm going after it myself. It would be better if someone -- or several someones -- twenty years younger than me with a humorous tech or lifestyle or fantasy strip stepped up to the plate and tried this. But even if my work fails to capture an audience I hope the Web Comic Project prompts some interesting discussions and gets everyone thinking about how best to support digital comics because they are a vital part of the future of our medium.
Well, in a manner of speaking, I am such an "experiment". I have been doing a sci-fi series called "Starship Moonhawk" for the past 11 years online. My conclusion thus far is: yes, it is absolutely possible. But I've spent a lot of time being lazy and "doing it wrong". So i personally have spent a couple thousand dollars with no profit as of yet. But, I have recovered a percentage of my outlay. So it's not impossible. If I could "pay my rent" with this, I'd consider it a success. *laughs*
Good luck, sir.
Wow. 11 years, that's quite a run. You know, based on your Project Wonderful stats a print comic with your reader numbers would be a very successful black and white project. That's one of the things that astounds me about web comics. So many readers, so little profit. Crazy. "Paying the rent" is a huge success if you're only spending 25% of your work time on web comics. But if you work more than that it's potentially so much less than comic artists made years ago when they were grossly underpaid.
I wish you the best as well. Thanks.
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