Comiket, Manga/Anime money, Atlas Shrugged. One of these things is not like the others. UPDATED
on August 18th, 2009Site’s been down most of the day due to server problems. Sorry about that.
I am being a good freelancer so I’m almost all about the work. Here’s some quick goodies I can’t resist sharing with you.
Ken Talton is at Japan’s monster show Comiket, with the other 560,000 manga/anime fans (number from Anime News Network.) Did you know you are not allowed to take pictures at Comiket? Me, neither. Ken has a few, however. The pic of the line to get in the line to get in is scary as hell.
He adds in a previous post:
This is the last Komeket before the censorship/doujinshi crackdown this October, so this may be the end of an era.
Whoa, doujinshi crackdown? Anybody got more recent info than this?
If restrictions on expression were legalized based on the inappropriateness, harmfulness and menace to children, the artists could quite possibly lose the freedom to create, which might even destabilize Japanese society and its “release valve” of fantasy, said noted psychologist Saito Tamaki. It is imperative not only for doujinshi artists and consumers but also the rest of the world that surrounds doujinshi society to recognize that legal regulations do exist for doujinshi, even though it has been acknowledged as a lawless area. To avoid losing it entirely, Sakata concluded, otaku must sacrifice personal freedom for communal survival.
MISSED IT! Slave wages paid to Japanese animators. $11,000 a year!
You know, I’ve been saying to American fans for years now that all is not dancing unicorns and candy mountains in the anime/manga business, and I usually just get shouted down by rabid otaku who conclude that any American who says this sort of thing is seething with jealousy. Yeah boy, if only I were working for $11,000 a year. Then I would know true joy.
At Vimeo, cool links to digital art tutorial lectures by Adi Granov, Brandon Dawes, and Dave Gibbons.
Ayn Rand considered Farrah Fawcett for the role of Dagny Taggart in Atlas Shrugged.
Bad news for those of us who like to run off to the coffee shop to work. They are turning off the Wi Fi.
Oh, and art sales continue. Here are the ebay offerings. I will be selling at least four or five works per week for several more weeks. And then, all the art goes back off the market again. My last art sales hiatus was a whopping eight months. Get ‘em before they go back into the vault!
American manga publishers are following the Japanese model (at least the one I do most of my work for). When I started lettering for manga almost ten years ago, at best I was getting 18 a page (for cleaning out Japanese text, inserting English dialog AND replacing FX, plus retouching the art/screentone.)
These days the rate is often under 10 a page. And we all know that life itself has not become cheaper to live in the meantime.
I’ve also noticed that the less the publisher wants to pay, the more they expect.
I’m fast and good enough that I’ve managed to make a decent living doing this kind of work despite the lousy rates, but as demands increase and rates decrease, it’s getting harder to justify.
OMG, that is what I have been hearing from everyone. Page rates are just lousy.
Matt Thorn once did a breakdown of standard manga rates in Japan. The rank and file artists got no more than about $100 for the whole enchilada. Story and all art. So, an artist doing a 40 page story per month was not making much money, especially considering Japanese high cost of living, and the cost of assistants.
I remember when I first got into manga in the 1980′s, the fans were so unrealistic (and I was one of them.) They seemed to think all manga artists were millionaires. It’s as ridiculous as assuming all American comics artists are just as rich as Todd McFarlane or Frank Miller. Many fans don’t seem to have any concept of the tiny elite at the top, the small middle class, and the huge bottom supporting it all. The artists at the bottom are just squeaking by.
I was so sad to find out one of my favorite (and a very respected manga-ka), worked part time in a shop her parent’s owned because she could not make a full-time living on her manga.
By the way, I may be looking for help on retouches and re-lettering on A Distant Soil in future – a year or more out. Please let me know if you may be available.
Oh boy–that makes what I’m getting seem a princely sum.
When I was working on the Disneys it was the same sort of reaction (from the uber-fans): on the one hand, they thought we were making money hand over fist, and that Disney paid US to produce the comics (just the opposite on both counts), and on the other, that we should be willing to do it for nothing because… it was… DISNEY! (And also that the comics should still cost ten cents.)
Oy!
I’d be happy to work on future ADS retouch/lettering. Contact me any time, I have a flexible schedule.
OMG! LOL! That is so true!
The pay at Disney is LOUSY!
The bigger the client the worse the pay seems to be! And the contracts! Hoo boy.
I take a lot of these gigs for the credits ONLY. Sometimes there is good training, too. I got some very good experience at Disney. But not only did I get paid a fraction of what I normally do, Disney kept my art!
I will definitely keep you in mind for future! Thank you!
And Disney doesn’t pay royalties past the first printing in the world (which is why Don Rosa’s stories appear first in Denmark, where the circulation can reach 1,000,000, instead of the U.S., where the circulation might reach 10,000).
Heck, Disney didn’t pay me royalties at all! Beauty and the Beast sold 3,000,000 copies.
I realize it sold those books because of the movie, but I never cease to be amazed how large studios fail to compensate talent.
Marvel and DC have far better work for hire compensation than many studios.