Marvel and DC Comics Exposed As Barely Paying Minimum Wage To Their Artists

Page rates have always been poor for comics, but they haven’t increased much at all in recent years as Marvel and DC Comics have farmed out more and more talent to foreign art studios. Now it’s been revealed the big two are paying lower hourly wages to their artists than McDonalds workers get.

The comic book industry has always been a chew-them-up and spit-them-out industry. It’s a catch-22 for creatives: if you’re young and don’t have experience, you don’t get work and have to do countless hours of free labor to prove yourself through portfolios, and once you get older and demand more for your time, the companies will replace you with aspiring creators.

The industry has no problem finding people to do the work. There are thousands of aspiring creatives who have been tricked into believing the pinnacle of their careers will be to be hired to make official fan fiction of Spider-Man or Batman.

Indeed, for mainstream comics, it’s the only way to make a mark. Independent comic creators flail without working on these major properties and don’t make the profits needed to survive. Only after a creator makes their mark on one of the bigger properties can they count on having a fanbase follow them to where their work can pan out as a career on its own. Ed Brubaker and Mark Millar are examples of this, but those creators who can sustain such a business are few and far between and the exception, not the rule.