Comic artists, how much $ do you deserve?

[LenaPresents]

(This is not a collab request. I just want to know what to expect for when I start searching for a collaborator.)

How much would you ask to be paid by a writer for a relatively short webcomic adaptation? How would you prefer those payments (per chapter, per page, etc.)?

The novel I'm thinking of hiring an artist for is 12 chapters at around 2-3k words each and I have no clue how that translates into comic pages.

When I was drawing a comic (my past experience in realism with references), one b&w page with tones, bubbles, and text took me about a week to complete―drawing 6-8 hours each day. A talented artist I followed who hand drew everything completed 1 page in about an hour.

Everyone is different, so let me know what you believe you deserve based on your skills, pace, detail, style, and whatever other factors.

If you don't feel comfortable posting it here, you can PM me.

[fleohr]

I think page is relative, some has one single image while others has 4~6 panels. I'd count per panel or episode, setting a minimum of 30~40 panels, depending on your story

And the art style also depends a lot, I think it would be better if you show what kind of art style (including coloring) you want, show some examples too, if you have any, that way someone who has a similar style would tell you how much they are asking for

[LenaPresents]

I just want to hear from a variety of people, so I don't want to be like "this is the style and coloring I want."

But per panel makes sense. What if the panels are different sizes, though?

[fleohr]

The art style would give you a base of what price you should pay like, if you want a realistic art, then it would be more expensive than a cartoon one. Full colored or B&W also matters, and if you want a simple/complex painted background from scratch or if you're ok with 3D backgrounds made on sketchup

It all depends on what you want and what will match with your novel in the end, the same go with panels in different sizes, what you'll have to count is how long the artist took to make it and not the size of it. There are panels that can be large, but could be only the characters eyes or something to put focus on

[kytri]

Professional comics usually pay per page. Average page rates are kind of tough to pin down though because as an industry comics has a huge issue with publishers underpaying artists or not paying at all. Personally I think work for hire stuff should start at around $100 per finished page but a lot of places pay way less than that. A general rule of thumb is to expect that one comic page will take about 1 day to draw. Some artists are faster or slower than that, but if you were to hire someone to draw a 24 page monthly comic you should assume you're paying them a full time job kind of rate.

For what you seem to be looking for I think a good approach would be to figure out a rough budget for how much you can pay per week or per update or whatever and approach an artist who's work you like about it. I have a friend who does art for a webcomic and this was basically how the writer approached her. She said something like "I can pay X dollars per week, what can I get for that?" And my friend said she could do I think two black and white pages or one colored one.

As for translating word count into comic pages, there's no real good way to estimate it. Say you spend 100 words describing something, that might only be a single panel, but 100 words of a conversation might take up several pages in a comic.

[LenaPresents]

Thank you! This is really helpful!

[sushy00]

I always charge per page for comics. If the page is really complicated the rate may go up for that one particular page.

[jpnakashima]

Don't know if it's still up to date, but searching for the pay rate of comic book artists, data from the end of 2017 say DC and Marvel start paying $160 per page.
If the big two pays that, I feel like $100 per page is good stuff indeed.

About how much work goes into a page and if you should pay more for it, I feel like it could be no issue if you even it out, if through the chapter (or series) you try and keep a balance on what you are asking.
Kieron Gillen, from Young Avengers / The Wicked + The Divine fame, talks about it a little on his Tumblr and I think it's a solid way of facing your job as a writer:

So, page budgets? You mention them a lot, and how...