Does a 50/50 split on potential profits REALLY make sense?

[seru]

If you're a writer, just write a damn light novel and be done with it.

But if you're adamant about making it into a comic, invest in your own work and pay the artist upfront.

Look at it this way, not paying the artist for their time and energy with the hopes of future profit IS NOT A GOOD THING. It's practically slave labor. You are getting the most out of it because your story is being illustrated. As for the artist, they are slaving away hours of their time with the hopes of earning "future profits."

People have different goals, I fully understand that. If you're lucky enough to find an artist who can do art in their free time and gonna work for you for free, then good on you.

I don't want to say this but...the chances of you profiting from your comics are really low. The market is saturated and the competition is cut throat. You have the asian creators continuously making content with top-tier quality art and story. Sadly, most are scanlated and can be read for free. Anyway, that's another topic.

Anyway, as for my last words regarding this topic:

Writers, you are hiring and paying the artist whether you like it or not if you want your story to be drawn. PAY UP! Art will catch the interest of your prospective customer! Learn to draw if you don't like it!

Artists, never ever EVER sell yourself short. Know your worth. Ideas and concepts are a dime a dozen. Art is what makes the comic marketable. Honestly, you are better off coming up with your own stories. That way, you own 100% of the intellectual property.

[skicoak]

The thing is, to simplify this as much as possible, look at it as a coloring book. The writer is the one that provides the pictures that you color. As an artist, you look at those pictures and decide what colors you want to use to fill them in. Without an writer, you just have a blank page of paper to color with your crayons.

Again, I am not trying to be insulting with that description, it is just the most simple way I can think to explain it.

You managed to describe JUST the colorist and still found a way to make it sound like you were doing them a favor by letting them color YOUR story. If you're trying not to insult artists, you need a better editor.

Furthermore, back to my original point, let's break down some math. Let's say I write a 20 page comic, beginning to total end. I pay an artist $100 a page for it. That is $2000 out of my pocket to the artist. So even before being picked up and making profit my account is at -$2000 while yours is +$2000.

If the value of the art is $2000, and you don't pay the artist....all you've done is switched the paradigm. Now the artist is at -$2000 and you got 20 pages of art for free. If you think it's unfair in one direction, it certainly can't be fair the other direction.

[SleepingPoppy]

The writer is the one that provides the pictures that you color. As an artist, you look at those pictures and decide what colors you want to use to fill them in. Without an writer, you just have a blank page of paper to color with your crayons.

Paying upfront I don't think is fair for a 50/50 split

If you're paying up front you don't have to do a 50/50 split. By in large this is about authors offering a split instead of paying.

Why do I have to pay you but I can't expect the same in return?

You can expect the same in return? It's just that there's a demand for artist willing to work for free, so writers are more likely to take advantage of that.

[Zhengo]

I've done both art and writing, and I do have to agree that writing is generally less time consuming than art. Though it also kind of depends on if it's a simplistic art style or detailed art style.

I do think if it's a writer looking for an artist, cut out the split 50/50 crap and just pay the artist upfront (same goes for the reverse). If it's a true collab where writer and artist are on equal footing I think there is some warrant to the 50/50 split though at the same time I feel like it should at least have the writer contributing some extra work to the project.

[fever]

I would never intentionally belittle a single artist, what you guys do is amazing and takes energy, time, practice, and effort. However, writing is no easy task. I doubt J.K Rowling popped out all 7 Harry Potters in a few months time. That stuff took years and was horribly taxing, I'm sure. The thing is, to simplify this as much as possible, look at it as a coloring book. The writer is the one that provides the pictures that you color. As an artist, you look at those pictures and decide what colors you want to use to fill them in. Without an writer, you just have a blank page of paper to color with your crayons.

Again, I am not trying to be insulting with that description, it is just the most simple way I can think to explain it. Even without the person coloring the pictures, there is still a book that can looked at and enjoyed. Some of you have said that even without an artist, a writer could make a novel, they just choose not to. That's true. So realistically, the artist isn't necessary for the writer to make anything worthwhile.

Before you give the colorbook to the artist, you have to first draw it. It is insulting. You clearly don't know how much work goes into the art and the process of making it. I sincerely hope your artist the best luck in the world and know that they deserve more credit than some "people who i let color my book" because by your description it looks like aside doing all the artwork, they actually contribute in the script making. That's a lot.

Btw why don't you just draw it yourself? Try to do concept art, sketching, lineart, flat, coloring, lettering etc by yourself. Maybe after that you'd understand that in fact it's not one-person-job.

[Sadko]

Clearly you missed my entire point.

[skicoak]

Clearly you missed my entire point.

Or.... your writing was poorly phrased and unclear.

[spicy_sweets]

Er
going off the coloring book example, I'm pretty sure the writer's part is a bit inaccurate. I mean unless you are both a writer and have enough art practice to sketch your characters down to a T. We, for the most part, use descriptions and rely on the readers to make their own interpretations of the words. Taking that and transferring it onto visual media can be difficult, versus just... filling in black and white scans with MS Paint or what have you.

[punkarsenic]

I would never intentionally belittle a single artist, what you guys do is amazing and takes energy, time, practice, and effort. However, writing is no easy task. I doubt J.K Rowling popped out all 7 Harry Potters in a few months time. That stuff took years and was horribly taxing, I'm sure. The thing is, to simplify this as much as possible, look at it as a coloring book. The writer is the one that provides the pictures that you color. As an artist, you look at those pictures and decide what colors you want to use to fill them in. Without an writer, you just have a blank page of paper to color with your crayons.

Again, I am not trying to be insulting with that description

sorry... but this is very insulting. you just told artists they were 'colouring in' - that is such a gross underestimation of the work an artist does in a comic.

nobody is saying writers dont work - the arguments are about comparative labour hours and investment. even if a writer slaves away for a week to get the first chapter down, itll likely take the artist two or three weeks (again: writer - script. artist - pencils, inks, colours, letters.) the artist is investing more time into the project, and their visual stamp is on the work.

also, comic artists are not just colouring in - are animators just colouring in? cinematographers? character designers? when you make comics, you are telling visual stories, so you are nothing without your art. sure you could make a novel - but you are useless for making comics without art. and if the art isnt carrying most of the narrative weight or isnt at least essential to the narrative, then youve written a bad script. do not belittle your artists, they are making your work.

Furthermore, back to my original point, let's break down some math. Let's say I write a 20 page comic, beginning to total end. I pay an artist $100 a page for it. That is $2000 out of my pocket to the artist. So even before being picked up and making profit my account is at -$2000 while yours is +$2000. Now, let's say we do get picked up, webtoons gives us $1000 a month and we release the whole comic over a 10 month period, that is $10,000. Now, we have an agreement for a 50/50 split. So now you gey $5k and I get $5k. Well now my account is at $3000 and yours is at $7000. So you've made over twice as much as me on my comic. No matter how you look at it. That isn't right. Sure the comic wouldn't exist without art, but it wouldn't exist without a script either.

why isnt that right? they did more labour hours than you did, ergo they invested more, and deserve to be paid for their labour. why is it 'your' comic and not 'our' comic? this is the exact problem were having with comics these days - entitled writers not acknowledging the contributions of their artists.

"I think this character should look like this instead, it's more original and intriguing." I respond, "oh crap, your right. That looks way better."

this is an example of how artists contribute significantly to the writing process, because, again comics are visual storytelling

"you're stupid for asking for free art

this is true though.

[AllynCrowe]

As a writer I just want to say that this thread makes me horribly insecure ;-;

[punkarsenic]

it shouldnt. nobody is arguing that artists dont work hard and have worth, were just arguing about the labour rights and value of artists in collaborations

[Kura]

I do both the writing and art for my comics.

Though I'm passable at both the writing is what I'm better at and what I'm more known for, it's what I get the most positive feedback for, with some critics saying that the strong writing is what keeps the comics alive.

The time and effort it takes me to write is almost nothing compared to the time and effort it takes to draw the comics, and yes, I do work a lot on both. I take writing very seriously and it doesn't exactly come easy for me, I have more of a natural talent to drawing than I did writing (I actually stopped drawing for about 5 years so I could get better at writing because I LIKED writing more than drawing and people only cared about my drawings and not my writing, so I wanted to get better at writing than I was drawing) and because I'm poor at English, grammar and spelling I'm constantly going over my work to fix it, but editing at book 10 times is NOTHING compared to the work involved with just drawing it ONCE.

When I was working on both a novel version and a comic version for one of my series I had to stop writing the novel, because in 3 years I was on the 5th book in the series while the comic was on chapter 7 of book 1, (and my fans were starting to go at each others throats because they were doing this comic elitist vs. novel elitists thing and it was just getting really stupid with the spoilers the novel readers would drop all over the place in concerns to the comic only readers that would not get to those spoilers until 7 YEARS AT THE LEAST)

So yeah, 50/50 is just not a realistic expectation, it's true that both writing and drawing are work, but the work levels, lengths and even COSTS involved in drawing will always outweigh what it's compared to in writing.

[AllynCrowe]

To be honest, writing is already a very undervalued profession. As an artist you can make media and illustrations that are separate and for sale. You can go to comic cons, you can promote your comics with a single drawing and art always draws people in. Even on this site, a bad comic goes further than a good novel.
To say that then a writer should make even less on a project than the artist I feel just adds to that narrative that writing is not worth much.

I personally think it is because as an artist it's much easier to show what you have done with your time. You draft a comic or a design and sketch, and these things all show up on paper by definition. The only thing an artist ever sees is a storyboard. And most of you from what I have read are artists and artist-writers that make their own storyboards. But that is not the same as a dedicated writer for a project, especially not if they are good.

A dedicated project writer is your researcher, your marketer and provides you both with foundation and material to draw your comics on.

And the research that goes into writing is much harder to define and bill by the hour. I can't tell you how many hours I've sat and studied specifics of the Victorian era for my novel, to understand and grasp how to make the hard outlines of a character believable in their setting. I have watched at least a dozen documentaries, taken notes, studied the entire history of Britain in the years 1820-1880, the American Revolution, race relations throughout these decades and so on and so forth. And that is just the part that I don't have to come up with and fit in the story.

It's true that sitting down and writing is not labour intensive, but as an artist you can put your pen down and take a break and not think about it. @LordVincent described how writers 'write' every hour of the day, but that is not a work load to be underestimated. It is a necessity to be able to jam all the little tidbits of story, character and in my case systems of magic and the supernatural in the research I have done and not have it split open like some alien parasite bursting out of history's bosom.

Repeat this times 3, or 4, for stories I have still in wait.

It's easy to think that a writer has a bout of genius and suddenly sprouts story from their ears - and maybe that is the case for some of these lucky writers that ask for collaborations - but in my case ideas are grown over years, and by the time I would ask for an artist on a story, I will probably already have laid 6 months to a year into the project.
So yes, this thread does make me feel insecure, since it tells me that all my work is still worth less than the artists', and I as a writer should bow before you mighty gods that would grace mere mortal me with 30%.

I have spent long nights working too, I even took university electives to research the topics I needed and to improve my writing. But you don't see those because I don't come out of the room with a drawing. Don't get me wrong, I do it with love, and I love writing, but it's not a rewarding field to begin with, so to devaluate it so easily as a side-job I don't feel is right.

[fever]

Writing is hard, but it's wrong to think that artist's work is one person job. In comic, that's not the case. The artist covers sketching, lineart, coloring, background, effects, lettering etc. So actually it's not writer-artist, it's many people working on a project. But many writers seem under the impression that it's one person job. It's not. No one is undermining that writing is not hard, but lineart is just as hard, coloring etc is just as hard. And ofcourse each of those specific jobs requires years of experience and learning. That is the way it is. So for writer blindly think that artist's job is just to draw without thinking is simply misconception. There are reasons why it's called "creative work". Just like writing, they also need thinking and research too. "This line art doesn't work with this style, what color combination is best to describe this scene, and is this font and bubble position comfortable enough for the readers to read?" There's a lot of thinking and going on on each specific job.

[AllynCrowe]

That is usually why a single story has multiple artists to line and colour. And in that case 33/33/33 makes a lot more sense. I still feel it is wrong to claim 30/70 with the excuse that you are doing 'a two person job', because then you are just bad at assessing your workload and should have consulted a second artist already, but that is not the writer's fault that you overwork yourself, and it shouldn't devaluate the writer as 'half of you'.

[eyewater]

please delete—————————

[SleepingPoppy]

To say that then a writer should make even less on a project than the artist I feel just adds to that narrative that writing is not worth much.

Friendly reminder that we're talking about Writers seeking Artist type boards where artists are typically being asked to work for free on the writers personal project for a future paycheck that may or may not exist.

These writers constantly make the excuse that they can't afford to pay up front, so promising 50% or more is their attempt to incentavise the project.

(And friendly reminder that I think for proper collaborations with equal partners genuinely invested in each other, 50/50 is fine. But that's my personal feeling)

[AllynCrowe]

But that is not a flaw in the field of writing itself as it is presented here, arguing that by default writing is worth 30% and art 70%
I do agree that there's an issue to be taken with the writers that ask for collabs, but it's not so much in the inherent value of writing, as in that they are just shitty collaborers.
What I take issue with is that this thread just presents artists as superior, even if only by 'payment value'. And I also think it's a bit eschew to then claim 'comic payment rates' as proof of the value of writing - all it proves is how artist-centric this debate is to begin with.
If you want to be paid 30-70 for a bad collab, by all means go ahead, but don't use it to try and devalue a skill that you already have in a choke hold on Tapas.

[fever]

Dude, just do novel. That way, 100% of profit and ip goes to you. And no one will undermine you.
Man, this proves that an artist+writer should collab with another artist+writer, or a writer that has knowledge/bit experience of making comic for the safest bet, because they know how hard both writing and art are, and to acknowledge how much workload each of them has. So the split would be fairer.

[AllynCrowe]

I am writing a novel, thank you very much, but that is no reason to get so huffy over my argument. I never said artists don't do anything, just not to underestimate what a writer does as well.