#ComicsBrokeMe Goes Viral, Creators Share Their Industry Experiences
by Tony Thornley
In the wake of the tragic death of 38 year-old artist and writer Ian McGinty, the comics industry has rallied together to share stories of the difficulties of working in the comics industry.
McGinty, best known for licensed comics Invader Zim and Adventure Time as well as his own series Welcome to Showside, passed away Thursday, June 8th. His family asked not to disclose his cause of death, but the comics industry reacted immediately, expressing messages of support and love to his family.
Shortly afterwards, comics professionals started sharing their experiences within the industry, based on sentiments expressed about his dedication to the industry. The hashtag #ComicsBrokeMe quickly went viral, with over 17,000 tweets dedicated to their experiences.
The creators who have spoken up range from Neil Gaiman- probably the definition of a superstar in comics- to notable Big Two writers like Jim Zub and Jody Houser to indie artists and writers, even a few editors speaking up. They speak of how page rates have changed little or remained static. There are stories of how artists can sell individual story pages to private collectors for the same amount of money (or more) than they made for drawing the entire issue. Most heartbreaking are the stories of medical distress, and firings that come out of these emergencies, even after hitting their required deadlines.
It’s damning in an industry that is also a pipeline for multimedia adaptations as well. For example, Marvel Studios has increased their output to three movies a year, each making hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars. Yet in the same breath, we hear stories of the creators of these same characters being on the verge of homelessness or ruin from medical debt. Thankfully, there are resources like the Hero Initiative and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund to help, but the fact of the matter is that an industry making this much money should be distributing it fairly amongst the creators involved.
We’ve included a few tweets from high profile creators in this story. However if you’d like to see more, most are still available publicly by searching for the hashtag #ComicsBrokeMe on Twitter.
You can find more information on the Hero Intitative at herointiative.org and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund at cbldf.org.
