July News 001

Hello and happy July! Please enjoy this month’s roundup of news and happenings in the world of comics and the Cartoonist Cooperative.

The 2023 Comics Worker Survey

ICYMI: The Co-op committee is excited to share The 2023 Comics Worker Survey for workers based in the US! We’re tracking page rates, advances, royalties, and more! We’re following in the footsteps of organizations like CreatorResource.com, https://fairpagerates.com and https://litebox.info with this survey and are looking forward to making this an annual report so we can track rate developments going forward.

Pay transparency is crucial to uncovering patterns in pay inequity and learning what publishers and clients can ACTUALLY pay us. This will help us as we move forward in fighting for livable pay rates for everyone working in comics. If you missed it the past few weeks, the hashtag #comicsbrokeme took Twitter by storm after the untimely death of Ian McGinty. You can see some summarized coverage at The Mary Sue, The Vulture, and The Comics Beat.

Though this survey is currently only for US workers, we will hold an international comics worker survey in the future.

If you’re making any income through comics work, we encourage you to take the survey here and share it with your fellow comics worker! 

Take The Survey

News

One of our founders Joan Zahra Dark was recently interviewed on Elana Levin’s podcast Graphic Policy.

Ezra David Mattes’s A Terrified Child Played by Jeremy Strong is now available FOR FREE digitally! You can also preorder the second printing of the physical edition here. Read about the comic below.

In part one: The Lobster Tank at the St. Louis Park Lunds & Byerly’s // Dad’s Guts, Ezra meets Jeremy at the grocery store, where a long-gone lobster tank acts as a portal into Ezra’s memory. This comic was made in colored pencils and is lovingly printed by Rayne Klar in 7″x7″.

Otava Heikkilä’s comic THE SECOND SAFEST MOUNTAIN is now available! Read about the comic below. 

THE SECOND SAFEST MOUNTAIN is a 100-page, standalone digital comic about leaving the mountain dedicated to sacred women, and the repercussions of entering the world below. This is comic contains violence, sexual imagery and body horror.

BOXES is a brand new 72 page comic magazine from ThirdBear Press that aims to showcase new short works from the most exciting and interesting creators in indie comics! Crowdfunding ends July 9th. 

Events

Opportunities

  • The Oulo Comics Center’s application for their International Comics Residence 2023 is now open until July 31st.
  • The game studio Kinkoid has several job openings. 
  • Seattle Office of Arts & Culture (ARTS) in partnership with Seattle City Light (SCL) is seeking an artist to develop site-specific artwork designs and artistic design elements for existing and new Electric Vehicle (EV) charging parking lots and stand-alone EV charging terminals throughout the City of Seattle. This is a design-only project in which the fabrication and installation will be coordinated by the City. Applications close July 10th.
  • The Walter Dean Myers Grant application is open until July 10th.
  • Silver Sprocket will be open for minicomic submissions from August 1st–31st.
  • The Graphic Medicine International Collective, in collaboration with Penn State College of Medicine, is starting the second phase of the Frontline Comics Project. The project connects front-line workers with comic artists to tell visual stories about the front-line workers’ experience throughout the COVID pandemic.
  • Frog Con, an online convention celebrating frogs is from October 13th–23rd. Artist alley applications close July 7th.
  • Tower Magazine is open for submissions for comics, illustration, prose, and poetry until July 28th. 
  • The Artist Trust (AT) Endurance Grants (END) are unrestricted emergency need-based grants of $2,500 to artists working in all disciplines across Washington State to assist with an unforeseen emergency, crisis, or catastrophic event. Applications close July 17th.
  • Room Magazine is open for submissions from people of marginalized genders.
  • Monstrous Magazine is open for submissions of flash fiction and short comics until July 27th.
  • The University Book Shop Summer Writer in Residence Award is open to emerging writers who are normally residents in New Zealand and write for adults, young adults or children. Applications close August 20th.

Member Accolades

Check out the preview for Sloane Leong’s Prism Stalker over at Comicbook.com!

Betwixt: A Horror Manga Anthology releases October 10, 2023, featuring a comic by Sloane Leong and Leslie Hung.

Resources

  • Comic Show Tables tracks comic conventions across the UK.
  • Kori Michele Handwerker has a great guide on making zines. 
  • DCS has some wonderful insights into where to share webcomics.
  • monkey kg has an excellent presentation on crowdfunding.
  • Artspace is a nonprofit arts organization specializing in creating, owning, and operating affordable spaces for artists and creative businesses. These spaces include live/work apartments for artists and their families, working artist studios, arts centers, commercial space for arts-friendly businesses, and other projects.
  • Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC) is a fantastic resources for how to organize your workplace. 
  • Similarly, Labor Notes is a media and organizing project that has been the voice of union activists who want to put the movement back in the labor movement since 1979. Through their magazine, website, books, conferences, and workshops, they promote organizing, aggressive strategies to fight concessions, alliances with worker centers, and unions that are run by their members.