I went on the advertising, money-making roller-coaster two years ago. Over that period I spent a lot on ads and made a lot on them. A few hundred either way. More was spent in the end, but the earnings were pretty good.

If you can keep that up you could prolly do ok. But I couldn't keep up with my comic in the end really. That's a shame, I might quit some work and get more comic time again, do some merchandising. Megan's advice is good!

I don't think anyone should feel bad about having a 'donations' button-- people will give you a few bucks, maybe, out of appreciation, but those who don't feel like donating don't have to!

You know, on the topic of fame & glory-seeking, well, consider me guilty-as-charged. I mean, none of my real-life friends or family will look at anything I do (other than my boyfriend, which I suspect is out of love more than actual interest, and my old roommate Jonko... who, as far as I know, isn't doing it to get into my pants). When I was home for spring break, my mom got mad at me for having a new comic... : (
The only ones who care about my comic/art are random strangers on the internet, and luckily, there are a LOT of random strangers on the internet. So what if I want everyone ever to read my comic? it's not like I just expressly want praise. I just want to do something at least vaguely meaningful, and for my comic to be meaningful it can't just rot unseen on my hard drive.

@Lefarce...

That's a little harsh... Don't you think?

Trust me... I didn't get into cartooning to make money... I knew the odds of that when I started... slim to none.

I love you "art purists", you crack me up... As though having those ideals gives you license to believe and claim that you are somehow better than everyone else, and anyone who seeks to make a living off their work is somehow only producing garbage.

I wouldn't have drawn comics for as long as I have if I didn't love doing it. What's wrong with making a living doing something that you love?

Although your idealism is very "romantic"... it's most definetly misplaced. Doing art for art's sake is nice... it is very personally rewarding I'm sure. But, so is getting recognized for what you do. If you can make a bit of money for your time... who are you hurting exactly?

The only people that are ever bothered by it are elitists who preach the "purity" of art as though there exists some golden rule...

The truth is that the only time someone "sells out" is when they compromise their art for the paycheck. If you can get paid for doing what you do... What's wrong with that exactly? You can still maintain your idealism and make a living at the same time...

Where does it say "real" artists need to be miserable broke idealists?

Everyone needs to make a living Pal. What better way to do it than by doing what you love?

Cheers!
Graeme

Don't you know? It's not art if you make any money at all off it. If you aren't living in a cardboard box, you aren't an artist! /sarcasm

It's true, nobody does get into cartooning for money, but everyone tries to turn what they love into something that supports them. Seriously. This isn't exclusive to art.

If you like doing something, you're going to do it whether you're paid to do it or not. But if you can get paid for it, why would you turn it down? If you can get paid for it, it means you can do it more often, because you don't have to spend time working somewhere else on something you don't care as much about.

If anything, striving to make money off comics shows a love of comics. It shows that the artist loves drawing comics so much, they don't want to spend their time doing anything else.

some folks
Suffer for your art! Money is evil!

Somewhere in hell, Andy Warhol is laughing his ass off.

Gosh, I've made a little bit of money from my comics, but i've also spent my share on advertising as well x.x. It takes time to really get something out of it :p.

I wish! I've spent thousands of dollars on one of my comics and Pascual and I have already lost $100 on Apocalypse.

I made a great deal of cash back in the 90's from some of my books. truth be told, it was a really good living for a while there.....but it's not there any longer. its a hard road now. i do it now, because of the love of telling stories, and to see where these characters may end up at. It would be nice to get some income from it, but i could never get enough to cover my bills anyway, so i don't think about it much any more.

comics is one job that for some reason I keep doing even if its a total waste of time and not (yet) making any money off of it.

I'm pretty far in the hole from printing and traveling around setting up at cons and stuff. I can't afford to do it anymore.

Definitively NOT... I live in a country full of illiterate people. When I tried to earn a few bucks with one of my comics, I was offended by lots of people because it had a few nude scenes and got nothing (actually I lost some cash). That was pretty strange, since it's not hard to see scantily clad women (and men), our "novelas" are full of sex, and our "national music" (which BTW sucks terribly) talks explicitly about sex and all kinds of perversions... In a particularly egregious episode, during a con, my flyers were used as toilet paper (yes, you got it right,LOL)! My first reaction was to get ridiculously pissed, but eventually I laughed it off and took it as an incentive to make a better, less offensive comic. My comic was remade and the remake is availiable here on DD (now it's way less offensive) . I'm giving another go in the print versions, since I still got my pride and I'll show people that bringing down a stubborn guy like me can be very hard! ^_^ Damn, it started as an answer to the thread and it devolved to a rant! Gotta go before I get even more off-topic, sorry...

I did make some profit for a time off my ASD works back before my mental crash. After 5 years of conventions I finally started making a profit, but that was only because I was getting a few conventions to pay my way and table and going to 6 conventions over the summer. I only made a very small amount after all that work and finally crashed from exhaustion, quitting comics and conventions for years and never truly recovering. *sighs* It was a lot more work then one first thinks and all I kept saying is if I could do more conventions the better. My mistake I think was for every con I got a guest appearance or a panelist position at I spent the extra money on another con. So pretty much worked myself to the state I'm now in.

I think if I try to make money off my work again I'm going to go with a publisher and let someone else deal with the printers and all the stress and heartache. It is just not work a few extra bucks to end up the way I did.

Kat