Working towards a successful comics career: reality checks and balancing expectations.

What IS success? What do you define as having “made it?” For each of you, that will be something completely different but it’s an important conversation to have with yourself as you begin your journey into the comics industry.

Despite what you may think, breaking into the comics industry in any capacity rarely (if ever) happens overnight. Making a name for yourself can take years and years, and often starts with a LOT of networking.

Once you feel like you’re starting to carve a place out for yourself and you begin working on what it is you want to be working on (whether that’s writing, editing, art, production, etc.), it can still be a tricky industry to navigate.

Finding work on a comic for one publisher or creator doesn’t automatically lead to more work. Even if the project is “successful” and is acclaimed by critics, fans, and your peers, editors and publishers, etc. don’t always reach out to you directly for more projects.

It is ALWAYS a hustle to find other jobs because there are so many others out there doing the same thing and trying to get their work out into the world.

Thankfully we have so many incredible new ways to share our work between creator-owned comics, self-publishing, zines, webcomics, and more. We’re not beholden to having to wait for a publisher or editor to come knocking on our door anymore.

If someone isn’t pursuing you for work, that’s fine! You can make your own comics and get them out there to huge audiences. WEBTOON is a HUGE platform for comic creators, and is absolutely paving the way for digital comics and storytelling.

Lore Olympus by @used_bandaid on WEBTOON has 4.3 MILLION (MILLION!!!!!!!!!!!) SUBSCRIBERS!!!!!!!! That. Is. Bananas. Those are numbers that we could only DREAM OF in the traditional comics industry.

Of course, you don’t have to pay to read the content on WEBTOON but the fact remains: there are other platforms for you to utilize in order to make comics these days, and a publisher isn’t the sole way to put your work in front of readers.

Let’s take a step back bc I want to focus more on the idea of success in the industry, and what that is for you. You’ve probably heard that you shouldn’t compare yourself to your peers. You shouldn’t. But here’s the thing: it’s inevitable and we’re going to do it regardless.

Creating some boundaries for that is important though, and understanding what you can learn from your peers to build up your own career vs. going into full despair mode when you see how well they’re doing vs. you...Well, that’s what you need to get a handle on early.

Examples of what your peers do successfully that you can take inspiration from for your own brand include: how they interact socially, how they market themselves, how they built a portfolio, and that sort of thing.

As a creator, you have your own ideas though, so make sure to focus on those and understand that you can only control the trajectory of your own career. They’re different people than you and will tell different stories, so focus on what stories that YOU can tell.

Maintaining realistic expectations and giving yourself a reasonable definition of success and goals to accomplish will go a long way in helping your self-esteem and ego.

Examples of reasonable goals include:
I will complete my short story and publish it online
I will get 100 views on my comic
I will make a print copy of my short story to bring to comic cons
I will get a story accepted into an anthology

You have to build up to things, and once you hit one of your goals, you can make them bigger but keeping them in line with how you’re faring and what else you have going on in your life will help keep the fire going and make things feel more obtainable.

Starting out in the industry and saying, “I’ll get an agent and have a book published” right out of the gate is great and ambitious (TRUST: I feel you on no chill and ambition) but very few people are going to take a risk on someone with little to no experience.

Not to say that that can't or shouldn't be a goal, but just make sure it's a goal that you're working up to. You need things like short stories and anthologies to build yourself up with.

So managing those goals and bringing yourself to a realistic place will go a long way in making sure you don’t burn yourself out in the industry.

Comics is largely a passion project industry. There are many of us trying to make it a better place with liveable wages, reasonable deadlines, and just better working environments, but the sad truth of the matter is that the industry remains very predatory.

You’re not a failure if you have a day job. Or if you have to have multiple jobs. We do what we have to do to survive and to work on the things that give us purpose and life.

If you pay your bills, and find the energy to work on brainstorming a project? That’s success.
If you find time to write a page a day? That’s success.
If you write a short story and it resonates with one person? That’s success.
If you applied to an anthology? That’s success.

When you make the effort in literally ANY capacity, that’s putting in the work and it’s success.

Everything else that may come with your efforts, whether that’s paid work, great collaborations, testing for a project, a fanbase, acclaim from your peers, etc....that’s just icing on the cake.