How much does your comic cost?

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Hartchamber
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Post by Hartchamber »

hmm.

let's see my paper is fairly cheap. i draw on letter size cardstock that you buy for a ream or so at $5. i use a kohinoor eraser. and that thing eats thru erasers. 3 boxes a year. those things arent cheap. i draw on also on a kohinoor drawing board which i have to replace every three years because the cat likes to hop on top of it when i'm drawing on it. drawing boards are not made to support cats. at least the cat ignores laptops- thank goodness. i reduce the artwork to digest size and print it out on nice white laser paper that gets mounted on the cardstock.
and then i start using tones. that's where the expense comes in. tones can be 2-4 dollars a sheet depending on the size. i also make my own too by running an applique film with repositionable adhesive thru my laser printer. that's whole lot cheaper than buying tones. if i but the film in bulk, which i do. however, it doesnt give you good dot tones, so those i still have to buy. and the films harder to cut too. and they always come out with some new tone that i just have to have. anyway i've probably spent around $250 a year for tones.
as for the ink stuff i use my faithful .35 rotring pen. which i end up destroying every 5 years because i'm a paper gouger. and ultrafine sharpies which i buy in bulk at the office store. i use micron sparingly as they break so easily. tho, i love the micron brushes . and the sakura pentouch.7mm white pens are great for detailed white linework. though they will bleed if you're not careful. still well worth the trouble of not having to drag out white paint and brushes..
so most of my stuff is either bought at ofice warehouses- cheap :lol:
or at art tech type places- expensive :( or online- argh that shipping :cry: . so my art supplies probably cost me around $400 a year.

is it worth it. of course. i guess i could dress nicer with $400. but i wouldnt be having as much fun as i do when i'm drawing my stuff
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Ghastly
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Post by Ghastly »

Let's see... costs...

well... Hmmmm... I don't know. I do know that I bring in significantly more money from my comic than I put into it.

Material costs. Well, since I CG my comic I can't really count all my art supplies as expenses for the comic per say. The pen comes to $3 for the nib holder, $5 for the nib. $10 for a bottle of India Ink. $8 for a package of 150 sheets of cardstock to draw on and I draw one panel per sheet, 4 panels per comic. The bottle of ink seems to last almost a year and the nibs I tend to replace after about a year because I have a rather heavy hand they tend to take a lot of abuse.

What's that work out to per year?

5.3 cents per sheet of card stock. 4 per comic. 56 comics per year. That's $11.87 cents per year for the card stock. $21.87 with the ink added. $26.87 if I replace my nib every year. $29.87 start up with the nib holder.

Hell I make that back in a month just from Cafepress sales alone. Everything else is gravy.

Now if I have to count all my artsupplies in my comic that's going to cost more because I've got lots of paints and pencil crayons and markers and shit, but I would have bought all that stuff even if I wasn't doing a comic and I don't use any of it for the actual production of the comic. Technically I suppose the pen and ink would have been purchsed too wether or not I was doing a comic.

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Post by Pimpette »

Hmm.. I just spent five minutes typing that I've spent almost nothing on Pimpette.. except for several sorta expensive things... Whoops, rewrite time.

There's the extra prismacolour markers I bought.. the first ones I needed for school anyway, but my black markers die so fast I have to buy new ones frequently.
Then there's the good-quality hp scanner I splurged on, after months of jealousy over my brother's sexcellent epson scanner - I'm sure he's happy I don't keep bothering him every week so I can scan my comics.

And now that I've opened a store, I'll probably be buying many more markers as I use them up more quickly =/
Yikes.

and I do this for FUN. :D
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Post by McDuffies »

Problem is, my comic costs are mixed with other costs too much. But I'll try:

3.5 e for 500 sheets of paper, which would probably be enough for 250 comics.
Markers around 1.5 e each, and I usually that two sizes. Plus one very thick for black areas which costs no more than 0.5 e. Pencil and eraser, well, let's say 0.5 each. Estimate: 50 comics.
My estimate is about 20 euros a year. Add a scanner worth 60 euros and internet time (20 hours 10 euros) and that complicates estimate totally.

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Post by Soap Soaperson »

Yay! I have the cheapest budget of all!
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Ghastly
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Post by Ghastly »

Oh crap. I forgot the non-photo blue pencils. Those things set me back about $3 a month.

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Ratbert
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Post by Ratbert »

Not quite. My comic is made entirely of stolen pens and paper. Well, at least until I went to college where I had to pay $1.99 for a pack of paper. And you get a grand total of...

$1.99
$.10 tax
----------
$2.09

I win!
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SuperSnob
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Post by SuperSnob »

I'm not going to factor in the cost of my drawing table or my scanner because I had both way before I started getting serious about drawing comics. So...

Staedtler/Faber Castell pens are about $3 apiece and don't last very long. I estimate I would probably spend about $40 on those every year. Sharpies, on the other hand, are not expensive but they ARE getting harder to find...

The paper I draw it on USED to be free, just cheap printer paper, now I use more expensive stuff (like Bristol, only smoother) which is about $13 a pad for 40 sheets. Given that each "issue" of my comic is about 18 pages long and I have a LOT of this paper stored up right now, I consider that a pretty good deal... :0

Uh...I just use whatever pencils are around the house, so they don't really cost anything. Since I had them before I started the comic too. I have more pencils than I know what to do with. @_@
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Kris X
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Post by Kris X »

My mommy and daddy buy my supplies. :oops:

I mean. Um. Yar.

Actually this winter my parents are planning to invest in my webcomiking. Indeed, IftP will be going ".com" and selling merchandise to the readers. It will be come a source for my college money. Sooo. I probably will be spending a lot more money later on.

In general, I was an artist since I picked up a crayon, so I have waaay too much art supplies before I ever started comics. my expenses so far went to Bristol board, uniball pens (Mohawk drains those suckers), sketch books, and Micron pens.

So about $20 so far.
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Post by ChaosBurnFlame »

My biggest cost is paper

India ink is cheap and it lasts quite a while. My brush was 60 cents.

but paper? $20 for 20 sheets.

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Post by Ida »

I have no clue! Wait, maybe I have...

Pens: 30 kr (approx. $4) each = $8
Paper: Was a gift, and probably not much more expensive than the pens.
Kneadable eraser: let's say 35 kr ($5)
Leads: Inherited! :D
Mechanical pencil: Gift from school.
Scanner: Birthday gift!
Normal eraser: Inherited as well.
Paint Shop Pro: 1000 kr (around $150)

So, all in all, A.N.T has cost me about $163 to do. And I've not yet earned a buck for keen. :wink:
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Post by CJBurgandy »

Photoshop was the most expensive part of my comic, but 3 friends of mine and I put money together to buy it, plus it was while I worked at the computer store, so we got it discounted... It cost me $230 instead of $700. I spend about $20 a month on Bic Pencils and Black ink pens. And I go through them fast sometimes, because my puppy seems to think that I put things on my desk and drafting table to challenge her to get up there and chew them up. (and she's not a big dog) I also spend about $5 a month on Paper. I just use Xerox paper. I draw the panels on them, ink them and if it's in color, I color it with photoshop. I spend 40 bucks a month for standard cable so I can spend an addional 40 bucks on a cable modem. (that and I get cartoon network, TLC, the food channel and Comedy Central)

and thats the money I spend on my comics.
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Post by Vorticus »

So far, I've only paid in the time category. I draw everything in Gimp, so art supplies aren't necessary. Other people pay for things like computers and internet, but that might change in a year or so.

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Okie
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Post by Okie »

I added it up.

Bristol Board
Nib Pens
India Ink
Kneaded Rubber Erasers
Stanford Design HB Pencil
Micron Pens, 0.8, 0.3, 0.1

about $115 spent so far on materials, and I've done 234 strips.

This does not include research expenses.
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Post by Cortland »

Let's see. I got two packs of thick paper from Dick Blick for about $4 each, then there are my #2 pencils for drawing and ZIG pens for inking ($3 and about $2 each respectively). Plus a $1 kneaded rubber eraser for cleaning up. Um, that's it! :D I'm so proud of my midwestern frugality.

(And I'm not counting computer software because I use that for all my freelance work. It doesn't count because it paid for itself already! ) 8)
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McDuffies
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Post by McDuffies »

I forgot to mention that LWK costs me more basically because I'm doing it on more quality paper. I tried drawing it with more expensive tools too, but it didn't turn out the way I wanted so I got back to cheapy ones. Kind of fenomenon.

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Post by MixedMyth »

Ummm....let's see. I don't really have the costs for everything.
$80 scanner (that was like three years ago, though. It's served me well)
micron/millenium pens
printer paper
bristol board
pencils
magic erasers

I actually got my Wacom as a hand me down, so that's a nill. And Photoshop elements was a gift.

Pretty sure my comic's at least managed to pay for itself between CDs, the occasional donation, and auctions. I do go through a lot of pens, though.
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Ghastly
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Post by Ghastly »

cortland wrote: ZIG pens for inking
Move ZIG! You know what you doing. Take off every ZIG for great justice!

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Post by Axonite »

Since May of last year:

Paper... I think I've spent $7 or so on paper (and have enough to last into next year)

Pens/ink/pencils/erasers/etc... not sure. Call it $25.

Domain name for Station V3... $7.95, IIRC.

1 year 'premium' DrunkDuck for Z7... $12

A couple ads and some other ad-related 'sponsor' and 'premium' things (OnlineComics, bCx)... $55 or so total, I think.

Round up a bit... Call it $110 for V3 and Z7 combined. (Which is well over 500 strips now, not counting the extra bonus voting incentive ones)

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Post by Jim North »

Ghastly wrote:
cortland wrote: ZIG pens for inking
Move ZIG! You know what you doing. Take off every ZIG for great justice!
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