Cartoonists without protections: a new survey pushes for a minimum wage for creatives

With the comic you earn little: three out of four cartoonists do not reach the 15 thousand euros net of pay from the tables. The share corresponds to approximately 74% of the sample interviewed on the merits of a new market survey carried out byLynx Research Unit of the IMT School of Advanced Studies of Luccain collaboration with General Directorate for Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture, which financed the project with a public tender. Among partners, too Lucca Crea – the company that organizes Lucca Comics & Games -, the Iit-Cnr of Pisa and the survey team MeFu (Comic Professions).

The study, entitled Italy in clouds. Survey on the comics supply chain in Italy, was presented today in Lucca. The findings are based on interviews with 54 industry figuresincluding publishers, authors, museums and festivals, and on the responses of 508 cartoonists to the questionnaires, about approx 2000 authors identified in the supply chain. The research group is under the scientific supervision of MLuisa Catoni’s aria professor of Art History and founder of the research unit, and coordination of the researcher Yesim Tonga. Among those present at the conference, Emanuele Vietina, director of Lucca Crea, underlined the importance of ensuring the economic sustainability of the supply chain for artists.

In fact, the report highlights the weight of the lack of protection, which translates into poor contracts and salaries. As soon as the 31,77% among the authors who participated in the survey, he only works in the production of comics, while the 68.23% have multiple jobs. Il 43% earn less than 5 thousand euros net per year and 69% rejected publication proposals because contracts and salaries were not sustainable. This is despite the educational level of the creators being very high.

Faced with few rights and low incomes, those who make comics are often ashamed of it and don’t reveal it to family and relatives. Il 10.56% work only abroade 50% both in Italy and abroad to seek greater economic stability. About three-quarters of the creators surveyed do self-production (68%) via alternative platforms.

The survey supports the need for the introduction of a minimum salary also for the comics supply chain and offers the possibility of set up a union.

“Many of these proposals are the responsibility of politicians – says Catoni – Being able to have a database like this will help politicians to make effective choices. Let’s not forget that the Mic financed this research.”

The INPS it is already moving in this direction. During Lucca Comics, the spokesperson Salvatore Santangelo he intervened to confirm the institute’s commitment to guaranteeing welfare funds for comics creatives.

For the organizers, the fact that the comics market is healthy, but the accounts of those who make comics are not should be an important point of reflection. The need for protections also emerged two years ago from an investigation by MeFu, which for this reason was included among the partners of the new research.

The IMT study identifies some critical issues in the market, which confirm what emerged during the presentation of the IEA report on the comics supply chain, released on the occasion of Lucca Comics & Games 2023. In particular, it is clear the burden of overproduction of content, a problem also common to the book supply chain. Both supply chains, again according to AIE data, released this time during the small and medium publishing fair More Free Booksreport a general negative decline after the pandemic.

Among the trends highlighted by the research, there is also decline in sales of popular comics on newsstandswhich goes hand in hand with the newsstand crisis themselves as a distribution point. On the contrary, the graphic novel circuit in bookstores is growing and it remains strong mangawhich is also an imported product.

However, there is a lack of attention from publishers for the digital comic and the question remains of the impact the drawing could have artificial intelligenceand especially image generation apps, on the exclusivity of the creators’ original design.

And more in-depth relationship it will be published in the first half of 2024 in book form. It will include a map of the 2250 players in the sector, which will be updated. And it will include a deeper analysis of social media and artificial intelligence regarding the comic.