003: Budget For Time
It’s March! Happy March! Please have a safe and responsible St. Patrick’s Day, and an even more safe and responsible first day of spring.
I was on DECOMPRESSED with my frequent collaborator Kieron Gillen. What did we talk about? Lettering! Specifically, the stuff we’ve worked on together. And I go on a tangent about why Cyclops’ optic blasts shouldn’t have a trademark sound effect (like “snikt,” “bamf,” or “thwip”). I had that one bottled up inside for a long time.
I guess the news is out—Batman is relaunching in September, with cherished collaborator Matt Fraction writing! I’ve been lettering Batman since 2016 across four creative runs, and this is my first Batman #1. Exciting! And Jorge Jiménez is still on art! This is the the third time I’ve forged a lettering style to go with Jorge’s art, which…I wasn’t sure how to do. What could I possibly do different? But thanks to editor Rob Levin’s insight, we’ve come up with something fun (not to mention Matt’s always-interesting design requests). I can’t wait for you all to see it!
I held a charity auction a few weeks back that went very well. A full collection of signed The Wicked + The Divine comics went to one lucky customer for $295, and all of the profits went to the Transgender Law Center! Hopefully I can do more of these in the coming days.
I’m not really one to mourn the death of a celebrity, but I did shed a tear for Michelle Trachtenberg, who passed away at a horrifically young age. I knew her as Dawn Summers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Harriet M. Welch from Harriet the Spy, Celeste from Six Feet Under, and most importantly to Clan Cowles, Nona F. Mecklenberg from The Adventures of Pete & Pete. Pete & Pete is the one show we’ve kind of made our own, and she brought an awful lot to it throughout her run. She got to act alongside Iggy Pop and Patty Hearst. She was two years older than me, but I still think of her as that little kid with the candy necklace and permanent arm cast. I think she really shines in Grounded for Life and Dance Fever. Rest in peace, Michelle.
All right, time for content.
Sound Effect of the Month:
Q&A:
Q: Really enjoyed listening to your conversation with Kieron on DECOMPRESSED. It was an offhand comment about Virtual Calligraphy from that episode which prompts my question: What is a ‘lettering studio’ and in what capacities does it serve as ‘the closest thing’ the comics industry has to a union?
A: First things first, my offhand comment was wrong. The comics industry has at least one union. Shoutout to the staff at Image Comics.
Anyway, a lettering studio is a group of letterers who work together through a single contract on designated titles (though we almost never work together in the same space). Virtual Calligraphy collectively letters the bulk of Marvel’s publishing line. Currently, there are six letterers working for VC (Joe Caramagna, Travis Lanham, Ariana Maher, Cory Petit, Joe Sabino, and me), with Chris Eliopoulos managing (and occasionally helping with lettering, when he’s not inspiring children all over the world). We’re always in contact with each other, asking about which lettering styles we should be using or asking for help when needed. Or we’re talking as friends, because we like each other.
So when I say we’re close to a union, we’re…not really that close to a union. We don’t have a dental plan or anything—we’re all left to care for our own teeth within the parameters our respective health care systems allow. It’s only union-like in that the company has guaranteed terms of service, we all work for the same page rate, and we all have each other’s backs without question.
Hope this helps!
Feel free to ask me a question of your own in the comments section!
Tips - The Time Budget:
So this month’s tip is a little dryer and more insider-baseball than last month’s, but hopefully the right person will see it and it’ll save their career. Or something.
One of the most heartbreaking things about working in comics is watching promising new talent burn out. Once someone breaks in, publishers will offer the shiny new talent an overwhelming amount of work, and the talent will often say yes to everything and hope they can keep up with it all. After all, you never know, this could be it. The talent wants to take all the work they possibly can while it’s available, and they also don’t want to risk alienating the person offering them the job by turning it down.* If they continue on this course, the talent will inevitably run late, burn out, and leave comics for something else. The same thing can happened to seasoned veterans if they aren’t careful. The most important part of keeping your freelance career alive is knowing your limits—how much you can do, when to say no, and when to walk away.
I’ve had multiple burnouts throughout my career, and, well, since I’ve got nowhere else to go, I had to figure out a way to quantify my time. Counting the number of titles and dollars earned clearly wasn’t enough, because no two books are the same. So now I track my working hours in my monthly budget sheets.
Here’s what a typical month of Marvel work looks like for me:
Those numbers next to the issue titles are the estimated number of hours they’ll take me to make. The numbers are based on several factors—length of issue by pages, amount of text, anticipated corrections/rewrites, correspondence, designing recap/next issue pages and letter columns, and sending the finished issue to press.
Here’s how it helps:
Since I do this for every title for every publisher, I can keep a running tally of the total number of hours I’m working each month. 150 hours my sweet spot. At that point, my monthly cost-of-living expenses are all covered, and it averages out to about six hours of work every weekday, leaving me plenty of time to recharge, take care of my house, and be a decent boyfriend.
I can see in advance which months are overloaded. If an upcoming month has a high number of estimated working hours (180-200 is the danger zone), I’ll see if there are any books I can move ahead to a lighter month to keep things balanced. If I can’t do that, then, well, at least I know what to expect.
I can tell which books are problematic. If, for example, I’m on a book whose regular issues take ten hours or more to do, I have to decide if it’s worth staying or leaving. I’m running a business, after all, and if I’m spending potentially two books’ worth of time on one, that’s cutting into my income.
Anyway, I hope this saves some careers. I especially hope this little tip can be adapted for writers, artists, and colorists.
*Just for the record, editors will always respect you for knowing your limits. Don’t be afraid to turn down work and to be honest about why you’re doing it. Better to do that than to break a promise.
Community:
Indie publisher Black Panel Press started a GoFundMe to keep things going while they weather the Diamond bankruptcy storm. They’ve made some good books and I’d like to see that continue. If you haven’t already and are able, consider giving!
Comic book writer and Penguin Random House comic sales manager Matthew Klein just launched the Comics For You podcast, and it’s quite good. Episode one features my Star Wars collaborator Alex Segura, a man who’s seemingly had every behind-the-scenes job in publishing, and is now one of comics’ most prolific writers. Matthew asks smart questions, and Alex gives smart answers. I have a hunch that this will be an essential pod, whether you want to break into comics or you want to survive in comics.
Recommendations:
Comic: ClanDestine. Here’s a hill I’m willing to die on—ClanDestine is the best-made super hero comic of the 1990s. The story, the characters, the art, the lettering—it’s pristine. The only mark against it is the original series wasn’t finished by the original creative team. The ending was so bizarre that it got retconned, Dallas-style. Written and drawn by the incomparable Alan Davis, ClanDestine is about a family of super-powered half-human/half-djinn who are trying to keep things under wraps…except for the youngest son, who wants to be a super hero. His twin sister and a few of his older siblings have no choice but to be super heroes right alongside him, at least to ensure he doesn’t get hurt or blow their cover. There’s other stuff too, like the dad being buds with the Silver Surfer, an astral body-hopping daughter being pursued by whozits, and really, REALLY good drawings of M.O.D.O.K. If you can’t find copies or collections at your local comic shop, the complete original series (and subsequent series, including one lettered by yours truly) are on Marvel Unlimited.
Non-comic: Chained Echoes. I’m not much of a gamer. I’ll start a new game once a year—usually the newest edition of FarCry or a JRPG. I’ve played a few throwback JRPGs since the lockdown in 2020, and this one is my favorite. Think a modernized Final Fantasy VI, with prettier pixels and the fully unlocked potential of the Magitek armor at your disposal. It even has the enormous cast of playable characters! It also has an excellent soundtrack. Available on all platforms!
Stuff With My Name In It (March 2025):
3/5:
Alien: Paradiso #4
Batman by James Tynion IV Omnibus vol. 1 HC
Batman vol. 4: Dark Prisons HC
Birds of Prey #19
Giant-Size Little Marvel: AxV TPB
Living Hell #4
Star Trek #30
Uncanny X-Men #11
3/10:
Astonishing X-Men Infinity #13
3/12:
All-New Venom #4
Star Trek Lower Decks #5
Star Wars: Jedi Knights #1
X-Men #13
X-Men by Jed MacKay vol. 1: Homecoming TPB
3/17:
Astonishing X-Men Infinity #14
3/19:
Absolute Batman #6
Adventureman: Family Tree #1
Batman/Catwoman TPB
Batman & Robin: Year One #6
Daredevil: Unleash Hell - Red Band #3
Daredevil: Woman Without Fear - Bloody Reunion TPB
The Power Fantasy #7
3/14:
Astonishing X-Men Infinity #15
3/26:
Animal Pound HC
Black Canary: Best of the Best #5
Daredevil #19
Doom Academy #2
Star Trek: Defiant #25
Uncanny X-Men #12
Weapon X-Men #2
Wonder Woman #19
3/31:
Astonishing X-Men Infinity #16
And, finally, the cat photo:
See you in a month!
-Clayton
Love this one Clayton ! The time budget is so smart. Trying to figure out what my version of it might be.