I have been offered some freelance commission work for some comic book people (maybe...well, yay! me anyway) but being a high school teacher and having never done this before... What is a good going rate for this sort of thing? Should it be per page or per picture? It may include a cover - what about that? Does that affect the rate? It's a US company so $US quotes/suggestions are ok...but I live in Australia. cheers Sean

What I've heard is they pay $50-$100 per page and $300-$600 per cover, if it's low-budget independent comics.

start reading magazines like Communication Arts, and you'll get an idea as to what rates for different fields may be, how to draw up proper contracts, etc.

And it's best to discuss this via Private IM's. A public discussion of what to charge could be seen as a violation of antitrust laws. Wouldn't want to get this site in trouble.

Anti- trust laws??? Seems to me he is just looking for a base idea. I have been doing freelance for along time now and I sit down and evaluate the amount of work and the quality they desire. Most times I never charge by the hour. Its almost always by the image. Think long and hard about how much work you actually do to produce and image and you'd be suprised.

Asking for average work fees isn't a violation of anti-trust laws. Anti-trust means we can't all get together and force a particular wage by agreement on the market place or carve up the market into segments so that each one of us has control of that segment (non-competition).

SeanE call a few different design companies or freelancers, pretend your a customer and ask what they cahrge- that should give you some idea of fair market value of your work...

erg you're and charge even ;P

I'm just saying it's possible. Another board I frequent strictly forbids such discussion and since they should know then there's probably something to it.

Email KenS, and George Deep and ask them if they can give you any tips on rates and contracts. Both of them have actually done freelancing in the comics industry. KenS [fasttraxx] has contact info on his site at http://www.chemicalstudios.com/ George Deep I don't have a current contact email or url for, but you can generally contact him via Runtime DNA. Both of them are great people, Sean, and either or both can probably give you a wealth of input on this, or at least point you to where to look for what you need.