Fair Pay for Artists:
A Thought Bubble Project

The way artists, writers and freelancers price their work in the comic and arts industry is a highly discussed subject; whether between peers or their clients, the conclusions seem to vary vastly and workings a mystery. Thanks to public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, Thought Bubble was able to work with a team from the UK Centre for Events Management to carry out a research project to explore the way creatives price work in the comics industry.

We started the project as a survey which took place during Thought Bubble Comic Con 2018; which we continued in 2019, where we worked closely with academics from UK Centre for Events Management to gain a better understanding of the pay and work conditions people face, by interviewing a selection of exhibitors. The data was then used to create a report and conclusions which can be found in full below. We provided this data to amazing artist Kristyna Baczynski to create infographics to highlight key points from the report- we hope you like it!

The next step is to build on this report with further qualitative data. We’ll use this, and our position as a leading comic art festival, to prompt positive change! We’ll use the findings to provide tools and information to empower people to price their work fairly, accurately and with confidence with online resources and educational events during future festivals. We hope this will give confidence to those working in the comics industry to accurately price and sell their work, and help them have a successful career in the comic book world.

We also have a number of hard copies of the final report, if you’d like to have one in your art school, library or for personal use, please email us at info@thoughtbubblefestival.com with your name and address, and we’ll happily post one to you. To find out more about Arts Council England, please go to: artscouncil.org.uk.

Special thanks to Ian Lamond and his team at the UK Centre for Events Management for your enthusiasm throughout the project. To Kristyna Baczynski for your incredible illustration. To Arts Council England for supporting this campaign from the beginning. And to all of our exhibitors that took the time to complete the survey.