I happened upon this on Marvel Comics: The Untold Story‘s Facebook feed, and I can’t look away.
It’s an invoice created for 12 inked pages and a cover for the Stuntman story “Curtain Call for Death” for a total of $170 dated December 7, 1945.
In terms of context, this is interesting. This came less than a year after World War II, often thought of as the most defining time in Jack Kirby’s life, where he landed at Omaha Beach in 1944, and fought through Bastogne. Then you look at this “invoice” and you get a sense of what the comic book industry was like. It was hand written. It was back of the napkin. And you could buy a lot of art for not a lot of cash.
Very seriously, the Marvel Comics: The Untold Story Facebook page and/or Tumblr is quite simply the best thing I’ve seen on the comics internet in years. Sean Howe puts up something fun there almost every day, and it’s an incredible look back at this industry’s past.
If you haven’t read the book, well, that’s just wrong.
Here’s that finished cover by the way:
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Just finished the book, it was amazing. Although I struggled getting thru the 90s boom and bust, it was like watching “Child Actors: Grown and Bad” or something. It gave me a new appreciation of Kirby and his body of work.
Adjusting for inflation, 170$ in 1945 seem to amount to about 2200$ today. For someone that knows approximately nothing about the comic industry, how much might a similar amount of work bring in today? Just to get some perspectives.
If Mr. Kirby did 12 issues of that book in a year (and no other books), then that translates to roughly 26,400, in current dollars. That doesn’t seem like much. A minimum wage job pays roughly 14,500 a year, if you can work it full time. I’d guess (and this is just a guess) the vast majority of today’s artists working for big publishers are making considerably more.
However, I have no idea if that was a major book. I wonder how much the artists on lower profile books (like a Dynamite book) make. I wouldn’t be shocked if it was in the 26,000 range for a year’s work on a single book.
He’d have done that much in a week, and probably more. He was a workaholic and a juggernaut. He was also working in tandem with Joe Simon at the time.
Most artists today couldn’t keep that pace. The wages for a modern creator can vary greatly. Some make barely minimum wage or less, and some make a hell of a lot of money.
It looks like I missed the fact that it said inking (in both the letter and the article proper). I assume inkers aren’t paid very well, so that $26,400 might be pretty reasonable with the cover thrown in.
I remember being amazed at the amount of work he was putting out when I read the book. So much talent and so much focus. Incredible.
Yeah, maybe I’m just being optimistic, but I think Kirby was making a pretty damn good living back then. Even $20,000 was a lot of money back then, and he was doing a lot more than just one or two books a month.
Does this partially explain why he kept doing work-for-hire without insisting that he own the characters he created and co-created? I mean, if he was earning solid money for what he was doing on a weekly basis, then insisting that he have more ownership wouldn’t be as big a priority at the time.
This is really interesting stuff, Josh. Thanks for posting.
@flapjaxx – Welcome to the world of Labor Economics. That is an ongoing discussion in the field. I remember hearing a few professors chatting about Siegel and Shuster and Superman when one of the (MANY) verdicts in that seemingly endless case was announced. Would you take the steady pay or demand ownership and take on the risk of self publishing? It’s almost like the Bendis/Kirkman debate started in 1945.
Siegel and Shuster were, at one point, incredibly wealthy. While they didn’t reap the rewards from ownership of Superman, they did command huge rates, and were both making a lot of money at a certain point in the 50s. They were living it up, no doubt. And most of that money went away. I’m not saying they got a fully fair shake, but they also didn’t play it completely smart, much like young athlete’s today.
It’s my understanding of Kirby that he never stood up for himself until it was much too late, and then he overshot the mark by a good margin.
According to a popular online inflation calculator, that is the equivalent of $2140.16. How does that rate for twelve pages and a cover compared to today?
Thanks for reading my comment before posting! 😉
I keep focusing on the dollar amount (as an economist, I kind of have to), but I think the most interesting thing, and Josh points this out in the article, is the casual nature of the transaction. In comparison, I had to take a fucking loyalty oath stating that I will be loyal to the fucking state of Georgia before they’d start paying me. I can’t imagine sending an invoice in on a napkin.
That was the thing that struck me, in terms of where comics were at the time, and why we’re now still dealing with the legal ramifications of ownership.
Exactly. It takes an army of lawyers to decide something like who owns the rights to Marvelman. I wonder if Gaiman and MacFarlane ever wrote up any legally binding napkins?
Don’t forget the after-the-fact contracts, where someone would sign say a paycheck and on the back would be something that says “we own all the work you do”. Some people had no idea what they were really signing and later wanted to fight them.
It’s pretty clear that back then they were “artists.” Now we call them “creators.” There’s a lot in a name, and I think we see it in the legal atmosphere. This was a really cool post. Ive seen little old school.bits about how comics were done in the early days, and it is very nostalgic. Two guys in a room with art supplies, paper, glue, and an idea. The world seemed much more simple back then.
@theWAC1 According to “The Comic Book History of Comics” (also brilliant and worth buying immediately if you haven’t already read it) back in the “Golden Age,” saying you were a comic book artist was more or less like saying you were a pornographer and so-called “real” artists wouldn’t give comics the time of day until the 60’s Roy Lichtenstein blew up panels and copied them almost verbatim without the slightest regard for the creator or the source material. Also, Jack Kirby left comics for a while to work in animation and also did storyboards and concept art for “Argo” (in the movie the storyboard artist who shows up and is a total art bad-ass is supposed to be Kirby). Finally, it’s debatable whether or not it was really that simple or if these artists just didn’t have very good business sense. The writers and artists who did ended up doing pretty well for themselves, sometimes at the expense of others or, I don’t know, a sweatshop full of animators. Eek! A mouse!
@icn1983 iFanboy was repping that book pretty hard last year if I remember right. It’s on “to buy” list for this year. Sounds great. When I say artist I mean it as something less than what we consider a “creator”. I had heard similar things about comic artists from the early days. I see the debate about “simple.” It seems these folks were just working. It wasn’t until later that they realized they had made a ton of money for these comics. It’s messed up on one hand, but so simple on another, and the whole process just seemed so “simple”. Not in a good or bad way, but just way different than today. I really do need to read that book. Maybe my library has it…
Being a freelancer who just had a good chunk of last week’s work rejected, I can not only relate to this, but I also draw a huge amount of inspiration from it.
I get tired of working for pissant paychecks and I don’t have anything like the ability The King had. Amazing. I guess it really does work out in the end.
Thanks Josh. Thanks so much.
That’s a hell of a cover.
It makes me want to read a stuntman comic.
Great timing on this post as I just finished reading Sean Howe’s book last night and discovered the Tumblr page also. I was up past midnight going though the Tumblr. Fascinating stuff and the book was a great read.
Minor critique is that I wish more time was spent between Bill Jemas’ ousting and Disney’s purchase of Marvel. I know it’s recent, but some great stuff happened and I’d love to hear some behind-the-scenes accounts.
Kirby was clearly not given the credit he deserved, but what did you guys think of his progressive claims of sole creator-ship later in his life? Asserting that Stan Lee basically did nothing?
I think when Kirby first started put pushing for recognition, he was honest and wanted what he was owed. Later on tho, I think he went alittle further then he should have. The idea that he invented all the characters and Stan did nothing seems pretty unlikely, although I got the feeling Stan had the habit of screwing people over, like Steve Ditko. I think Kirby was good at designing elementst and great at ideas, maybe he wasn’t so good with personality and dialogue which is where Stan came in. Kirby even told Stan the last time they met “You have nothing to be sorry for” (or something akin to that) and I think that was Kirby admitting he exaggerated his claims a little. In all likelyhood, both of them were out to make as much profit as possible in one form or another and probably recognized that. That’s just what I got from the book tho, I’m sure other people are more knowledgeable about Kirby’s story and could correct me.
Everyone during that period is still working in the industry, and are much less likely to talk. You’ll read that book in 20 years.
1) How have I not heard of Stuntman comics before?
2) How has Erik Larsen not claimed Stuntman yet? I can only assume that someone still holds the copy right for a few more years and it hasn’t hit public domain.
3) I believe that the circle design and font that proclaim it a Simon & Kirby Thriller Chiller is the same as that of the chapter/sections in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.
Contracts on napkins and Super Bowl tickets on crackers? What a world we live in.
(+1 to anyone who gets the latter reference)
I always root for the Spungoes.
That really was a terrific book. Anone remotely interested in comics should check it out. ALso, there should be statues and monuments to Jack Kirby all over America,