Worker Beliefs
This page outlines the types of worker beliefs presented in the data. This includes an overview of their satisfaction (with their job/life), the types of issues they see as most pertinent for workers, as well the types of attitudes and beliefs they hold around their work and around themselves as creators.
Overall Satisfaction
When asked to think about their life satisfaction (red bars) and satisfaction with their work situation (blue bars), disparate trends emerge. While participants are generally satisfied with their life situation, they are generally dissatisfied with their work situation.
These trends are supported by other findings from the study, which are outlined individually below.
Work Issues
When asked to rank a number of known workplace issues on a scale from 1-10 where the score of "1" meant "most important" and the score of "10" meant "least important", the following trends emerged:
The graphic above identifies pay, opportunities for creative fulfillment, and work-life balance as the top 3 issues (within "1" ranking), and benefits, job security, and workload as similarly salient work issues.
However, when the rankings of each issue was averaged, the mean scores indicate a hierarchy of work problems which participants identify as important (these are highlighted in grey in table A).
Given these two pieces of information, pay tends to be the most salient issue facing workers in the comics industry, with work-life balance, benefits, and opportunities for creative fulfillment as comparable issues.
Relationships were generally among the least prioritized "issue" in comics (be them with publishers, with collaborators, or with consumers). "Other" issues were overall the lowest priority, with these typically remaining unnamed by respondents.
Work/Life Balance
Generally, participants seemed to agree (to varying degrees of strength) with the following statements about work/life balance:
- Work problems keep me awake at night
- It is hard to take time off during work to take care of personal or family matters
- To get ahead, I feel I have to put my work before family
The statement "my work in comics prevents me from spending enough time with family and friends" tended to elicit more mixed agreement; while the majority of participants agreed with this statement, about 1/3 of respondents disagreed with this statement.
On Making Comics
When asked about their beliefs about making comics, participants overwhelmingly seemed to agree with the following statements:
- I think of myself as a craftsperson
- Making comics for a living is my dream job
- I am a comics fan
- I think of myself as an artist
While some participants agreed with the statement "to me, making comics is a job like any other", the majority of responses disagreed with this statement.
Specific Concerns
When asked about other concerns specific to working in comics, participants strongly disagreed with the following statements:
- By and large, comics professionals are compensated fairly for their work
- I have a plan for retirement
Conversely, participants overwhelmingly agreed with the following statements:
- On the whole, I am proud of the work I have done in comics
- I am anxious when I think about my future
- My work in comics is creatively fulfilling
- There will always be talented people to take my place if the quality of my work declines
Other Beliefs
Finally, when provided a list of stereotypical statements about working in comics, participants generally disagreed with the following statements:
- My job is to give the readers what they want
- Working in comics has spoiled my enjoyment as a reader
Conversely, participants overwhelmingly agreed with the following statements:
- I enjoy opportunities to interact with readers
- The opinion of other comics professionals is important to me
- My creative work is better because of interacting with other comics professionals
- The opinion of other comics professionals is important to me
This result corroborates previous findings that respondents did not necessarily see relationships as an issue for those who work in comics; interactions with both pros and readers were rated highly, and the enjoyment of comics does not seem to be negatively impacted by one's status within the industry. Furthermore, many respondents seem to agree that these interactions and relationships make their work better overall.
That being said, participants did not offer a clear consensus on who is best suited to judge the quality of a comic; both "readers" and "other comics pros" received lukewarm results for this particular ranking. Similarly, the belief that readers are "fickle" elicited a strong lukewarm response, with the majority of respondents neither agreeing or disagreeing with the statement.