So I watched part of FROGs response video to the autistic Mark Brooks and two lolcows stream
I'm okay with putting Vikki and Dean as actual alogs.
where Mark seemed to be very upset about Rippas and FROGs financial success.
Well, I'm going to guess the irritation is with how they're making their money, not that they're making money. At least I'd hope.
And I started to wonder. Does making covers pay all that good? Can you really make a good living out of just drawing covers and nothing else?
Yes.
Please enlighten me.
It just seems strange since most quality books contain a lot of really high quality interior pages as well. I am thinking Batman HUSH for example.
Oh no. I mean Hush is probably one of Jim's best works but I can think of lots more in terms of quality and quantity.
Are covers being paid so much more than interior hero-shot pages that you can live comfortably on just doing covers while people doing interiors constantly complain about the compensation?
I mean, first...
There are a number of whales in the comic book original art/speculator market and some will buy every cover/original art no matter what the comic actually sells. Think of it like the 90s when people bought cases of Xmen #1 thinking their kids' college fund was assured... but with rich guys and tax write-offs/money laundering.
Original art is insane, even as a rump market. It's actually more or less the CG model. A cover artist draws one, often times pathetic image, gets a rate, then gets the artwork. So if you flip the art on that; you get paid bank for doing a day or two of work.
Comparatively, actual sequential artists have to draw twenty two pages a month. Sometimes those pages are filled with panels. Alan Moore and his grids. So yes, cover art is the cushy gig, provided you can get cover work on a major character like Batman, Spider-Man et al.
Or is my perception skewed because I only read Batman towards the end of my "being comics book customer" and Batman is just higher quality, and better paid/more costly to produce, than other comics?
I don't understand. You stopped reading comics back in 2004?
At the time, Hush was a major push. Rucka and Ed Brubaker had managed to turn the Bat titles into Vertigo looking books, that unfortunately sold like Vertigo books. At the same time, Jim Lee was ready to get back to work after a brief few years taking a break. Jim Lee had just had his company bought by DC and editors didn't think he could hit a monthly schedule. They paired him on Hush and low and behold that yes, he could.
As for quality art, I could point to Perez on TT or Avengers; Byrne on X-men or Superman. Comic book pay rates are complicated and I can explain both why artists aren't happy with them and why most of them have only themselves to blame. But no, you can have great quality on a monthly comic book and most comics had that quality until the 80s when allot of things happen that caused bad habits to form.