Mike Dawson
patreon
Happy Holidays! + Thoughts on being a late-mid-career cartoonist
🕑 Added 2025-12-20 18:01:00 +0000 UTCHere's a little Holiday Card, which amuses me. I personally hate the winter, I could very much do without the short days and cold weather, but I do kind of like the End of Year look-backs that we all engage in around this time of year. It's nice to take stock of where things are, and where you hope things will go. I "quipped" a little review of my 2025 creative output here, which I'll republish again at the bottom of this post in case you missed it, but I thought it might be interesting to put up something more having to do with the financials of this career. I've found people can often find that sort of thing helpful.
About eleven years ago, when Tumblr was my blog-of-choice, I published an essay detailing my ongoing struggles to find an audience for my work. I referred to myself as a "mid-career" cartoonist then. This essay caused a little bit of a stir in the very small world of very small press comics, mostly people appreciated it, but not all. I think this kind of honest accounting of the ugly realities of pursuing this work has become more commonplace now, but used to be more rare.
In 2014 I had been very active in what I think of as the North American Alternative Comics scene. When I think back on what this world was like, I would say it was massively creatively and socially satisfying to be a part of, but in terms of an occupation, was kinda more like having a glorified hobby. Hobbyists making comics, hobbyists publishing them, hobbyists reviewing them, and hobbyists putting on conventions and festivals to celebrate them. We used to joke that there was only one $5 bill at SPX, and everybody was just passing it around the room. Maybe that's still true today, though sadly the $5 probably gets you much less.
In 2025 I'm much, much more detached from this scene. Maybe the scene as I recall it doesn't even exist anymore, for better and for worse. In general, I think cartoonists understand at an earlier age, to take themselves and their work more seriously. I am sure there still remains a "let's put on a show!" kind of vibe in this world, but my sense from the outside is that younger artists are much more resistant to being exploited. Good for them.
Historically festivals were never a great way for me to make money. They were excellent for networking and finding inspiration (I don't think I ever went to one where I didn't spend the ride home thinking about how I was going to "do things differently" in the future), but sales rarely exceeded the cost of getting a table and travel.
In 2025 this is where I am at:
First and foremost, it cannot be overstated: the reason that I am able to work full-time making comics, and still raise two kids and live in an expensive state, is because I am married and in my marriage we are a two-income household, and out of those two incomes, mine is the smaller one. My wife's work provides more financial security as well as healthcare benefits. Without either of these my work simply would not be possible.
But, I do earn money from cartooning, enough to justify continuing to do this. I don't know what stage I am in it now, I used the term "mid-career" in my Tumblr essay, perhaps now I am "late-mid-career". I hope I'm not yet at plain "late-career"! I still have a lot of hope that one day it becomes more sustainable than this!
My cartooning income currently comes from 1) occasionally receiving book advances, 2) occasionally selling freelance work 3) occasionally visiting schools, teaching, and other public speaking, and then 4) through crowdfunding platforms like this.
What I have discovered, from doing this, is that (without yet having managed to write a book that, y'know... sells a lot of copies) a writing career like mine mostly consists of an ever widening pool of opportunities presenting themselves (while others disappear... that's it's own separate issue), and my success depends on me being able to take advantage of those when I can.
Sometimes (usually at night when I'm letting myself think about the looming college tuition costs coming our way in 2026) I think I should try to find a regular job again. That's challenging however. There was a point in my 20's and 30's, at which I might have had a good solid "proper" non-comics career path ahead of me, but I've been out of it so long, starting over feels impossible. I'm 50 now, and I feel kind of stuck making comics. The sticker that I sent to all Minicomic Club members in November makes light of this (though unfortunately in somewhat smaller illegible text than I had intended - apologies to everyone like me who has 50-year-old eyes!).
Luckily for me, I enjoy making comics as much as I ever did (possibly more).
I don't know what 2026 will bring. I'll still be making Monthly Minicomics for sure. This Patreon, modest as it is, is the only "reliable" bit of income I have!
I'll have a brand-new graphic novel for middle-grade readers published in May. Maybe this will be the one that sells! (I think that would be the main thing that changes this career from one that I can "make work" to one where I possibly border on "thriving".)
I'll continue selling what comics I can to what outlets continue to exist, and I will continue trying to grow and expand my school assembly and cartooning workshop business.
And I will probably launch a new Kickstarter, most likely to fund an expanded reprint of my first graphic novel, Freddie & Me. I did successfully run a crowdfunder this past year, but (largely due my own mistakes and inexperience) it ended up being one of those situations where almost all the money I made ended up going right back into fulfillment. I think I did come out a tiny bit ahead however, and it's always a good to learn from mistakes. Sorry to all my readers from Australia, I am not sure I can afford to continue sending packages down your way...
My hope for myself in 2026 is that new opportunities continue to make themselves present, and that bit by bit, I continue to build this career up. Perhaps by the time I'm 60 it'll be something I can point to and say, hey look, this is legit!
Comments
Mike Dawson
$550??? That's crazy. I am hoping to dip my toe back into regular comics conventions this year, but I would have trouble trying to justify spending that much. The one show I am most interested in trying is Artists Alley New York Comicon, which I haven't looked into the prices for totally, just yet, but I do think could be the kind of show that may be worthwhile to me. Since most of my books are aimed at younger readers now, I think I'd do better at a convention that attracts more of a general audience rather than an arts-comics crowd. And NYCC always looks packed. Hopefully TCAF and SPX will be on my agenda this year as well. Thanks for the offer to help me with a riso book, I may very well be interested in taking you up on it in the coming months!
J.T. Yost
Guess how much a table at MoCCA costs these days... ... $550!!!! The only way I can make a profit is by sharing the table with friends and selling $30 t-shirts. MariNaomi is now a comics editor at The Rumpus, so you might submit some of your non-fiction work to them (but it has to be unpublished). It only pays $100, but I suppose you could run it there and then self-publish it for Patreon? I haven't read it yet, but based on the companion zine, I think your new book is gonna get a lot of attention. I hope it does well so that you're able to keep making comics. Btw, if you ever want me to print any of these monthly comics as riso comics, hit me up. I'm usually cheaper than your local printer and definitely cheaper than your local riso printer!
Mike Dawson
Hi Brian! No worries at all, it is fantastic to know that it was Rule for Dating My Daughter that got me on your radar. In terms of longer pieces, my hope is that you will be pleasantly surprised by the new issue of FUN TIME that's due back to me from the printer any day now. It's essentially an all-new long-form essay, somewhere in the ballpark of 14-15 pages, depending on whether you count the endpapers and covers and whatnot. It's possible that finishing my new book did open up a little mental space for a longer cartoon essay (not to mention, just having literal hours available in the day to work on it). In regards to Rules... in general, that's a good example of how opportunities change, and how a shifting landscape impacts an artist's creative endeavors. For the most part, a lot of the work collected in that book was originally published at The Nib. The Nib, especially in it's heyday, was a great outlet for longer-form cartoon essays. As things online evolved, the work that was published there became more rigidly formatted for reading on the screen, particularly smartphones, which had an impact on the amount of room available to work with. I moved from the types of essays I collected in Rules... (which included pretty dense pieces like Longstreet Farm) to some cartoons that were still pretty meaty (Life During Interesting Times, The Good War on Terror) which were consciously designed to be best read on a phone. I've collected both of those as minicomics, but haven't made a decision about whether to attempt a new Rules-type collection. It's definitely something I think about frequently.
Brian Harvey
Hey, Mike. Happy holidays! I am deeply grateful for whatever you write and send us. But I'm gonna be a troublemaker and ask for more. It was "Rules for Dating My Daughter" that made me a fan. I read it on The Nib. And I really miss the longer, deeper graphic essays you did back then! I guess maybe this year all your long-form energy went into the book, and that'd be fair. And I don't mean to suggest that your work this year has been shallow! I still learn from you. Just that the older ones were, to me anyway, deepER. Maybe there's some economic reason why medium-length (not mini, not whole book) comics don't make sense for you. But, for what it's worth, here's my 2 cents.
