Getting paid as a comic artist

Almost every comic artist has a story about work that was never paid for. Most of them start the same way: the drawing began before anyone had agreed, in writing, where the money was and when it would move.

How artists get burned

• No deposit, then silence. You deliver pages and the writer stops answering.
• "We'll pay when it sells." Unpaid work dressed up as a partnership, with no terms for when or how much.
• Endless revisions. No limit was agreed, so every round is "just one more."
• Scope creep. A cover, extra pages or a pitch packet that nobody priced.
• Reversed payments. A card or payment-app payment pulled back after delivery.
• Late money. Paid eventually, after weeks of chasing.

How to protect yourself on any project

1. Get the terms in writing before you start: pages, stages, price per milestone, deadlines.
2. Ask where the money is. The safest answer is "already set aside, released when you deliver."
3. Break the work into milestones so you're never more than one stage of work out of pocket.
4. Cap revisions at a number of rounds included in the price.
5. Agree a review deadline. If the client doesn't respond in time, the work counts as accepted.
6. Keep your rights until you're paid, and keep the right to show the work in your portfolio.
7. Know your rate. See comic artist page rates for published ranges.

How getting paid works on renaissBlock

• Before you accept, you see the full terms: every milestone, its price and deadline, and who pays the platform fee, so you know your take-home. You can accept, decline, or send a counter-proposal.
• The money is deposited before you owe any work. When it's your turn, the writer funds your work into a smart contract on the Solana blockchain, not held by renaissBlock or the writer. You confirm the funded terms, and your deadlines start as each milestone goes live.
• When you deliver, the writer has 72 hours to approve or ask for changes. If they don't respond, the milestone pays out to you automatically.
• Two revision rounds are included for your part of a project, shared across all your milestones on it. After that, you're never obliged to keep revising, and delivered work isn't sent back for a refund because the revisions ran out.
• A writer can cancel a milestone within 24 hours of it starting, or before it starts, for a full refund; you owe nothing for it, and you aren't paid for it. After that window, a started milestone can't be cancelled by the writer alone: it ends by mutual agreement, for cause, under the deadline rules, or as the agreement otherwise sets out (§9.2–9.4).
• You keep all rights to your work until each milestone is released, and afterwards you can still show it in your portfolio unless the project's terms say otherwise.
• Payments land in your own wallet as USDC (a digital dollar). You can cash out to a US bank account through Bridge, typically in 1–2 business days; outside the US you keep the USDC and convert it with another service.

renaissBlock charges 3% when a milestone pays out. The writer chooses who covers it: the writer on top of your price, you from your pay, or half each. You see which before you accept.