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Map endpapers for the Green Bone Saga by Fonda Lee The Broken Binding special edition 306mm x 234mm, LB Royal format, 2024

The Green Bone Saga is one of my favourite series of all time, so getting to make the maps, endpaper illustrations, and edges for TBB's edition of the trilogy was a dream come true.

For the maps, I wanted to use paraphernalia as storytelling: conveying a sense of the plot and cultures through items that are significant to characters, such as Anden's training band and the Duchesse car keys, or media that might exist in the world, such as pamphlets, ferry tickets, and news broadcasts.

Art director Petrik Leo and I spent lots of time discussing the little details for each map—what to include, how much to reveal without spoiling the story for new readers—and we'd go to Fonda for feedback on any new inclusions (some of the locations are shifted, compared to the original maps by Tim Paul, and the world map has new places labeled).

Close-ups of some of the paraphernalia details:

The city map of Janloon is printed as a foldout, while the other two are endpaper spreads at the back of the books. You can find plenty of beautiful photos of the books on Instagram; I'm still waiting for my set to arrive, or I'd post pics too! If you aren't a TBB subscriber, the extras will go on general sale some months from now, so keep an eye out for that.

Prints available.

Map endpapers for the Green Bone Saga by Fonda Lee The Broken Binding special edition 306mm x 234mm, LB Royal format, 2024

The Green Bone Saga is one of my favourite series of all time, so getting to make the maps, endpaper illustrations, and edges for TBB's edition of the trilogy was a dream come true.

For the maps, I wanted to use paraphernalia as storytelling: conveying a sense of the plot and cultures through items that are significant to characters, such as Anden's training band and the Duchesse car keys, or media that might exist in the world, such as pamphlets, ferry tickets, and news broadcasts.

Art director Petrik Leo and I spent lots of time discussing the little details for each map—what to include, how much to reveal without spoiling the story for new readers—and we'd go to Fonda for feedback on any new inclusions (some of the locations are shifted, compared to the original maps by Tim Paul, and the world map has new places labeled).

Close-ups of some of the paraphernalia details:

The city map of Janloon is printed as a foldout, while the other two are endpaper spreads at the back of the books. You can find plenty of beautiful photos of the books on Instagram; I'm still waiting for my set to arrive, or I'd post pics too! If you aren't a TBB subscriber, the extras will go on general sale some months from now, so keep an eye out for that.

Prints available.

Map illustration for ‘The Foxglove King’ by Hannah Whitten, Orbit Digital, two-page spread 12 x 9.25" (2022) Described as a lush gothic fantasy, this series called for a map that would reflect the opulence of the world that the protagonist, Lore, finds herself in. I knew right away that I wanted to explore stained glass as a style here—more specifically, taking inspiration from the work that illustrator and stained glass master Harry Clarke was doing in Ireland in the early 1900s. I’ve been obsessed with his work ever since I got to see some pieces in person!

The map is framed by the Bleeding God and the Buried Goddess, the two deities whose story sets up the current stakes in the novel. Imagining that this is an actual stained glass window somewhere in the citadel, I also incorporated various symbols mentioned in the book: the candle, roses, sun and crescent moon, golden and silver threads for spiritum and mortem respectively.

Here’s the sketch I sent in for approval, with annotations explaining the visual choices:

Thanks to AD Lauren Panepinto for the creative freedom and also the help with the typefaces!

The book comes out March 7 in the USA. You'll enjoy it if you're a fan of palace intrigue mixed with dark magic and religious institutions. The regular Orbit hardback has the map in black and white while the special Barnes & Noble edition has it in colour on the endpapers. Prints available in my INPRNT store with white and dark backgrounds!

Hello, long time follower just on other platforms and I love your work. I am currently getting my Masters in Comics and Graphic Novels, and do tell me if this an inappropriate question but how much do you make? Like a month doing comics and art? Also what do you do on a day to day basis? I'm worried about my future after I graduate.

Thank you so much! This is a great question, and I wish more people would be candid about answering it because I'd like creators to demand more money. This will be a very long post! Keep reading if you're interested. MASSIVE info dump below.

I think earnings in comics and books can look wildly different for almost every creator, and it depends on a lot of things. With that in mind, I make a slightly different amount every year. I view my finances mostly through page rates, contracted projects, and passive-ish income. Because I'm terrible at math, I'm just going to tell you how much I make per contracted projects, plus some relevant information in terms of Life Stuff. This will be very long, and I will highlight some important details that people maybe don't like to talk about very much.

Please also bear in mind that I live in Minnesota, away from all my major publishers and editors who are situated on the coasts, so my cost of living is much more manageable.

Background: Building a Foundation (2012-2018)

I graduated from college in 2012 and lived with my parents until 2018. I did not have to pay rent or worry about food, so I got to save up a lot of money to invest in developing as an artist–paying for printing zines, making merch, travel to conventions, table costs, and secure hotel accommodations. This helped enormously, and I would not have been able to spend six years developing my portfolio and connecting with comics peers and professionals without my parents. They were very supportive, even if they had no idea that I was developing professionally as an artist (LOL, they're very proud of me now, but they truly just thought I was being a weird internet gremlin the whole time). They're also not wealthy people by any means. My parents immigrated to the US in their 20s as refugees with absolutely no money and one baby (it me, I am the baby), but they each became pretty successful small-business owners in their own right and were able to help put me through school with minimal debt, even through the financial crisis in the late aughts.

I started making art in 2012-ish as well, but only semi-professionally, and barely on purpose. I was employed full-time in a non-art job between 2013 and 2018 at a local non-profit that specialized in pediatric therapy. I occupied a role as their front office person/corporate assistant. I made about 40k a year at that job, with benefits, and I made a negligible amount of money doing art and making comics. I should also note that throughout this time, I was working 40 hours a week at my day job, commuting between 2-4 hours a day depending on the weather (my commute was an hour for each direction in good weather and up to three hours if it snowed), and then working on comics for 3-4 hours in the evening, every evening. This meant that I would frequently be working anywhere between 65-85 hours a week for five years, and I do not recommend this! I burned out pretty bad! I didn't go to art school or learn about comics, either, so I felt like I had to spend time building my portfolio to make up for lost time. I didn't even know I wanted to make comics until maybe two years after I graduated from undergrad.

I did manage to build a nice portfolio and connect with people who were making the sort of work I liked to make, so the portfolio-building did help. I posted regularly online in different platforms and steadily grew an audience over the years via Tumblr (heyyy!) Instagram (which I personally loathe), Patreon (stressful, but necessary and also getting more comfortable to use!), and Twitter (which I have very mixed feelings about, but I'll miss it if it dies). I did a few short comics with writers whose work I admired. The Fresh Romance Anthology in 2015 was my first major published work, and it was with writer Marguerite Bennett, who remains one of my absolute favorite people. I was so inexperienced at the time, and she would check in with me to make sure I got paid for my work, and then she would follow up with everyone responsible if I was not properly compensated. Not everybody is this on-the-ball about making sure their colleagues are treated well, and she absolutely set the bar for me going forward.

Doing It For Real + Some Numbers (2018-2021)

In 2018, I put together a pitch document for The Magic Fish (if you'd like to see my pitch document, here is a Dropbox link to it! It's just a book report for a book that doesn't exist yet, and I hope you find it helpful if you need it), shopped around for an agent, and found one I'm very happy with (Kate McKean at Morhaim! She's amazing! She runs a newsletter where she gives you the lowdown on how the publishing industry works, so if you're interested in Books, you can check out her writing over at Agents and Books). Then my agent shopped the pitch around to editors and publishers, and Random House Graphic won out. Also, every time she negotiates a contract for me in my home market (the US), she gets 15% cut, which is entirely worth it to me. She does so much. It's incredible.

Random House Graphic's offer wound up being for two books at $45k each, with pretty standard royalty rates, I think around 10% in general, though there are stipulations around royalties that I can't remember off the top of my head (and also bear in mind that you do not earn royalties until your book sales have earned out your advance, and not all published books earn out). To me, this is a lot of money! BUT the graphic novel took two full years to make, so that $45k needed to last me until 2020, which is not livable if you're on you're own. Also, the advance is paid out in chunks at certain milestones of project completion. I'd get a few thousand at a time for the script, another few for the thumbnails, more for the inks, and on and on until the book is done. I would not start to get paid for the second book until I started working on it.

Earlier in 2018, I'd moved in with my partner, so we managed paying the bills and groceries together. Luckily for me, I had also completed a full tarot deck as a separate personal art project to help build my confidence as an illustrator, and my agent sold the tarot deck project (The Star Spinner Tarot) to a different publisher for a $15k advance, so I had some extra wiggle room in 2018. I quit my day job because this was a rare instance in which a book deal provided me with enough money to live on making art, with the caveat that I shared financial responsibilities with my partner. By this time, my Patreon, which I started back in 2015 I think, was also earning anywhere between $800-$1000 a month, which was really great semi-passive income. I'd post process shots and WIPs a couple times a week, and that really helped from month to month.

In 2020, The Magic Fish was published and got a lot of really lovely press. It debuted on the Indie Best-Seller list, and it got pretty popular in schools and libraries. Suddenly, my responsibilities expanded to also being a public speaker (side note: if you make a book about topics of some academic interest, make a generic powerpoint presentation about it now! I'm so serious!). I stopped tabling at conventions (the pandemic), but I would also be paid for speaking gigs in between. I'm not an enormously in-demand public speaker, so I usually asked for an honorarium of about $500 from schools and institutions for online appearances, though I'm about to ask for a lot more because it's cutting into a lot of the time I need to make comics and hit my deadlines. As people are more comfortable meeting in person, I usually ask for a speaking fee of at least $1500, and it must be after they've already taken care of my travel and accommodations. I'm not very well versed in the standards for speaking fees for debut authors, so this might not be standard! It's just my best estimation of the value of my time and effort for that instance.

Speaking of comics and deadlines, I sometimes take on smaller projects for DC (you might have seen these) and Marvel (shhh it's not been announced yet), and the page rates for those, as they've paid me, are usually as follows: $90 per page for writing ($45 for plotting and $45 for scripting), $160 for pencils per page, and $90 for inking per page. I've never colored or lettered, so I don't know those rates. I do regularly talk to other writers and artists, and the rates for writers are all over the place and seem to depend on whether you've signed an exclusive contract with either of those companies. I don't know what a contracted penciller or inker is paid by them, or if that's even a thing that happens? I also sometimes do comics cover work, and I usually charge between $1200 and $1500. I tend to charge a bit more for covers these days because I personally don't like doing covers all that much.

Starting to Reap the Benefits Maybe? (2021-2022)

In 2021, I started getting royalty checks for both Star Spinner Tarot and The Magic Fish. These payments will vary wildly, and I think they will naturally peter off as time goes on, and I'll need to make more books and projects. In both cases, I was surprised. I think at one point a random check hit my bank account for like $20k and I nearly fainted, but some of the other royalty checks will be much more modest. This process of getting paid is also immensely eased by having a good agent! I cannot stress this enough!

Then both the Star Spinner Tarot and The Magic Fish got foreign language licenses, and those come with small advances of their own, each between $2k and $3k, from what I can recall, with varying royalty rates depending on the publisher who acquired those rights. Those royalty rates are, in my limited experience, more modest than my American publisher's, come to around 7% or 8%. The Star Spinner Tarot got an official French edition, and The Magic Fish has been licensed for publication in Italian, French, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese, and Spanish so far.

Since 2021, I've also signed on to draw two more graphic novels for other people, and my agent is able to demand higher advances for me, even when I'm only doing the drawing part.

My Day-to-Day

I think that's about as comprehensive as I can be about numbers. On a daily basis, my schedule depends on whether I'm writing or drawing. Graphic novels are long projects. I'll be writing for months at a time and then drawing for even more months or even years after. I spend a lot of time answering emails for speaking requests, and my agent will sometimes pass along emails about legitimate project requests (another advantage of having an agent is I don't have to sift through scam emails or shady collaborators). I spend way more time answering emails and trying to iron out my calendar than I'd like.

I'm currently working on my second graphic novel for Random House Graphic, and I'm extremely excited about it.

Another thing I've learned is that I like to bounce between projects, but they have to be between a paid project and a personal project. If I'm juggling paid projects, I get overwhelmed and stressed. If I can work on a paid project and then also make personal art, I can feel some relief and maintain a positive relationship with my work. If you can ever get to a point where you can manage to do this, I highly recommend it. I never want to hate making comics, and this balance of personal-to-paid projects helps me keep loving the work.

Closing Thoughts

My only hesitation in talking candidly about all this is that I'm not sure my professional trajectory is applicable for most people. I think I've had a uniquely positive experience once I got off the ground, and I know most people's journeys are very much not this smooth. In a lot of ways, I got very lucky. And along the way I had help, especially before I got my foot firmly in the door. I don't think I make stratospherically high amounts of money, but I know this is still an atypically stable amount for a lot of artists and authors. And even so, I anticipate that some years will be better or worse than others.

Obviously, I couldn’t cover absolutely everything, but my hope is that this will be a good starting point for you to figure out what you need to plan for the future. Best of luck! Thank you for your question! I’m sorry it’s so long.

Back to Tumblr after years away (hi folks!), so I guess I’ll share the cover art I painted for THE JADE SETTER OF JANLOON by Fonda Lee!

This is a wraparound cover for Subterranean Press’ limited edition of the novella; I got to do the title lettering too:

When coming up with ideas, I wrote a mini brief for myself: balance, power, mystery, family ties. The jade setters' neutrality is central to the story and a counterpoint to the clans’ power. (Alternative brief: make it jade as fuck.)

Figuring out the composition was tricky—the piece's rhythm has to work not just when viewed as a whole, but also in smaller sections like the back and front flaps. And while the novella introduces new characters, the Pillars and Horns still loom large as symbols over Janloon...a nod to both their power in the city as well as how readers would be coming off JADE CITY or JADE WAR  familiar with the Kaul family or Mada and Gont Asch.

While reading the manuscript I jot down ideas as they flash by. The seed for this cover can be seen in the top left of this sketchbook page:

I then develop each thumbnail into a very rough colour sketch and put them together with reference images to send to Fonda and Bill Schafer at Sub Press. Sort of a combination of moodboard and thumbnails:

Got the go-ahead to develop thumbnail D, so I make a more detailed sketch of the full composition, with two options for characters’ gestures on the front cover:

And then it’s off to paint! I sneak in little references to the story where I can. The mansion is based on the Straits Eclectic architectural style of shophouses in Penang, where I live, while some of the buildings in the city are based on Hong Kong. Many hours of painting and finagling later, it’s finished, gets sent to the publisher, then the printers, then to Green Bone fans everywhere.

I recently turned in the cover for JADE SHARDS, a short story anthology that’s my favourite Green Bone Saga title so far, and I can’t wait for everyone to see it when pre-orders open next year! Don’t take my word for it: https://twitter.com/FondaJLee/status/1574248123463266304

Fonda’s also posted a peek at the signature page over on her Instagram, showing a crop of Shae and cormorants from the cover art. It’s been a real honour and pleasure getting to draw for a world I’m a fan of :)

BULAN by Charis Loke 5.5 x 9.5” Ink and pastel on Fabriano Rosaspina paper, digital charisloke.com

“Seven moons once lit the lands, so wondrous they woke earth-shaker in the deep; six moons our people sought in vain to keep. But my moon is not that which hangs in the sky, last of its kind, gleaming alone; my moon is radiant: wielding her sword, she is why we slay the bakunawa, my moon and I.”

For Month of Fear, I’m making paintings for my personal project Kejora, which is illustrated microfiction rooted in Southeast Asian cultures and realities. This piece is inspired by the incredible short story ‘How to Swallow the Moon’ by Isabel Yap, which references the moon-eating bakunawa from Filipino mythology as well as the binukot (kept maiden) practice.

‘Truth and Tears’ by Charis Loke

For all the grand gestures and daring deeds of men, the truth has always been quite simple, the woman thinks. 

Behind her, the warrior declares: “You asked and we built. Bridges of gold and silver, rising above the jungles from the mountain to the sea. Up these slopes we carried seven jars of virgin tears; seven barrels of betel nut juice; seven trays of mosquito hearts–”

Long they laboured, all those suffering souls, for a man too blind to see: not all are bound to love him. 

“Come with me, o princess, and we may have a life together! Let us leave–”

Two men, she corrects herself. The truth has always been clear and bright as the tip of a keris above cold waters. I want for no one, and that is the truth none can perceive. 

5.5 x 9″, Chinese calligraphy ink on printmaking paper.

Done for the 2019 Month of Love challenges, “Tears” and “Truth”. Part of Kejora, sketches and stories inspired by Southeast Asian cultures and realities.

In the legend of Puteri Gunung Ledang (the Fairy Princess of Mount Ophir), she presents seven impossible demands to the Sultan of Melaka, who has asked for her hand in marriage despite already being married to more than one wife.

In some versions of the story, he is about to fulfill the final condition - a bowl of blood from his only son - when the princess appears to chastise him for his greed and entitlement. In other versions, his own warrior falls in love with the princess and is never seen again in the kingdom.

The truth has always been quite simple.

See sketches and process on Patreon; follow for more art on Instagram and Twitter. Portfolio at http://charisloke.com.

‘Beauty’ by Charis Loke

Not a monster.

Not a monster not a monster not a monster, he breathed to himself, swaying past the garland makers where the scent of jasmine filled the air. Lost my home, lost my friends, but not a monster. Lost my job, lost my name, but not a monster. All I am is beauty. Beaten bloody, I am nothing but beauty.

The chrysanthemums blazed in the evening sun.

5.5 x 9″, Chinese calligraphy ink on printmaking paper.

Done for the 2019 Month of Love challenge, “Beauty”. Part of Kejora, sketches and stories inspired by Southeast Asian cultures and realities.

This particular piece is based on an incident where a local teen was bullied and killed for being too feminine. What is considered ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ beauty by different parts of society? Who gets to determine what beauty is acceptable?

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