Career Blog Post: Comic Illustrators

Comic Artists/Mangaka, and more specifically Comic/Manga Illustrators work is to illustrate comics. However this in itself incorporates many other unique elements due to the nature of the job. Primarily, a crucial aspect of being a Comic Illustrator is also knowing how to letter and knowing how to incorporate text effectively so that it works well with and matches the panel and overall tone of the comic. Additionally, deadlines are usually much tighter with Comic Artists as most series are released on a weekly or monthly basis, so time management is another important skill to have. However, to alleviate this a lot of the most popular comics have a separate writing and artistic role, however it is more common to have the main artist also be the writer, and have editors to help meet deadlines.

There are no required careers necessary to become a comic artist, however getting a job as one or getting published takes a lot of skill and effort, so at least some formal training is often times better than anything. Degrees in Art such as Illustration or Design are beneficial, but often times these are just stepping stones due to how much emphasis is placed on Self Study in the world of Comics.

Here are some Manga Panels that I really like personally(top 2 are from Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and bottom two are from Berserk).