While the comics sector is booming—the report cites NielsenIQ BookScan figures showing that the U.K. comics market reached its highest-ever total sales in 2025—creators say the professional landscape has become ‘increasingly precarious.’

By Andrew Richard Albanese, Editor-in-Chief

By all accounts, the marketplace for comics is booming.  But a sobering survey report released this week finds that comics creators in the U.K. are struggling to survive.

The U.K. Comics Creators Research Report presents findings from a fall 2025 survey of 689 U.K. comic creators run by the Comics Cultural Impact Collective, the Association of Illustrators, and the Society of Authors, presenting an eye-opening portrait of the pressures facing comics creators today.

“In the U.K., the circumstantial pressures on comic creators are immense: the cost-of-living crisis is raising survival costs, post-Brexit customs charges have made international shipping labour-intensive and costly, U.S tariffs have rendered state-side shipping uneconomical, and audiences having less money means fewer sales,” the report states. “Additionally, exploitative platforms like Webtoon which demand shockingly short turnover times from their artists are changing the pace of digital comic consumption. The cost is carried by creators: burnouts and overwork-related health issues are common, with next to no institutional structures to support recovery.”

Booms and Busts

While the comics sector is growing—the report cites NielsenIQ BookScan figures showing that the U.K. comics market reached its highest-ever total sales in 2025—the landscape for creators, the report found, has become “increasingly precarious.”

Among the survey’s findings, creators who publish through “traditional publishers and webcomic platforms as authors, co-creators or in a work-for-hire capacity” are “feeling the squeeze of tightening submission deadlines and reduced remuneration in the face of increased competition.”

And while technology and self-publishing has made it possible for many creators to create works for their own audiences, “the do-it-yourself ethos of digital comic markets has also placed a significantly larger workload on comic creators, who often have to be a social media manager, brand strategist, publisher, and postal service employee on top of their already heavy workload.”

For most creators, their comics work comes in addition to a “day job” needed to make ends meet, the survey found. The report finds that, of the 76.8% of respondents “who want comic creation to be their primary career,” fewer than one in three are currently able to achieve this.

“Even traditional publishing, which provides income for 39% of respondents, rarely affords a living wage: 89% of those earning from traditional publishing make less than the 2024 U.K. National Living Wage of £22,308 per year.” The survey found, leaving creators to rely on “a patchwork” of income sources: “57% earn income from self-published print (up from 50% in 2020); 30% from private commissions; 25% from merchandise; 72% from employment outside of comics (freelance, temporary, fixed-term, or permanent).”

Indeed, the report found that a 63% of respondents cited “lack of financial income” as a key challenge to their career. “With material costs, printing, and postage all rising exponentially, and with no equivalent increase in rates paid by publishers or commissioners, creators are earning less for more work,” the survey revealed. Furthermore, some 13% of respondents said that are relying on state benefits to make ends meet, up from 9% in 2020.

Meanwhile, the emergence of AI is putting further pressure on creators. “96% of respondents do not use Generative AI in their workflows, yet 36% report having lost work or income because of AI,” the survey found. “Smaller commissions (portraits, covers, logos, event art) have largely dried up as clients turn to AI-generated alternatives. Many creators report their work being used without consent to train the very models now replacing them.”

“Comics creators aren’t spared by the AI threat, and this report is another reminder that urgent action is needed from Government to protect our world-leading creative industries,” said Anna Ganley, SoA CEO said, in a statement.

Urgent Attention Is Needed

The report puts forth seven recommendations to help creators:

1. Develop comics-specific vocational training and apprenticeships.
2. Create practical guidance resources covering financial management, taxation, IP rights, and freelance business skills.
3. Introduce short-term financial safety nets like gap-funding bursaries and emergency grants to prevent creators from being forced out of the industry during income gaps.
4. Invest in a U.K.-specific creator-to-audience platform which enables regional community patronage, integrates with local cultural infrastructure, and prioritises accessibility and human-generated works.
5. Fund subsidized table fees and travel bursaries for conventions, and support smaller regional festivals through partnerships with local councils, libraries, cultural venues and funders, prioritise accessibility, offer training and resources to encourage grassroots events.
6. Introduce sector-specific wellbeing initiatives for freelancers, including peer networks, mentoring schemes, best-practice guidance on fair pay and working conditions, subsidised mental health support, and community studio spaces.
7. Recognise comics as a cultural art form in UK policy and increase Arts Council funding proportionally, based on the French model as an aspirational framework.

While its findings are alarming, the report’s release is also stoking hopes that the plight of comics creators might finally lead to support.

“Comics are a rapidly growing part of our creative industry, yet this report clearly demonstrates that many creators are not sharing in the success of this growth,”said  Josie Dobrin, Chair of the Association of Illustrators said, in a statement. “By bringing these experiences together, the report strengthens the case for meaningful action, from fairer funding and recognition, to targeted support to make comic creation a sustainable career.”

“This is an industry that needs urgent attention,” added former U.K. Comics Laureate Hannah Berry, the who led the project, “and finally—amid an exciting artistic gold rush, glittering with potential for shiny new works to reach delighted new audiences—it might just receive it.”

The full report is available here.