How To Make Comic Book Writing Your Full-Time Job!
Is it possible to make a living in comic books? Especially as a comic writer?
Hello Lifeline Comics Readers!
Both Kat & Phil are full-time on comics — but maybe not for as long as you might think! This week, we’re going to talk about how comic writing became our full-time jobs, sharing our personal experience and our advice on the subject!
We’ll also share our Emerald City Comic Con 2026 plans (including a Panel with Webtoon), talk about our recent signing at East Side Mags, and share our reviews of The Traitors Season Four, Goat, Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, and more!
Let’s dive in!
How We Made COMICS Our Full-Time Job!
Phil: You may already know that both Kat and I write comics as our full-time jobs. What you might not know is how we got to that point — and that both of us weren’t on Lifeline Comics full-time until pretty recently!
What did it take to turn our passion/hustle into our 9-to-5 (and so many more hours on top of that)? Read on to find out!
Kat’s Gradual Transition into Comic Book Writing
Kat: I went into full time comic book writing about 2 years ago. After the boom of The Beast & Snow, there was a likelihood that Lifeline Comics could become a full time gig, but it wasn’t until Nightmare in Wonderland that we saw enough revenue come in for me to take that leap.
Before comic book writing became a reality, I was a comic book/entertainment journalist working for the likes of Newsarama, Popverse, DC Comics, IGN, and even TV Guide. I had pretty steady work at Newsarama, Popverse, and DC Comics especially, which helped bring in consistent money. But it was A LOT of writing and articles to meet that quota, and not all are going to be your fan favorite topics or even make it to the website.
In the background, I had been writing comics since college with my first published work being my superhero title, Like Father, Like Daughter. I made a few thousand here and there with the title (especially because the budget for that book isn’t that large), but not enough for that to be a consistent paycheck.
I had always had a passion for comic book writing, but for the longest time I thought my path would lead me to television. So I got my Masters in TV writing and producing. The year after I graduated, I created a portfolio of a few spec scripts, and almost EVERY TV writer I talked to gave me the same advice: you write comics? That’s a built in IP - that’s a path to get into a writer’s room.
So that made me focus a lot more on comic writing, and along the way made me realize my true passion was in creating comics. TV and film are still on the bucket list, but aren’t the “final destination” like I thought.
When Phil Left His “Day Job”
Phil: Here’s something you might not know: I’ve only been “officially” full-time on Lifeline comics for four months.
Well, maybe that’s not the right phrasing. More accurately: I’ve been full-time on only Lifeline Comics for the last four months. Prior to that, I was definitely putting in full-time hours of work at Lifeline — just on top of another 45+ hours per week spent on my day job.
Truth be told, I would have probably left my day job a year-or-so sooner if I hadn’t been locked into it. My day job was in an unrelated field (in the data space, which actually has come in handy as part of our comic business as well). But there were contract factors that made it difficult to leave, even when Lifeline grew to the point that I could survive on just our comic work alone.
All this to say: I’m intimately familiar with the struggles of balancing two highly-demanding full-time jobs. It’s incredibly draining, especially during the “early years” when you’re still finding your audience, building your name, and perhaps not seeing the return you’d like to on every comic project. But Kat and I are both evidence that it is possible to make it to the other side. It was hard. There was more-than-one breakdown on each of our parts. But the unfortunate reality for us (and most creators) is that comics won’t pay the bills right away. Most will need to manage at least two jobs to survive until they’re able to build enough of a profile in comics to pull in a living wage.
Having a writing/business partner in Kat was a HUGE part of what made it possible. Kat and I are very good at fairly dividing responsibilities. And we made every effort to make sure that she wasn’t fielding all of the comic work on my behalf — even if it meant for some late nights, early mornings, and a lot of weekends putting in Lifeline hours on top of normal day job hours.
How have things changed since I left my day job and gone all-in on Lifeline? Well, we’re still super busy all the time. But now we’re able to really focus more on growth and innovation — including fitting in more comic releases and new series. And we’re a lot more on top of the day-to-day tasks that are on our plate. Work/life balance is always a struggle when you’re a self-employed creative, but we do our best to stay sane. And when you’re doing what you love every day, some stress and late nights are definitely worth it!
How Kickstarter Changed Our Lives
Kat: I’ll say this at the top. I do have a bias for Kickstarter. I’ve had the pleasure to work with the wonderful people who make the site run as one of the members of the first Kickstarter Advisory Council, and have been invited back for a second year, and currently on the council again.
And I’ve only been able to have this opportunity because of what Kickstarter has been able to provide in the first place, and the open environment that the company allows for their employees, creators, and backers.
Without Kickstarter there wouldn’t be a Lifeline Comics as you know it. Through projects like Bi Visibility and Slice of Life we were able to find an audience because of the backers who already lived on the platform. With those projects, we were then able to build a brand and find a loyal audience for our comics that we continue to build.
The EverAfterVerse/Finding a Niche
Phil: For the unfamiliar, the EverAfterVerse is our Mature Shared Universe of dark fairytale comics. This line represents our highest-revenue generating comics and some of our most frequent releases.
Would we be able to go “full-time” without the EverAfterVerse? The honest answer…is “mostly”.
Without the EverAfterVerse, we’d probably have more side-hustles in the industry (consulting, work-for-hire, comic journalism) like we did earlier in our careers. And we would probably lean more heavily on Conventions. But our non-EAV properties have seen enough growth and profit that we think we’d still be able to manage to survive with some supplemental side hustles.
Don’t get us wrong: the EAV was definitely the thing that made us say: “Holy shit, we can really go all-in on (Lifeline) Comics”. And we are so, so, so thankful for and proud of the EAV — both creatively and from a business perspective. The EAV deserves all its flowers. But we also don’t want to diminish the importance of a diversified offering of comics work.
The key to getting into the position where one can work in comics full-time is finding your brand. Your niche.
For us, it is most often authentic queer storytelling. These are the stories we love to read, the stories we love to tell, and the stories that the market is hungry for. And we tell all different kinds of queer stories (wholesome, NSFW, fantasy, grounded). And doing so has given us access to so many different kinds of readers with different interests, who often will be willing to check out more of our work down the line.
Having a niche doesn’t mean you’re “pigeon-holed”. Queer storytelling (though our passion) is not the only writing we do. We tell plenty of stories that are not queer (or that are, at least, less queer). But having a niche that we’re passionate about and known for has helped us tremendously to find like-minded readers and to build a dedicated audience to support our work.
It’s Not All Writing. You’re Running a Business
Kat: We’re full-time writers. That must mean you write…full-time, right? Well, no. The hard pill you’ll have to swallow if you want to make comics your career is that writing is only part of the equation.
If you want people to read your books, you’re going to have to learn how to market your books. Figuring out and maintaining innovative ways for people to engage is a huge part of our day-to-day. I mean, even this very newsletter. It helps us connect with our fans and allows other creators to get a peek behind the curtain, but it takes HOURS to craft as we do two big posts a month.
Then there is, of course, the production side of it all. There are countless emails with new art, lettering passes, anthologies being coordinating, logistics from the printer, and the junk mail you forgot to unsubscribe to 5 months ago.
In the same breath: we usually have 2-3 projects launching on a monthly basis, which we are concurrently preparing. Those are 2-3 projects that we have to: build the pages for, maintain communication with our backers, create a BackerKit for post-campaign engagement, craft a social media schedule, etc.
At the end of the workday, we usually take 2-3 hours to focus on fulfillment. Luckily, we do have a team that helps us with packing because we usually have about 1-2K of Kickstarter packages going out at any given time.
As for writing, since Phil has left his job, we’ve been able to have more writing meetings during the day. This has been the MOST helpful aspect of doing this full-time. We have been able to really hone in on the larger projects we have cooking up, while keeping a consistent writing schedule for our long form comics like Slice of Life or Love at Second Bite.
This schedule ebbs and flows with our convention appearances, but Phil and I are very organized to keep the ship moving with changes in our personal and professional calendar.
Multiple Revenue Streams - Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basket
Phil: We’ve already talked about how Kickstarter changed the game for us and how it is our biggest revenue-generator. But a strong business can rarely rely on just one revenue source to survive and allow for full-time work — especially if you’re also paying a team of employees. Thus, it is essential to build multiple streams of revenue for your comic business.
Conventions are something that most comic creators are very familiar. Profiting at Cons is a bit more of a gamble with ever-rising costs. But building a list of “the right conventions for you” can be a significant boost in your monthly revenue/profits. Kat and I have a shortlist of shows that we do every year that we know always turn a profit for us. And we try to experiment every year with “new” shows in an effort to find even more profit-generating shows. See our last newsletter for a deep-dive into profitability at cons.
Even more reliable than conventions has been our Etsy store. Funnily enough, we actually “stumbled into” Etsy, not really planning for it to be a major part of our business. Kat and I frequently buy unique craft items and enamel pins on Etsy as gifts. So we sort of absentmindedly decided to throw our own Enamel Pins up on the platform. We didn’t expect that Etsy (or Enamel Pins themselves) would become a sizable part of our business. But Etsy sales are one of our most reliable (and passive) revenue-generators each month. And they’re super easy to fulfill!
On top of Etsy and Kickstarter, the Lifeline Comics Website have been thriving since we created it just over a year ago. It took a little time to get consistent traffic to our personal site. But advertising the website directly in the back of our comics means that any sale we make on Kickstarter, BackerKit, in-person, or on our website can lead to another sale down the road when buyers read the book and see the advertisement at the back. The longer the website has been active and the more books we publish advertising the site at the back, the more successful we’ve seen the website store become — and that’s with zero paid online advertising, so far!
We have other variable revenue streams (work-for-hire, BackerKit, Patreon, Webtoon/Tapas) that each contribute a slice to our monthly “bottom line”. And we’re always working on new ways to diversify our monthly intake. When you’re full-time working for yourself, you can’t rely on consistency every month. Some months will have a strong Kickstarter to bolster your income. Some months will be more tepid. But having a handful of different revenue streams can ensure that you’ll be able to survive the “tame” months in wait of your biggest successes. It’s an integral part of making the jump to full-time as a creative!
INNOVATION!
Kat: And that’s a perfect segue into the true secret to what has allowed us to go full time: innovation. Phil and I are never satisfied with doing the same thing we did last year. We are consistently finding new ways to promote our products and doing the research to understand those avenues, which is how we fell into things like WEBTOON, Etsy, hell even - Kickstarter. (Crowdfunding isn’t how creators traditionally break into comics.)
Phil and I spend a lot of time thinking about how a title can connect to one another, and how we can bring audiences together. Can we give a free Love at Second Bite preview to Slice of Life fans for a chance to showcase a new queer story to fans that love LGBTQ storytelling? …Maybe a little mini-crossover in an anthology that’s set to bring new eyes to both franchises (Hint, hint, wink, wink)
What’s popular in the Kickstarter market? How do we make that our own? What’s going to be the next big thing? How do we get people not on Kickstarter onto the platform? Every small decision you make can end up being a big move down the line.
It’s all about asking questions and understanding what makes your brand unique to deliver.
Conclusion
Phil: There you have it, our journey to becoming full-time comic writers! Every creative’s journey is different, but we hope you’ve enjoyed hearing about ours and that you maybe even picked up a trick or two.
Working in comics full-time is not easy. It requires a lot of hours, a lot of creativity, and a lot of flexibility. We don’t know a single comic creator who doesn’t hustle constantly to ensure their continued success. It’s hard work. But it’s also the most rewarding job on the planet! We truly wouldn’t trade it for anything!
Catch us at Emerald City Comic Con next week!
Phil: If you’re attending ECCC 2026 next week, be sure to stop by Booth O-01 to see Lifeline Comics and say hello! The show runs from Thursday, March 5th to Sunday, March 8th.
We’ll be selling our ECCC 2026 Exclusive LENTICULAR COVER at the show, as well as the majority of series in our library!
You can also catch us at the Webtoon Canvas-hosted Panel: Make Your Mark: Telling Your Story With WEBTOON CANVAS on Friday at 2:45pm!
Follow those Pre-Launch Pages!
For the first time since last September, Lifeline does not have a Kickstarter live right now! 😱
That changes next week (and again the following week) with some new launches! Be sure to follow the Pre-Launch Pages to be notified when we go live!
Nightmare in Wonderland #1-4: Sapphic 18+ Reality TV Finale!
“Ex-Lovers Assassin Alice & Sleeping Beauty are transported to your favorite REALITY TV SHOWS as they try to escape the Queen of Hearts!”
Launching: Next Monday, March 2nd!
The Little Mermaid #1 - C2E2 2026 Lenticular Cover
“The Little Mermaid & The Pirate Queen takes on CHICAGO in our C2E2-Exclusive Lenticular Cover! Featuring cover art by Madamka”
Launching: Tuesday, March 10th!
What Have We Been Up To?
Let’s talk about some of the things we’ve done to keep busy these last couple of weeks!
East Side Mags Signing
Phil: We had the pleasure of doing a signing at East Side Mags in Montclair, New Jersey this last weekend. It’s our second signing at the store (and our first time signing there without a torrential rainstorm going on outside).
We absolutely love Jeff and the entire staff at ESM. Comic Shop owners and staff are usually good people, but the crew at ESM is just next-level amazing. The entire store has such a positive, welcoming atmosphere with a TON of diversity and variety in their offerings. And there’s a huge amount of respect for all types of comics at ESM — especially indie comics!
Hopefully, we’ll be making our way back to East Side Mags this June as part of our Pride Month festivities! We always have a blast in Montclair and can’t wait to find ourselves there again soon!
Media
Let’s discuss some non-comics media!
Traitors (Season 4)
Kat: I love reality TV competition shows. Specifically, cooking related competitions. So, when I heard Kristen Kish from Top Chef was going to be on this season of Traitors, I knew it was perfect timing to jump onto the show that had so much buzz surrounding it. Traitors is ADDICTING! As gamers, Housewives, and chefs talk game and fumble through mission finish lines.
And this season in particular was truly special. It’s rare to watch any show and know that you’re watching the golden years as it’s happening. But witnessing Love Island Rob’s gameplay, you just know that this is going to be one of the best seasons of the show - maybe ever.
There’s drama and so many conflicting players that may upset some more traditional gamer viewers, but I like that Traitors brings a different kind of gameplay compared to your Survivors and Big Brothers. You never know how to truly play the game because the competitors are so wacky and have a different strategy/lack there of a strategy every season. But Rob was somehow able to figure it out - no matter what curve ball was thrown at him because he knew how to be social, while simultaneously laying low.
Phil: I’ve been hearing the buzz about The Traitors US for a while now. But that buzz became a full-on uproar as Season Four progressed, with my feed constantly full of chatter about the reality competition show. And so, when my husband and I were snowed in last weekend during a blizzard, we decided to finally drink the Kool-Aid — and got so addicted that we caught up on all ten available episodes that weekend in advance of yesterday’s season finale.
The Traitors is so fun in the way it combines different personalities across (reality) TV. Housewives, Survivors, Love Islanders, Actors. It’s such a bizarre assortment of “characters”. Marry that with a social experiment game that forces you to really grasp at straws to eliminate the mysterious traitor with little-to-no real evidence, and you’ve just got a recipe for reality TV drama.
The thing that made us sit down to watch The Traitors is that it’s so, so gay. I recently complained about a certain other reality competition show being not gay enough (compared to a very gay first season), so I knew there was a hole in my life for super queer reality TV. And The Traitors filled it perfectly.
Goat
Kat: Goat is the best Disney movie in YEARS…and it isn’t even a Disney movie.
Produced by NBA superstar Steph Curry, Goat follows a mid-sized animal who wants to make it into the big leagues…sound familiar. Steph wasn’t hitting threes from the bleachers his whole career. He had to work on his form to find a place in a game dominated by dunking. Curry uses his own experience to tell the best type of sports story…the underdog.
Even if Goat follows the groundwork of your average sports story, the mixture of girls and boys on the same team allows for the WNBA’s influence to really seep into the narrative. Our male lead’s favorite athlete/the person who inspires him to play the sport is a woman. This makes for a unique, modern take that showcases the message all sports movies have been selling us for decades - work hard enough, and you’ll find your place.
Phil: As everybody already knows, I am not a sports guy. I can appreciate some sports drama from afar. I’ll enjoy the occasional sports film. And I’ve promised Kat that I’ll attend a basketball game or two with her each year. But it’s never been my thing. All of this to say that I went into Goat not expecting much, and I found myself pleasantly surprised.
Goat is closer to Zootopia than Sing in terms of utilizing its animal characters/settings in interesting and effective ways. While the “goat” joke is a little on-the-nose and too frequently used, the other animal jokes and themes/metaphors are pretty effective throughout and make more an enjoyable experience for both kids and adults.
The plot of Goat is pretty by-the-numbers. There aren’t really any major surprises throughout and it more-or-less follows the playbook of an underdog sport movie. But the film’s writing and characters have enough charisma to make the viewing experience fun throughout.
The most interesting aspect of the movie is the relationship between Will (Caleb McLaughlin) and Jett (Gabrielle Union). The mixed-gender team and setting Jett as the “experienced” star was a fun and unique choice that set this film apart from usual sports movie fair and breathed new life into the type of rivalry-to-friends dynamic that we’ve seen before.
If someone as non-sporty as me can have a fun time with Goat, it’s a major compliment. If you enjoy a well-made kids movie that can be enjoyed by adults, you can do much worse than Goat.
Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model
Kat: A good documentary can also act as thoughtful journalism. Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model is one of the most rounded entertainment think pieces I’ve seen in a long time. The documentarians get every single angle ranging from the contestants, the head of the network, entertainment journalists, and even Tyra Banks herself.
If you grew up in the early 2000s it was hard to escape America’s Top Model, but I had only caught a few episodes here and there. I never knew the extent of the things that went down on the show and what they allowed to air. This documentary takes a deep dive on how the show negatively affected it’s many contestants, and ties into an even larger commentary about the treatment of women in the name of “beauty”.
Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model takes “internet journalism” to a whole new level and shows the power of communities uncovering the darkest sides of the people at the “top”.
Comics
Let’s discuss some comics we’ve enjoyed recently!
As usual, we’ll spotlight an Indie Book, a DC/Marvel book, a Webcomic, and a Live Kickstarter book!
Indie Comic: Penny and the Yeti (Papercutz)
Kat: Jimmy Gaspero is best known for his work with Comic Book Yeti. We’ve had the pleasure working with him on the first volume of Bi Visibility. And we were lucky enough to get a first look at his debut all-ages graphic novel before it hit shelves.
Gaspero takes inspiration from his journalism hustle and uses the “Yeti” as his lead’s new friend. Penny is a happy-go-lucky girl who has to deal with the real-life reality of her parents’ consistent fighting. The Penny and The Yeti does a beautiful job at portraying real-life issues that kids could be exposed to, all from the angle of an imaginative, young girl - making this a true “all-ages” tale.
Marvel: It’s Jeff
Kat: Staying within the all-ages genre, It’s Jeff embodies the soul of old Saturday Morning comic strips within the confines of modern webcomics and traditional sequentials. Kelly Thompson and Gurihiru initially released their comic through Marvel’s digital Infinity line, and because of the popularity of Jeff in Marvel Rivals - the comics are being released traditionally through the direct market.
I’ve been a fan of Jeff since his first appearance in Thompson’s West Coast Avengers, and so happy to see this cute creature become the bridge between all spectrums of Marvel fans/readers. It’s Jeff is a silent comic that expertly weaves through the Marvel universe to remind us that even during its darkest events, Marvel at its core is still a fun universe. Thompson and Gurihiru are the perfect tag team as they express comedy through physical hijinks.
It’s Jeff is one of Marvel’s most accessible comics in both its storytelling and marketing.
Webcomic: Eldritch Darling
“What if we kissed and we were both girls? And one of us was an oblivious human and the other was a dark eldritch abomination creature from beyond the stars??”
Phil: A Supernatural comedy that follows Ina, a secretly dark eldritch monster, dating CJ, a loveable-but-kind-of-clueless human. Most of the comic consists of fun comedic shorts about the daily lives of our heroes as they navigate their unconventional-but-super-loveable relationship.
In addition to the comedy, Eldritch Darling also has an ongoing story where the status quo changes over time (including bringing CJ in on the secret identity of her girlfriend). The series also has a ton of fun side characters — including a witch, a werewolf, and (my personal favorite) a demonic pigeon.
Combining these fun side characters and subplots with our loveable leads is a recipe for success for anyone who loves lighthearted supernatural Sapphic comics.
UNRELATED NOTE: the creator of Eldritch Darling, Mishacakes, will be at ECCC next week with us and will also be a panelist on the Webtoon Panel we’ll be on!
Kickstarter: I FEEL DOOMED! Volume 1
“An anthology of illustrated stories exploring how we break, rebuild, and keep going.”
Phil: A darkly comedic anthology about generational dread and the increasingly ubiquitous feeling of…doom. The book features stories focusing on student loans, housing stress, climate crisis, and political exhaustion, putting a spotlight on the idea that we’re living in a constant state of low-grade apocalypse.
At a whopping 400 pages, I FEEL DOOMED! is literally brimming with content. My favorite types of anthologies are filled with a variety of different art styles and (sub)genres. And the preview pages we see on the I FEEL DOOMED! campaign page showcase a ton of variety.
The campaign ends TOMORROW! So be sure to check it out before it reaches its conclusion!
In Conclusion
We hope you enjoyed our walkthrough of how we became full-time comic writers! Share your own journey of working in comics with us in the comments below and on social media!
Be sure to follow the Pre-Launch Pages for our next Kickstarter launches: Nightmare in Wonderland #1-4 (Launching 3/02) and C2E2 EXCLUSIVE The Little Mermaid #1 Lenticular (Launching 3/10)!
And if you’re attending Emerald City Comic Con next week, be sure to stop by Booth O-01 to say hello! And to check out our Make Your Mark: Telling Your Story With WEBTOON CANVAS on Friday at 2:45pm!
Subscribe above for biweekly updates on our future projects!
Buy Lifeline Comics on our Website!
Next Kickstarters:
Nightmare in Wonderland #1-4 (Launching 3/02)
C2E2 EXCLUSIVE The Little Mermaid #1 Lenticular (Launching 3/10)
Read our Webtoons for FREE:
Slice of Life [GL] (Anime Character x Closeted Cheerleader High School Romance)
Love at Second Bite [BL] (Vampire College Adventure/Romance)