Wednesday, March 05, 2008  
2006 Canadian Census: Arts Occupations

:: Posted by Bryan @ 3/05/2008 01:00:00 AM

How Many Cartoonists in Canada?

Most of the major news outlets picked up on the latest bunch of releases by Statistics Canada concerning the 2006 census. Here is a sample article, focusing on how Canada continues to be a resource-based economy and how Canadians continue to labour in service industries. I think Northrop Frye was the first to apply the biblical phrase "hewers of wood and drawers of water" to Canadians, and this census report doesn't change that designation. Whereas truck drivers used to be the largest group of working men, retail workers is now #1. Ditto for women, the largest group of whom are now cashiers. Instead of toting bales and tilling the soil, we are hefting graphic novels like Chris Butcher in the National Post photo seen here.

But, since this is a blog about comics, and not just comics retail, I thought I'd look into the actual numbers and see if there is anything else to be found about Canadians who work in what we at Sequential laughably (but lovably) call "The Comics Industry":

This StatsCan page lists all the occupations and occupation categories collected for the 2006 census (the most recent data available). Among other things, we learn that, out of 17 million working Canadians, there are 30,000 filing clerks, 29,320 mail carriers, 1,140 meteorologists, 20, 550 Web designers and developers, 279,725 nurses, 2,640 judges, 75,110 lawyers, 18,885 bricklayers, 667,990 teachers and professors, 465 grain elevator operators, and 67,310 cops!

Cartoonists aren't listed (maybe under "Food counter attendants, kitchen helpers and related occupations"?), but here is a rough grouping of graphic arts and related occupations:

Creative:

Authors and writers 25,020
Editors 16,210
Journalists 13,320
Translators 16,230
Painters, sculptors and other visual artists 18,340
Graphic arts technicians 7,570 in film/theatre (does this include animation?)
Graphic designers and illustrators 51,890

Related:

Desktop publishing operators and related occupations
Librarians 11,970
Conservators and curators 1,900
Archivists 2,350

(Bloggers aren't listed either.)

From my own experience, out of the 148,580 creative workers above, I estimate 1000 cartoonists and comic book artists living in Canada, of which maybe 5% make their living primarily as cartoonists (including t-shirt sales). That's about 100 per province. No idea about comics writers (that is, writers who don't draw --known as scenarists in Quebec). 50? 75?

In a related article, StasCan reports on the film post-production industry, including animation --where I expect a significant number of cartoonists labour. Revenue in the Canadian animation industry grew 14% in 2006 over 2005.

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