Minimum Wage (comics)

Minimum Wage
The cover of Maximum Minimum Wage, by Bob Fingerman.
Publication information
Publisher	Fantagraphics Image Comics
Format	Ongoing
Publication date	Minimum Wage vol. 1: July 1995 Minimum Wage vol. 2: Oct. 1995–Jan. 1999 Minimum Wage vol. 3: Jan.–June 2014 Minimum Wage: So Many Bad Decisions: May–Oct. 2015
No. of issues	Minimum Wage vol 1: 1 Minimum Wage vol 2: 10 Minimum Wage vol. 3: 6 Minimum Wage: So Many Bad Decisions: 6
Main character(s)	Rob Hoffman, Sylvia Fanucci
Creative team
Created by	Bob Fingerman
Written by	Bob Fingerman
Artist(s)	Bob Fingerman
Collected editions
Minimum Wage: Book One	ISBN
Beg the Question	ISBN
Minimum Wage: Book Two: Tales of Hoffman	ISBN
Maximum Minimum Wage	ISBN
Minimum Wage: Focus on the Strange	ISBN
Minimum Wage: So Many Bad Decisions	ISBN

Minimum Wage is the name of a number of comic book series and original graphic novels by Bob Fingerman. The stories follow the life of Rob Hoffman, a young comics artist in New York City in the mid-1990s.

Minimum Wage started with an 84-page original graphic novel published by Fantagraphics in July 1995. Minimum Wage volume 2, the series, was published from Oct. 1995–Jan. 1999 and lasted for ten issues. The series was collected as Minimum Wage Book One (Fantagraphics, 1995) and Minimum Wage Book Two: Tales of Hoffman (Fantagraphics, 1998). The entire series was extensively reworked and collected in 2002 by Fantagraphics as the graphic novel Beg the Question. The whole thing was later collected in 2013 as an oversized hardcover by Image Comics, Maximum Minimum Wage. This edition included a lot of new extra material, including the script for the unreleased eleventh issue of the series.

Following the release of Maximum Minimum Wage, Fingerman began work on a new six-issue series, published by Image, which was collected as a trade paperback titled Focus On The Strange. After this, Fingerman released a second six-issue series through Image, titled Minimum Wage: So Many Bad Decisions, which was collected into a trade paperback of the same name.

In the letters pages of the new Minimum Wage comics, Fingerman confirmed that he would like to continue into a third series, but that this would be dependent on sales.

The original Minimum Wage series (and the attendant prequels and augmentations) follows the two main characters, Rob Hoffman, a neurotic freelance cartoonist and illustrator, and his girlfriend Sylvia Fanucci, who manages a beauty salon but has higher ambitions. The cast is rounded out with their friends, who include Rob's friends Jack, Max, and Matt; Sylvia's former girlfriend Sylvia; Elvis, who publishes a sex-themed alternative newspaper; and other colorful characters. Issues addressed in the first series include the struggles of getting by in New York City on a limited income, the stresses money put on relationships, abortion, and the prospect of "settling down."