The Italian animation industry came to the defense of cartoonist Zerocalcare after anonymous accusations denounced poor working conditions on his new Netflix series. A right-wing senator took advantage of the complaints to attack him politically, but the studios involved denied the alleged wages of 6 euros per hour and stated that there were no formal complaints. The case reveals how unsigned accusations can be instrumentalized in public debate.
The technical process behind the series animation 🎨
The production of an animated series like Zerocalcare's involves a workflow divided between storyboard, 2D digital animation, inking, and post-production. Italian studios often outsource part of the process to small local workshops or freelancers, making it difficult to standardize salaries. In this case, the accusations of 6 euros per hour do not match the reviewed contracts, which establish project-based rates. The monitoring of hours worked remains a blind spot in the industry, where creative work is not always measured in fixed time.
The senator who saw ghosts where there were only drawings 👻
It turns out that a politician with free time discovered that denouncing low wages in animation generated more headlines than talking about infrastructure. Of course, it's easier to accuse a cartoonist of labor exploitation than to review the actual conditions of the studios. The complaints were anonymous, but the senator used them as if they were an OECD report. In the end, the only ones who worked overtime were Netflix's lawyers, while Zerocalcare keeps drawing and the politician keeps looking for another trending topic.