Cartoon and Comics Links: Wallace and Gromit and other cool stuff
on February 20th, 2012At the UK Daily Mail, a look at Wallace and Gromit, with lots of cool schematic drawings and info on development. Also, creator Nick Park’s first animated video, created when he was only 13 years old.
Cartooning for a sustainable future at Columbia Journalism Review. Newspaper cartoonists face the grim reality that their business model is a goner.
Ted Rall discovers that one of his syndicated cartoons made a whopping 8 cents. This article is a bit depressing, and outside of the occasional crow-worthy kickstarter campaign, I’m really not sure what the future is for these folks. Some have modest luck with self syndication.
“I have a big web audience,” says Bors, “and a lot of my cartoons are incredibly popular. They fly around the web more than a lot of articles do, but for whatever reason, cartoons aren’t on the budget.”
Read it all.
Missed it. Valentine’s Day cards from days of yore. They weren’t very nice.
I’d hate to see the looks on the faces on those who were the recipients of those cards!
The article about cartoonists is a bit depressing but expected. Some have been taking note of the situation for years but some have had their heads in the sand. Some I do feel sorry for considering how they’re seeing their livelihood come crashing down due to no real fault of their own. Others who denigrate webcomics and say that they’re not “real artists” don’t warrant much sympathy. Especially when some of those in webcomics tried to offer advice but were rebuffed.
There aren’t many papers out by me (other than the free one I read on the way to work in the morning) so fortunately for me I can still read a variety of comic strips via the syndicates’ websites.
I think a lot of people assume they’ll be able to find a big audience online, but that’s not the key, and it is certainly not working for most people who try it. It’s about getting an audience who will want to pay what you have to sell.
I have a lot more readers online these days, but plenty of them just run off to website apps and illegal download services to read all at once instead of reading here. So, even though I still have ads on my site, they don’t make any real money. The only real way to make money online is to sell, and syndication isn’t it.
Those of us coming from print to web already have an audience, but it has different buying habits than the web audience. My audience is more likely to buy printed books.
I would assume political cartoonists would be better off trying to sell collections of their work, even if the print runs are small. If you can direct sell 500 copies to your readership, you’d be able to make a modest sum.
My web sales are way up from five years ago, but it’s hard to tell if that’s just because people loooooove buying direct from me so much, or if it’s just because fewer bookstores sell my graphic novels. Or both. Or neither.
I bet most people prefer to buy directly from the artist when they can.
Speaking for myself, I prefer having a hard copy – no DRM issues, file corruption, etc. Granted, there are some webcomics I read online that I haven’t bought the collections for (I like them, but not that much) but for the most part if I have the funds available, I’ll show my support by purchasing a book, print, etc. Plus, after being on a computer all day at work, I’d rather read sans the glow of a screen.
Also, the bibliophile in me likes having a full bookcase. Though I’m a few steps away from probably winding up on “Hoarders”, but that’s a different story.
I know some of the “everything must be free” crowd would balk at having to pay for something that they normally get for free but unless the webcomic is just a hobby for someone with a full time job, the artist/writer needs to find a way to pay the bills. Terry Moore had made a good point how those pre-internet era will be more likely to buy and likewise those who came of age during the advent of iTunes. It’s the Napster-era ones that are having the disconnect.
Though I can get some good deals on Amazon.com, if it’s possible I do like to buy directly from the artist – at least I know more of the money is going directly to them.
Some of the newspaper comic strip artists are a bit confounding – considering it prestigious to work for a syndicate that take a cut out of the artists’ increasingly reduced share.
Colleen, would you say the web/print transition would be similar to the tales of big name writers/artists doing creator-owned work only to find financial hardship? In that some don’t migrate from one area to the other.
By “some”, I meant readers.
I agree that many people cannot migrate from one market to the next. Some who’ve found web success can’t sell enough books to sustain a print career with a publisher, and so return to self publishing direct sale to their market.
Some who had print success have had no luck online at all.
Many people who had steady careers in the mainstream bombed when they tried to do independent work. Independent creators could not make the transition from indy to mainstream.
Indy creators from back in the day have bad times trying to market to the webcomics crowd.
The cruel truth for many indy creators is part their success was dependent on a small competitive pool. Who cares if you were able to get manga gigs in 1990? There was little competition. Now everyone and their kid sister wants to do manga. So, you’ve got all these early movers in manga having to compete with 10,000 hopefuls, and wondering where their captive audience went.
That I was able to increase the audience for A Distant Soil online to match my highest sales peak during self publishing is some kind of miracle. Not making quite as much money, but it’s pretty good, especially considering it’s a part time devotion. The money is higher than it was ten years ago.
Then again, it took multiple trials and some years, and a considerable cash investment to get moving online. I think most artists don’t have those resources. I almost didn’t, but I’m glad I stuck it out.