
PVPOnline Calls Out Cartoon Syndicates on BS, Offers to Save Them (For A Price) - kposehn
http://www.pvponline.com/2011/12/15/yes-were-serious/
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egypturnash
So. GoComics.

I'm friends with the woman who won the first Amazon/Universal/GoComics contest
back in '09. Her strip, "Girl", still hasn't appeared anywhere on the net -
it's basically been in development hell for the entire last two years. Last I
asked her about it she was like, yeah, they ask for changes, I send off a new
batch of strips, they send me money, it still hasn't gone anywhere, it helps
pay the bills.

Honestly, after two years, I basically figure this is never going to happen.

And her other projects have been suffering for this, too. It eats up a lot of
her time, and nobody but her editors at Universal are seeing the results.

Like Kurtz, she's a webcomics pioneer who worked in the daily four-panel mode
because she loves it. Getting into the syndicates was a lifelong dream. But
it's too little, too late - have you _looked_ at the comics page of a
newspaper in the past few years? I sure haven't, not on a regular basis. I see
one maybe twice a year, and it's the same old zombie strips that were old when
I was a kid, printed at about half the size they used to run. The syndicates
are dying because they're tied to the newspapers.

Winning any "talent search" put on by the syndicates, if Dana's experience is
any guide, is a monkey's paw kind of win.

\----

I would be all for Kurtz putting his money where his mouth is and starting a
post-newspaper comics syndicate. IMHO there are three things the syndicates
did in the old days:

1\. They got your comics distributed by making them available to the
newspapers. Nowadays? Wordpress + Comicpress = RSS feed for your comics. Stick
it in your feed-reader and bam, there you go. Obsolete.

1.5 Of course you still need to find a way to get new readers, now that
"selling your strip to the editors of newspapers" is dead. Project Wonderful
works pretty damn well - it's an ad network that's very easy to buy space on,
reaches a lot of people who are already INTERESTED in reading comics (most of
the ad space available on PW is on comics sites), and can be pretty cheap. I
got a heck of a lot of clickthroughs for just a couple bucks when I recently
bought a campaign there for my webcomic. And these were people who read the
entire archive.

2\. They managed making the merch happen. Talked to toy companies, mug-makers,
book-printers, etc. Nowadays? Well, you can DIY a lot easier, but honestly
that takes time away from the real work of drawing the comic. Better to get in
touch with someone like Topatoco. (Whose bar for entry is basically 'have a
similar reach to a syndicated comic in the glory days of the newspapers'.)

3\. They deal with TV and movie licensing. This is the big one that nobody's
really duplicated on the web yet - "dying" though they they may be, TV and
movie studios still have a lot of reach, and a lot of money floating around to
advertise the hell out of the adaptations that happen. I know Kurtz has
dabbled with web animated series, but animation costs an insane amount of
money, even when you do tons of cheats.

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larrik
I've been reading PvP for a long time, and I have to say Scott isn't the best
person to go to for this offer. He's a bit of a blowhard, and he's can be very
unprofessional (doesn't keep to a rigid schedule, gets in online flame wars,
etc.).

If they want a real example of how to do it, I'd point them to Howard Taylor,
who hasn't even had a LATE update yet, with a 7-day color strip, and feeds his
family of 6 or so (Scott is just him and his wife).

~~~
SatvikBeri
Does Howard Taylor actually make more money than Scott does, though? PVP is
much higher up on the traffic charts, and I've seen Howard occasionally post
about his family's financial struggles while Scott certainly doesn't seem to
have any.

Not having a single late update is a very different skillset from knowing how
to market effectively. If I had to pick one person as a marketing consultant
it would be the one who has a better marketing track record, not the one who
doesn't keep to a perfect schedule.

~~~
larrik
I have no idea which one makes more, but

1) Scott's popularity is partially related to his friendship with Penny
Arcade.

2) Scott's "expertise" didn't save his best friend Kris Straub from giving up
the dream and getting a job.

3) Howard Taylor has a full family, so him having financial trouble is simply
more likely even if they were close in income.

I like Scott, I just wouldn't hire him for this.

~~~
kposehn
Kris and Scott work in the same office in Seattle with PA and (last I checked)
he didn't give up the dream; ChainSawSuit and Starslip are updated multiple
times a week.

I like Scott as well, and I probably would hire him for this as he has the
perspective and the willingness to get the job done, even if it offends
people.

But I'm not from a syndicate and if I get my way, I'll help flush them and
book publishers out of existence :D

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hartror
Scott has been on this bandwagon for years. It has always confused me why he
has concerned himself with this issue so much over the years. Certainly he is
right in his thinking however the effort he expends on this continuing
campaign seems wasted on an industry as close minded as the newspaper
businesses appear today.

This is the perspective of an outsider of course, who enjoys web comics and on
occasion buys their loot. Scott has long been a leading figure in the web
comic scene and so naturally he has a passion for the medium.

~~~
larrik
1) He's friends with a lot of syndicated cartoonists, and is concerned for
their future.

2) He loves the syndicated model and always wanted to be part of it. Luckily
he saw that the web was better and wanted to be a part of it.

------
hristov
Well, after a 10 year hiatus I checked out PVP again and it is still not
funny. If the author can figure out how to make money out of that dreck then
the syndicates should definitely give him a consulting contract.

~~~
jrubinovitz
And he made the front page of Hacker News. I think he's a better business man
than people give him credit for. I think he's a really entertaining guy and
tune into his podcasts whenever he puts them out.

------
laserDinosaur
Wow, they are really digging into the syndicates there.

Even if these places did hire them, I really don't know how much they could
help. When I open the newspaper these days nearly all of the comics have their
own website, and the ones that don't are so old nobody reads them anyway. I
see what they are doing, I just hope nobody actually hires them and suddenly
they are faced with the daunting prospect of bringing silent movies into the
80's.

Either way, this should make a good podcast :D

~~~
Arelius
Just because a comic has it's own website, doesn't mean that website cannot be
run and maintained by a syndicate.

------
RandallBrown
If I put a HILARIOUS comic of my own on my website, there is a really good
chance that it won't generate any traffic. Nobody reads my website and
submitting it to reddit or whatever may or may not give me the eyes it needs
to go viral.

~~~
ig1
As pretty much a nobody with zero artistic talent I managed to create a web-
comic as a side project which in it's first year of existence managed to get
over 250k+ unique visitors and almost 1000 Facebook fans. It's not that hard.

~~~
EwanG
Blog post somewhere that shares the tale? I've had a little side project that
I did a few strips for but then never posted because I figured I'd have to be
willing to dedicate way more time than it would be worth to build an audience.
Sounds like you may have "cracked the nut"?

~~~
kposehn
The nut is pretty simple:

1\. Always update on time, every time. Never miss a beat if at all possible by
making comics ahead of time and posting them in advance with a delay.

2\. Write & draw what you love, whether it is video games (PA, PVP, etc), sex
jokes (leasticoulddo), anime (megatokyo), music & life (questionable content),
nerdy awesomeness (xkcd)...you get the idea.

3\. Connect with your fans by blogging as much as you post strips. Let them
feel a part of the creative process and help them get to know you.

4\. Profit.

