Cartoonists feel the squeeze
Picture the scene: a room full of cartoonists, sipping cocktails and making small talk. What might each of their text balloons say about the state of cartooning today?
Lalo Alcarazâs would be succinct. âWeâre going to hell in a handbasket,â said the creator of the comic strip âLa Cucaracha.â
Alcaraz suspects that will be the consensus this weekend at the National Cartoonists Societyâs annual convention in Hollywood. Itâs usually a time for fun, culminating in a black tie dinner where the best comics are given Reuben Awards. But like so many others in this changing economy, cartoonists are suffering. With newspapers cutting space and in some cases folding, print comic strip illustrators are finding their livelihoods threatened.
âWe live and die by our newspapers,â said Cathy Guisewite, who created the comic strip âCathyâ in 1976. âWeâve all built our careers on trying to be content for newspapers. If newspapers are struggling, then weâre struggling as well.â
Readers of several major newspapers have seen the comics reduced or re-sized in the last few months.
In late March, the Washington Post announced it was dropping five print comics, including âLittle Dog Lostâ and âZippy the Pinheadâ -- though, all five are still available on the Postâs website.
A month earlier, the Oregonian announced it was dropping 10 comics to cut back on costs.
In December, the Florida Times-Union cut eight strips from both its daily and Sunday comics. The paper instituted a âComic Strip Survivorâ voting drive through which readers could pick which eight of the 16 strips would be eliminated.
Some newspapers that have moved to a Web-only format, such as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Capital Times in Madison, Wis., have kept their comics in online form.
But cartoonists whose strips survive are forced to be even more succinct in their storytelling as newspapers shrink their allotted space for comics.
âThereâs less you can do in the size of the panel that current newspapers provide,â said Stephan Pastis, creator of âPearls Before Swine.â
âIn the old days, comics were often full pages. Now, theyâre squeezed down into tiny little boxes that donât give much more room than what it takes to do a talking head. Itâs sad to see something that was so important to cartooning becoming marginalized.â
The un-funny reality has made the print comics scene a challenge for newcomers, according to the Postâs Micahel Cavna, TV/theater editor and the man behind its Comic Riffs blog.
âI think itâs brutally hard to break into print comics right now,â Cavna said. âItâs like âStar Wars,â when youâre trying to shoot to get the Death Star . . . that tiny little room of error -- thatâs where cartoonists are left in the print world. The window is yet narrower to succeed.â
Lisa Wilson, senior vice president and general manager of United Media press syndicate, says the syndicate receives hundreds of submissions each year, of which roughly eight are selected for syndication. That doesnât mean those eight will be distributed to newspapers; some may get a Web-only launch.
âItâs very difficult for a newly launched strip to reach its potential than if it had been launched 10 to 20 years ago,â Wilson said.
âNew comics arenât getting the attention they should be. But I still think newspapers are a good place for exposure. And we will continue to try to feed the best comics to the newspapers despite the fact that theyâre in a difficult place right now.â
Historically, comic strips were used to build readership and lure readers from competing papers, said Stephen Worth, director of the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive. But there are few markets left with competing papers.
And, Cavna adds, with rival forms of humorous entertainment, a cartoonistâs funniness can often feel bland.
âIf youâre being exposed to âThe Daily Showâ or âFunny or Dieâ videos online and then go to the comics page, even the best writers can just feel tame or sweet,â Cavna said. âThere are edgy comics out there, but newspapers arenât, for the most part, going to risk running them. Theyâre not going to risk scaring their more traditional and established readers.â
But like their newspapers, cartoonists are finding other ways to distribute their content. Though cartooning online may still be in its infancy, some cartoonists have found a way to generate enough revenue to make a living at it.
Jeph Jacques, 28, operates QuestionableContent.net, an online comic strip. The first strip appeared in August 2003; by the next year, Jacques was able to support himself and his wife from the revenue generated from merchandise and ad space sold on the website.
âThere seems to be, among some of the older, more established cartoonists, this sense of incredulity that people can make a living doing comics online,â Jacques said. âOnline comics have the advantage. Weâre getting a more diverse crowd; a younger crowd. And word of mouth is a lot quicker.â
Neither cartoonists nor syndicate representatives interviewed for this story provided figures for how much money a syndicated cartoonist makes. A cartoonistâs contract with a syndicate is determined on an individual basis. Typically, the more clients a cartoonist has and the bigger the newspaperâs circulation, the more money a cartoonist can expect to make.
And those not entirely convinced by the revenue stream generated online are looking to animation as their next target. Alcaraz has dabbled with producing âsomewhat animatedâ editorial cartoons and has pitched an animated version of his comic to Fox. Pastis also expressed an interest in getting âPearlsâ animated.
Cartoonists should explore all options to avoid producing content that makes readers squint their eyes, Cavna said.
âSoon, theyâll have to start including plastic magnifying glasses for free with every comics page,â he said. âShrinking them anymore becomes almost pointless.â
--
More to Read
The biggest entertainment stories
Get our big stories about Hollywood, film, television, music, arts, culture and more right in your inbox as soon as they publish.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.