Mar 30th 2009 08:26 am If you say so
Several of you have observed that many conventional newspapers today, on their auxiliary Web site, carry links to online versions of comic strips that appear in the printed edition. That’s good, but I don’t think it follows that newspapers would continue to subscribe to comic strips in the traditional manner should the majority of newspapers eventually make the jump to Web-only.
The strips currently associated with newspaper Web sites are purchased initially for the print edition. Web usage is a freebie, or a near freebie, an added enticement to a conventional syndication contract. In a world where newspapers are published online, I don’t think newspapers would pay for the privilege of posting a link to a comic-strip site that is universally available, not only to other online newspapers (“newsportals?”) but to the world at large. Comic strips might not go away altogether, but they would cease to be “newspaper comic strips.” Maybe that’s stating the obvious, but it still boggles my mind.
Posted by jimmyjohnson / Vintage A&J
23 Responses to “If you say so”
buzz on 30 Mar 2009 at 9:01 am #
What I love so much about AnJ is that even the most outre of situations play out so realistically. I almost get the feel this strip is relating a true-life incident almost verbatim.
Chris Owen on 30 Mar 2009 at 9:03 am #
If the newspapers fail, then the current form of syndicated comics will also fold and websites offering the current “newspaper” comics will also lose their source of funding. Thus, free online comics from the current newspaper crowd will also go away and be replaced by either a subscription to the comics website or access through your local e-paper’s website. This doesn’t address the hundreds of truly “free online” comics, which are made by people mostly doing it for fun. The quality and regularity of these comics is obviously less than those from the “newspaper” crowd, which may allow the current “newspaper” comic strips to survive in some form on the web only. I suppose the survival of the current “newspaper” comics really depends on the business sense of the syndicate.
Joe from Romeoville on 30 Mar 2009 at 9:36 am #
I hope for everyone that newspapers don’t end. The children can’t read now. I know at least they read the comics in the newspaper. They wouldn’t search for news on the internet.
wxchick on 30 Mar 2009 at 9:55 am #
I wish the print version of USAToday contained a comics section.
However, I can’t tell you the last time I read a local newspaper in print form. The internet is just too easy and too convenient. And free. Therein lies the dilemma.
Did you catch the CBS Sunday Morning segment this week about the dying newspapers?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/29/sunday/main4900788.shtml
I loved the Fast Draw team’s take on it … “The future of newspapers is looking surprisingly like the past.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4901018n
The early days of print (pamphleteers) consisted of many voices. Then came the big newspapers that bought up all the small voices and became the newspaper industry we’ve known for most of our lives. But the internet has returned us to the early days: many voices speaking from all directions. I guess the next step will be for big internet conglomerates to “buy up” all the small voices.
All things in life cycle around. I’m just hoping comics survive. Especially Arlo and Janis. =)
Barbara on 30 Mar 2009 at 11:45 am #
I would really miss the printed newspaper. In the morning while eating breakfast, I read the comics and that section of the paper (start the day off happy). Then I read the depressing news and such at night after dinner. It would be a lot harder to read the comics on line while eating breakfast.
Redman in the Big "O" on 30 Mar 2009 at 12:13 pm #
We are lucky here that we have one daily morning newspaper and have two weeklies that come out on Thursday. It appears that they are all doing well. The reason they do well is all the advertisements and especially the legals. With forclosures at an all time high the legal ads are getting bigger and bigger!
An old newspaper guy once told me that the only reason for news in the newspaper is to seperate the ads!
Steve Simmons on 30 Mar 2009 at 12:13 pm #
I stopped buying paper newspapers years ago, and read A&J via the online version. My read of the situation? Congratulations, in the next few years you will all become webcomics producers.
For you in particular, there’s good news in that batch. The things that are needed to make webcomics fly are the discipline to produce a strip on a schedule, and the ability to connect with your readers. You and everyone else who does classic format newspaper strips are already there with the discipline to produce on a schedule. You in particular are already well ahead of most newspaper strip producers on the latter.
As for large Internet conglomerates buying up the small comics producers: I doubt it. Unlike the pamphleteers of yore, internet-based comics publishing has few economies of scale and no distribution problems. What it *does* have a problem with is a given strip finding its audience. You again have a leg up on this, as A&J is already very well known and has a lot of fans who will support it.
Conversely, I’m betting you also have a problem with copyright and/or exclusivity issues. I have no idea what your contract is like, but it might be very difficult for you to put A&J fully online without violating your contracts. But I am not a lawyer, copyright or other, your mileage may vary, offer not good on days with an A, etc, etc.
I think it’s well worth your time to contact Bill Holbrook (‘Safe Have’, ‘Kevin and Kell’, etc.) Bill was and is a pioneer in web comics, and brought the field a professionalism that others are only slowly emulating. He’s also made the transition from newspaper to web-based strips, and would no doubt have something very interesting to say about it.
Symply Fargone on 30 Mar 2009 at 1:28 pm #
Many years ago(Keith Moon lived, though he passed out at this concert) when I was in college I went to see The Who at the old Boston Garden. We had seats around 20 rows back when all of a sudden my roommate said “Dude, isn’t that you sitting in the 8th row?” I looked and sure enough, there was a clone sitting in the aisle seat. I walked down towards this man and the closer I got the weirder it seemed, he looked just like me. I walked up to him and I said “You better call home. Mom’s getting p’d off at you for not keeping in touch.” The look on his face and his friends faces were priceless! I just walked back to my seat as I heard one of the man’s friends say “You never told us you had a twin brther.” We never spoke again nor saw each other, but it was truly eerie. For now and then I am Symply Fargone……
K in ND on 30 Mar 2009 at 1:49 pm #
Our local newspaper (which has run Arlo & Janis for as long as I can remember) recently added an online version for an extra $20 subscription fee. They have not reduced the print version any, but there really isn’t much there anyway. When all the public notices come, the paper is twice as thick. I find that rather sad, in a way, but I will freely admit that the comics are generally the only thing I read. I dislike spending time either perusing or browsing comics websites, and I also dislike registering with web sites in order to get regular emails or anything else. So…the paper paper is preferable for me.
Steve from Royal Oak, MI on 30 Mar 2009 at 1:53 pm #
Today is Day One of the limited print editions of the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press. I picked up both papers at the gas station (they were free today) and it feels like a Readers Digest Condensed Book. Much less information and it feels like I am getting a small town paper instead of a major market one.
The comics are all in B&W and stuffed on one page. I may check tonight, but it feels like a strip or two was dropped, but it could be the layout.
The digital version is free this week as well and I must admit that it is easy to use (www.freep.com or http://www.detnews.com). I get my weekly magazine on Purdue athletics this way and the Detroit papers have a better viewer. The Purdue magazine would ship 3rd class mail and get to me 2-3 weeks late until they came up with this viewer. The Detroit papers offer to send a printed version same day mail, but the viewer is a much better option as you can read it in the AM and not wait until the afternoon.
CG from MN on 30 Mar 2009 at 2:43 pm #
Today’s 03/30/09
If the spelling is economy of keystrokes Gene’s message should be:
@skl m
I spend too long thinking of misspelling it is faster to spell correctly.
Let us not become Luddites (Love spell check) but I decry the disappearance
of the printed word.
Neal from Bawstun on 30 Mar 2009 at 2:50 pm #
One of the basic problems of the internet is getting people to pay for anything. Content is deemed ‘free’ unless its unavailable any other way. I, for one, cannot fathom why a newspaper would publish its content on a website except as an adjunct to a paid subscription to the print edition. It’s economic suicide.
The alternative is to sell something alongside the ‘free content’. Were A&J.com to offer, say, that nifty sports car image on a coffee mug, I’d be the first to sign up. Ditto an A&J tee shirt. If it pays the bills and there is a demand, then I’m in favor of it.
Daniel on 30 Mar 2009 at 3:15 pm #
I read my comics online these days… But for some of them (hello, King Features) I must go through the web site of the paper that carries them. In my case, this means periodic visits to the Houston Chronicle and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (whose online comics haven’t been affected by the paper having folded).
Would I go back to paper if my local paper actually carried every comic I wanted to read? Sadly, no. They print ‘em too small.
Rick in Shermantown, Ohio on 30 Mar 2009 at 7:20 pm #
I don’t know if Jimmy will print this, but I hope he does.
I have commented to him via email either two or three times that I am more than willing to pay for the privilege of having A&J available to me online.
Fellow fans, the time has come to ask JJ to set up a PayPal account so that he and we can keep our daily fix coming.
Please — show your support here.
John in LACA late of PNS on 30 Mar 2009 at 8:28 pm #
Another comic artist that seems to be doing well online (Salon.com), books, and independent weeklys etc. is Lynda Barry. Her Ernie Pook Comeek is pretty popular. One book hers I could recommend is _One Hundred Demons_. I like her stuff but as far as I know she has never been in any daily newpaper. Just a thought!
Larry in Ottawa on 31 Mar 2009 at 4:30 am #
It would be sad if newspapers were to disappear in printed form and would be a real hardship to those who don’t want or refuse to have access to the Internet.
Personally, the majority of the comics I read daily are on the web and not available in newspapers available in my city. If Arlo and Janis were to be included and only available on Comics.com or some similar collection, I would willingly pay a reasonable annual subscription in order to access my personal favorites.
CIDU Bill on 31 Mar 2009 at 6:46 am #
No, wxchick, I never watch CBS Sunday Morning itself. Watching the segments on the internet is just too easy and too convenient.
John in LACA late of PNS on 31 Mar 2009 at 8:38 am #
“CG from MN
Let us not become Luddites (Love spell check) but I decry the disappearance
of the printed word.”
For many reasons there is no reason to grieve for the disappearance of the printed word. Computers, Kendalls (sp?) and all the other electronic doo-dads and gadgets will never be more to adjuncts to hard copies. Oodles of journals and periodicals are not only still printed but are only available ONLY via $ub$cription online. But hey, things change. We don’t use set type any longer either so I am not a TOTAL Luddite.
Portability trumps!
Joyce in Indy on 31 Mar 2009 at 9:02 am #
It’s funny in some ways. The people who are probably keeping (and have kept) the newpaper business alive are people like my parents, who don’t have a computer and, at least in my mom’s case, wouldn’t be able to figure out how to use one. So if the daily paper goes to online only, they will be without a newpaper. I don’t think the majority of the computer-savvy youth really access a daily paper. Here on campus, we have the local paper, USA Today, and the New York Times available for free (at least to the students-the campus pays a premium to have them available). All the students have to do is pick them up out of the bins which are placed all over campus. The first paper to disappear from the bins is the USA Today (news lite). The ones who access news online go to yahoo.com. Most don’t bother to read the local news online, they are mostly interested in entertainment news. Now I know that is a great generalization but it’s only with some maturity that the news will become important to them. Our local newspaper has teamed up with one of the tv stations to share reporting. I don’t know how that is working out but I suspect it’s beneficial to both as it has been going on for some time. And I’m always amazed at the number of people who don’t read comics. None, not at all, not even Dilbert or Peanuts. And freely admit it. I’d be embarrassed to say I don’t read ANY comics. How can you call yourself a well-rounded, educated person if you don’t read some comics now and then?
Sili on 31 Mar 2009 at 2:43 pm #
In addition to Holbrook, Dave Kellett might be worth chatting to. He was semi-contracted with Comics.com in a web-only prescensem, and he – and his readers – got fed up with being kept in Limbo that way (comics.com’s website was notoriously bad at updating back then, too, though).
It’s been though going, I’m sure, but he is making a living off his work now.
Rick in Shermantown, Ohio on 31 Mar 2009 at 6:30 pm #
Larry in Ottawa:
That’s two of us. I hope that others read our posts and leave comments, too.
Mike on 07 Apr 2009 at 6:03 pm #
I’ll echo Neal from Bawston. Put the car on a “cawfee” cup, please.
Kee Hinckley on 07 Apr 2009 at 7:25 pm #
You might be interested in reading the viewpoint from the other side. Here’s a post by the author of Questionable Content, a web comic that supports a full-time staff of two. He’s a bit extreme in his language (as befits the comic), but I think his underlying points are valid. http://qcjeph.livejournal.com/100732.html