Who's on this forum?

[Lee Nordling]

I'm curious to know who's coming by to visit these days.

--Lee

[Stephen Winslow]

Hi there, I came here to buy student essays... just kidding, I was actually thinking about trying to develope a submission for the syndicates after spending some time trying to improve my artwork, until I read the "To syndicate or not to syndicate, that is the question" thread. Ouch...
I've been lurking for quite a while, and I still might post a few of my strips, eventually.

[Malc]

Hi Lee, and all the other Toon Talkers.
I'm pretty much absent these days but that's not because I fell out with anyone. I did agree with Darrin's shutting down of the politics blog, because it was getting bogged down in virtually the same people throwing the same opinions around, and of course with politics there's no real possibility of changing another person's point of view. It seemed often that one or two people were the only names, and I pretty much got turned off it.
I've been on Toon Talk, in its various forms, since (I think) 1999, and for a lot of that time it was a hotbed of discussion, we had a massive thread here at one stage which attracted a great deal of attention from the webtoon crowd, but as opinions have settled, the print media slowly sets in the West, and the web increasingly DOESN'T look like the golden future for cartoonists many said it would be, I think people are wandering round like the survivors of the WTC bombings, all covered with the grey dust of confusion.

[Lee Nordling]

A colorful portrayal of Toontalk history, Malc.

Welcome back.

--Lee

[Malc]

>>I always felt (as you know) that syndication wasn't as long-odds as most indicated; I wrote that article (around 2000) that suggested a VERY good, well-written, well-drawn, somewhat inspired strip actually had odds closer to one-in-six of selling (then one-in-five of lasting).<<

Mike (I think that was your quote, buddy) I beg to differ, mainly because there is no way that syndicates know what a "well written, well drawn somewhat inspired strip" looks like.
The major syndicates have virtually no track record in talent spotting. The people in the decision-making roles in the major syndicates have no track record of success either before they took the job or afterward. I've often used the sporting analogy of the football team and the football league. If major cartoon syndicate execs were football coaches they would have been sacked decades ago.
In my opinion the only syndicate chooser worth a light is Amy Lago at WPWG, a virtual minnow in the pond, but since the tragic death of an exec at a different agency, maybe that situation has changed, I don't know because I am no longer interested in submitting work.
What I have been a great pains to point out over these many years (much to the chagrin and ire of many involved in the biz) is that syndicates have never been the friend of cartooning, only of specific cartoonists who do well out of the system.
This comes as a shock to cartoonists, most of whom can't conceive of any other system, but then again Josef Fritzl's daughter (the one who he kept locked in the basement for 24 years) knew no other life either.

What the major syndicates have done is staff their upper echelons with incompetents (usually long term execs) and because they can't create, spot or nurture the best talent, they further dumb down a market which was already paid so badly that only those who would crawl over broken glass to be syndicated (plus work for nothing) now submit work. The newspapers don't care, the funnies page is of no interest to most editors, all they know is that content must be supplied regularly, and the syndicates take care of that problem for free. The syndicates themselves are only interested in maintaining their shelf space. If they could do so with Sudoku or blank space, they would do so gladly.
No talented writers or artists seriously look at cartoon syndication as an income stream when they could be writing scripts for TV or illustrating elsewhere. Over the last thirty years the syndicates have created a wasteland.

Back to the football analogy: Syndicate editors, incapable of creating exciting winning teams with great players, drive the crowds away, and instead of shutting up shop, arrange with other crap teams to play in empty, council sponsored stadiums for nothing. Thus you have pages in newspapers filled with irrelevant, outdated garbage that no-one reads, whose existence is propped up by the fact that newspapers haven't woken up to the situation.

[Lee Nordling]

Hey, Malc.

I really don't agree with you, perhaps because I've been in the syndicate trenches, and have a better idea of the day-to-day issues that come into play, the stuff that goes beyond picking a good strip.

I think many of your instincts are spot on, though; comics editors, with only one or two notable exceptions (and I'm not getting into a who-knows-what discussion in public), KNOW what they can sell (which may or may not be a self-defeating proposition), but don't have a great craft of comics, the kind of craft that's REALLY required to straighten out a Bill Watterson (who missed with his first version of Calvin & Hobbes, then got it straightened out with the right INSTINCTIVE tip). I write "instinctive" because that's what most syndicate submission editors run on: instinct.

And, while their advice TOO-OFTEN doesn't address the problem, their instincts are great at spotting A problem, if not the right one.

Until you've been where I've been, and looked through box after box of submission, hoping for a gem, rough or otherwise, and being able to tell in about six seconds whether something deserves a second look, and working with talented cartoonists who are ALMOST there, but don't have the craft to be able to address responsible notes--I've spend HOURS doing this, so I know the notes were constructive--then it's awfully easy to call syndicate morons incompetent, which really misses the point: they are VERY good at knowing what they THINK they can sell, and that's determined by market as much as by taste.

Until cartoonists expand their understanding of the nature of the comic strip as PRODUCT (in addition to art form), they're really not qualified to evaluate somebody ELSE'S job performance).

As I wrote, I disagree, but that's only my two cents.

--Lee

[Malc]

...and it's healthy to have respectful disagreement. All I've ever done is throw my two cents' worth in too, but it's amazing how irate people get.
I'm a professional cartoonist, and have been for about 35 years or so. I know what it's like to develop and maintain a long-running strip, I've also worked as a hack cartoonist for one of the biggest newspapers in the world, I've been an Key animator, producer, scriptwriter, editor, director, and a number of other things in the cartoon/animation business in my time. As a hard headed businessman as well as an artist I pretty much understand what "product" is. "Product" is a businessman's term, not an artist's. It's not necessarily a dirty word per se, but when businessmen interfere with an artistic endeavour, that endeavour is certain to fail.
Initially, Picasso painted pictures from the heart. He created. Once he started thinking of them as "product" he merely signed canvases and let some schmuck paint the lines.

An Australian cartoonist returned from the Reubens in the US some years ago and announced that he had been to the mountain top and had heard from the great sages what the market was looking for. Niche cartooning.
"No more kid strips", he said, "there has to be a new, fresh angle". Shortly afterwards, "Unfit" was commissioned, followed by a number of other, idiotic concepts which I won't name, many of which have since gone to the wall. The syndicate boobs know nothing, but you don't have to know much in an uncompetitive market. When the nation's editors won't even look at independent features, in the certain knowledge that if they were any good they'd be syndicated (what a vicious circle THAT is) the market is hog tied, gift wrapped and left to a few gatekeepers to run as they see fit.
What those guys have done with the privilege is to steadily drag cartooning as a profession and an art form down into the mire, and a poorly paid mire at that.

I repeat: Syndication is almost as old as newspaper cartooning, but syndication since the seventies in particular has been cartooning's enemy. Instead of guaranteeing a fresh and open market, with competition and a steady introduction of excellent strips, it has guaranteed ridiculously long runs to features which should have been put out to pasture long ago, certainly well before they slumped into senility or the sons of the original creators took them over.
These points used to be debated vociferously on the toon sites, but now they're ignored, and no wonder - no-one cares about cartoon strips anymore! Syndicates have succeeded in petrifying a whole industry. Seriously, no-one gives a crap.

I once posited two thoughts on the Wisenheimer: One, that more people got syndicated because of "who-you-know" than any other method, and Two, if all the features in all the papers were cancelled tomorrow for six months, only ten would reappear by public demand. Newspapers would realise that they had been wasting space and money on dud strips for decades.

I was castigated for those views, but on Point One, I researched the slates of each of the syndicates and found that significant percentages of syndicated features were "inherited" strips. I PROVED that you were more likely to get a job on a syndicated strip than get your strip syndicated. That put a lot of peoples noses out of joint. The truth has a habit of hurting.

[Dan Boris]

Malc,

Wow! Fantastic thread! At the risk of blacklisting myself from the powerful galactic federation of Syndicates, I have to say that I agree with you!

I have only been a member of this forum for a mere week or so. I found it by chance, but after seeing who started this forum, and the fact that both Jesse Cline and Mike Cope are regulars here I thought I'd sign up...

I was also one of the former finalists in the "comic strip superstar" contest, and that is when I started talking with Jesse (whose "Walking Upright" by-the-way I am picking to advance to the final 10, along with Scott DaRos' "Stiw Kit" - but that is just my humble opinion of course!).

My comic is called "Hoxwinder Hall".
If you'd like to take a look at my entry, you can find it here: http://hoxwinderhall.blogspot.com/
Please feel free to give me your brutally honest opinions of the comic - good and or bad!

I'm a graphic artist. I currently work for an education company called "K12". My first love was always Cartooning, and the whole reason I even got into Art was to one day become a "syndicated" comic strip artist. I'm here because I want to continue evolving/growing as a cartoonist, and hearing the insights of other cartoonists & cartooning enthusiasts is a very good way to do that.

Best,
Dan

[Jarrett Osborne]

Hi Lee,

We have spoken before on older toon talk posts. I was honored then, and I am honored now. My name is Jarrett Osborne and I currently have two strips on the go, both of which have gone through many changes over the years. The Pursuit of Mandy and Some Day Hero, those are my two strips, and on December 20th, some Day Hero is relaunching.

I have never been afraid to judge my own strip and bench it if I thought it needs work and could be better. I would love for you to visit my site, Mandy currently has a fun, unique story line going where a game of Survivor is taking place with many of the web's comic characters...Sherman was just introduced.

http://thepursuitofmandy.com/?p=309

Anyways...I have made some ground in the comic community and I am generally liked. I also am proud to say Rod told me F-Off on my first ever toon talk post years ago...we have been friends ever since. ;)

Jarrett

[Lee Nordling]

Hey, Jarrett; I recall the chats, and your work.

You've got a fun, eclectic style.

Now, here's the comment you may/could/should choose to ignore. I think your color palette is too bright, with far too much in the same value range, and that makes differentiation between visual elements tough. The creature at the end of the survivor island would've worked much better if I didn't need to look closely (beyond the color) to see what it was.

Wild color is fine--I'm not suggesting you conform to somebody else's aesthetic--but right now, it doesn't survive the "squint" test. Squint at it, and the images become indiscernible, when we SHOULD still be able to tell what's going on.

Just my two cents.

I think you've got a wacky (in a good way) style that's fun to look at.

--Lee