THIS MODERN WORLD

The only way cartoonists could get even less respect would be if we presented our work in the form of handmade knit doilies thrust upon random strangers on the street.

Some weeks just make you tired.

(edited this one slightly … but I am taken aback at how little coverage has been generated so far by the nation’s largest altweekly chain deep-sixing all cartoons across their entire chain … it’s quite unprecedented in our little industry…)

… adding also: The more I think about this, the more it feels like a pivotal moment, beyond the immediate concerns of my own career. If the takeaway lesson here is that altweekly cartoons can be wiped off the slate without consequence, it may really be the beginning of the end for this particular genre.

Then again, the papers could realize how integral cartoons are to their success, reinstate the ones they dropped, add many new ones, give everyone a raise, and find caring homes for the monkeys that subsequently fly out of my butt. You never know!

The special fine art paper I ordered finally arrived and I just did a test print … and it’s shockingly gorgeous. I’m really blown away but how much difference the paper can make. Those of you who ordered these will be very pleased.

… this is how good these look: I almost never put any of my own work on display around the house — it’s work, I stare at it all day — but I am going to hang one of these up. They’re really just stunning.

This is a relatively new printer that I’ve been underutilizing. Now that I see what it can do — any thoughts on what the next limited edition print should be? I was thinking about the shoe tossing cartoon — or are we all just too sick of the Bushies at this point? Input welcome.

… one more update b/c I just stepped back into my studio to shut down the computer and took another look at the prints: those of you who ordered these, your expectations will be blown out of the water. Clearly many things in life do not work out as well as we might hope — it’s lovely when some small thing does. Always worthwhile to embrace that.

Several people have written to inquire about the possibility of reader subscriptions or sponsorships, and I appreciate the thought and will look into it. But this isn’t only about the lost income — I can survive that hit, at least until things get even worse. It’s also about losing the readership, everybody who’s used to picking up these papers to see the cartoon each week. I mean, christ, look at that list — Dallas, Ft. Lauderdale, Houston, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Nashville, Orange County, Kansas City, Denver, Seattle, New York. (On top of which I lost the VVM paper in St. Louis earlier in the year, again due to budgetary cutbacks.) That’s a lot of cities!

The irony is, I deliberately set out at the beginning of my career to make sure my eggs were in a lot of different baskets, so no one person could do me this kind of damage. What I didn’t count on was the baskets themselves deciding to merge — i.e., the consolidation of the paper chains. And isn’t that working out well for all concerned.

From my friend Jen Sorensen’s blog:

Now, cartoons are cheap content that keep a certain number of readers habitually picking up the paper week after week. Those readers might not take the time to write the editor if they disappear; they’ll just stop picking up the paper. Or they’ll write us to complain. I do understand that low ad revenue means low page counts, which means space is at a premium. (Space is a mysteriously complex issue even in “normal” times.) But it seems to me that the few crumbs — and I do mean crumbs — these papers save by axing cartoons is self-defeating. Heaven help us if the cost of cartoons makes or breaks the industry.

I’m actually not as pessimistic as some people about the fate of altweeklies. I think the web blows as an advertising vehicle for local businesses — who doesn’t tune out the ads on a cluttered web page? If I owned a restaurant, I would rather put my money in a print ad. I actually look at the more interesting print ads. Altweeklies are community, and advertising in one makes you part of that community. If the papers can hang on through Great Depression II: Revenge of the Credit Default Swaps, I think they’ll do okay when the economy improves. At least, the ones that aren’t leveraged up the ass.

I hope she’s right. I love the altweeklies, I really do. It would be a diminished world without them. But a lot of bad business decisions were made over the past decade, and we’re definitely going to see some of these papers fold as a result.

Overall, though, I’m probably inclined to agree — there’s still a place in the world for altweeklies, and more to the immediate point, there’s still a place in those altweeklies for cartoons, if their editors are only wise enough to see it. And remember: the path to editorial wisdom is paved with voluminous reader feedback.

Oh, look! Here’s a handy directory. Follow the links and you can usually find contact info.

Update … cartoonist Derf’s statement on the situation:

OK. This is it. We’ve reached the apocalyptic final struggle for the future of cartoons.

Village Voice Media is the largest group of weekly newspapers in the biz. It is suffering from
the ills that have befallen the rest of the newspaper industry: dwindling revenues and withering
readership. Their corporate response, which was delivered to me Monday, is to “suspend”
all cartoons across the chain, said suspension to last at least through the rest of the first quarter,
and quite possibly beyond. That’s right. NO more cartoons. None.

This is very probably a fatal blow to me. Not only is it a significant income hit, but these are
six of the largest and finest papers in the weekly industry. I’ve been in the pages of some of
these publications for years. The Riverfront TImes was one of my first papers. I started run-
ning there in 1991! This isn’t about me “sucking ” either. Since I won the Robert F. Kennedy
Award in 2006, one of the highest honors bestowed on a cartoonist, I’ve been losing papers
steadily. The reason cited is always budget cuts. Always.

I want to stress this isn’t a good vs. bad guy situation. This company has been very good to
me over the years and I like and respect the individual editors. VVM publishes outstanding
papers, full of great and important work. I’d like to think I was a part of that.

The newspaper industry overall, both the daily and weekly “alternative” press, is in a state
of total panic right now. 2008 was the worst year I’ve ever had, with panicking editors
cutting cartoons right and left. Dailies, for all the suicidal moves they have made, at least
aren’t axing cartoons. They run wretched ones, to be sure, but they recognize how vital
comics are. For years, weekly papers have bragged that they will flourish after daily papers
bite the dust. I believed that once. But over the past few years, weeklies have commited the
very same short-sighted mistakes that are killing dailies. Weeklies should be ADDING
features and content, especially cartoons, which are both popular and inexpensive. Instead
their response seems to be “let’s give our readers LESS to read!” Yeah. Wonder how that will
work out for them?

The rest.

Where’s my government bailout?

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Perfect timing!