So I followed a link to this rather charming debate between web and print cartoonists. The story is the same but the protagonists included Mike Krahulik and Scott Kurtz of Penny Arcade and PvP fame respectively. The argument started over an article focusing on the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists’ decision to include speakers at their convention covering how to expand artists work online and beyond traditional means of print syndication.
Some people who I presume (I apologise if this is wrong) are print artists or friends/backers of print artists objected to the planned content when the word “webcomics” was uttered. Soon after, web cartoonists and their backers arrived on the scene in numbers and a pretty heated exchange took place.
From my point of view, a lot of the posts from both sides were sarcastic and catty in nature and didn’t show either side in a pleasant light. Print dismissed the web as a place for the hobbyist, the amateur where there is no quality control or ability to make money and is essentially an area of doom for comics. Web proponents countered with stinging barbs saying that print was doomed, the future was the web and that artists who didn’t want to change were dinosaurs and pretty rude ones at that.
There is a hint of truth in both of these statements but both cases have been overstated to the extreme by two parties locked in such intractable conflict that hysterical accusations and bitter recriminations are the norm. Print & Web don’t like each other…or do they?
I’m in both camps, it is in my nature as a Unionist and a Federalist; I see both points of view and I believe there is obviously room for both and tremendous opportunities.
Starting off with the plight of print. Yes there is a recession and yes people are turning to the web for news more and more but no, print isn’t going to die a horrible death. Not now and not for another fifteen years. Unless you can make a £7/$10 Kindle as well as an easy way of picking up news media (be it via wireless or via contactless technology at a news vendor/newsagent in the street) then people will wait until they get to their PC at work before checking out digital news.
But this doesn’t excuse print artists. For example, why on earth hasn’t anyone taken the syndication model online? The 2008 US Presidential Election (and even the French Presidential election of 2007) proved that web based news, politics and action blogs and sites are immensely popular. They are not neiche and they are not availible to a select few. You can make the same argument about weeklies like The Economist or upmarket newspapers from the New York Times to The Guardian.
I would expect that these major sites like MoveOn and the Huffington Post are crying out for someone to do them an editorial cartoon. And what about Slate or other online editions of existing newspapers? Someone, somewhere in traditional print media has seriously dropped the ball on this and now opinion is so entrenched and so stubbornly rooted that the industry risks death (although I say again that this is not gauranteed if they take action).
One of the main strengths of legendary but now sadly defunct weekly Punch (which was the father of all weeklies in my opinion and one which The New Yorker is strongly based on) was not only its ability to house multiple editorial cartoonists within one issue but to generate extra revenue by re-selling prints from previous issues. If Punch had managed to survive to the Internet era (instead of selling its soul and going down market like it did) then I think it would have survived and that editorial cartoonists and marketing their material online would have been a vital part of that process.
My impression is that print artists are being woefully misinformed and on that basis I wholeheartedly welcome the AAEC’s decision to promote the web as an alternative revenue stream because the reality is that some editorial cartoonists are already supplementing income and gaining popularity by putting their stuff on the web and appealing to new audiences across the globe.
Editorial cartoons online such as This Modern World, Filibuster and Cox and Forkum have been successful on both the left and right wings of the political spectrum. There is room for more.
By the same token, it isn’t all rosy for Webcomics either. This comic is a labour of love for me and I don’t expect to make a profit out of it. However, I hold especial respect and regard to Penny Arcade for laying down the marker for how webcomics can be fun, free and profitable. It just means that you have to work harder, take on side projects and basically be more of a capitalist in what you do.
Extra work may seem galling to some but that is the simple reality of the web; the riches are there if you are willing to put the neccessary work into it.
The Penny Arcade guys in the above bitch fest got an extraordinary amount fo disrespect from people who basically surfed onto their page, saw their strip for the day and instantly dismissed them as niche or small fry or even the exception to the rule which apparently is “you can’t make money from free.” What they seem to have missed are the side projects, the publicity gained from charity drives and organising and profiting from the biggest gaming and enthusiasts convention in North America.
Penny Arcade deserves a round of applause, not a cacophany of cynical sneers and this is what lets the print side down.
I do hope editorial cartoonists survive and I hope they make the successful transition but to do that they have to do what Tom Cruise once said in Jerry Maguire:
“Help me, help you!“
