I have made the extremely difficult decision to shut down development of Zingerding. The hardest part of this decision is letting down the cartoonists who believed in us and the people I worked with who believed in my vision.

There had been internal changes at Zingerding both with team and strategy. This slowed down development and we kept pushing back our intended launch date. Progress eventually came to a head and I was faced with the task of restructuring so we could continue.  Or continue at all.

This was no light decision and I took my time to make it, with many discussions, writings and sleepless nights. The decision was not based on the challenges of rebuilding, rather Zingerding was trumped by the opportunity and passion that I hold for another vision. Essentially, I am putting it to rest to follow a dream that I believe is more true to myself.

I recognize fully that I am letting down some cartoonists and fans by not bringing to fruition the promises I have made. This saddens and frustrates me, and for that I am so very sorry.

My dream was to revolutionize the comic strip industry. I wanted to give cartoonists the professional opportunities the internet can provide. My vision was concrete. There are other comic strip sites out there but we were trying something truly revolutionary. I don’t believe our concepts were flawed. This happened because our execution was not aggressive enough.

I hope that someone steps up to the plate someday and ushers in the next great era for comic strips. The art form deserves it. Talented and passionate cartoonists deserve it.

Steve Lowtwait
CEO, Zingerding Inc.

There’s a good post over at the Toon Talk forums titled Why Aren’t The “Funnies” Funny Anymore? written by cartoonist, Graeme Frisque.  He explores how the troubles of the newspaper syndicates have lead them to choose “marketable” over “funny”, as well as how popular taste in humor has changed over the years.

The Zingerding Six will be an exclusive group of six talented cartoonists that will usher in the launch of Zingerding.com.  The site will eventually open to all cartoonists, so why are we restricting it in the beginning?

It’s important to have a certain level of quality control at the start.  Zingerding wants to assist in attracting readership to cartoonists of all skill levels.  We believe there is an audience for everyone, but in order to attract any audience, it’s imperative to have higher level comic strips in the beginning so that readers can learn to trust the site.

So what are we looking for in the Zingerding Six?  We’re seeking narrative, multi-panel strips with reoccurring characters, not unlike the form of most newspaper humor comics.  Quality in writing is more important than artistic style but both will be weighed.  We’re also looking for diversity in themes and genres.

We want a group of cartoonists who will be eager to provide feedback to us, to help us shape what Zingerding becomes.  Cartoonist involvement will be important to the comic strip revolution.

We have made a minor change to our “teaser site” at Zingerding.com that could have larger implications.  Through a slight design update, we added a button to the comic strip submission page.  It’s now easier for cartoonists to submit their comic strips to be one of the Zingerding Six.

The other news is that we’ve now got a loose timeline for the closed beta launch for the Zingerding Six.  We’re not ready to announce a hard date yet, but we’re shooting for “late spring”.  We’re going to start ramping up the buzz for launch.

The revolution for comic strips begins soon!

The comic strip community likes to debate the many routes a cartoonist can take – print vs. web, running your own site vs. joining a collective or aggregator, etc.  They are passionate debates and good points are made for all views.  But no matter what path you as a cartoonist decide, it’s still about one thing: creating your art and being good to your readers.

Zingerding.com will be an aggregator site.  We want to bring cartoonists and readers together in one place, through a single platform with a common interface.  I believe this is what readers need to adopt comics online at great scale.

By choosing Zingerding, you may be giving up certain things that are important to you.  If  being able to design and control all aspects of your website, or keeping 100% of your income, is a top priority, then you should run your own site and business.

But you may not have the technical skills, the entrepreneurial desire, or the time to run solo (essentially starting a business).  I reject the notion that to be a “professional” cartoonist online, you need to run your own website.  Sure, the collectives out there aren’t much better, but Zingerding will change that.  If you want to focus on your art instead of building a site, and you desire an automated publishing experience with built-in readership-growing features, Zingerding may be a good match.

One path is not better than the other.  Rather, one path is a better fit for some cartoonists than for others.

It’s been a little quiet lately on the Zingerfront.  The holiday season slowed down development, but we’re ramping things back up now that it’s 2010.  Here are some updates:

Home Page We’re about to roll out an update to the teaser site with a little more clarity, a bold link to the comic strip submission page,  and a few other minor changes.

Submissions We’re still looking for cartoonists for the Zingerding Six.  There have been steady signups on our email list but the aforementioned link to the submission page will help.

Forums They are live, though not very pretty.  Development efforts are going into Zingerding.com before we dress up the forum software.  However, they work and you can feel free to comment and ask questions.

Communication This blog and Twitter remain our primary outlets for connecting with the comic-loving community.  Please subscribe and follow.

Development Finally, we’re marching closer to the site’s launch.  I know many cartoonists are waiting patiently for word on timing.  I’m leveling with you here – we cannot make any estimates at this point.  We’re making progress and when we have a better feeling for when we might launch, I’ll let you know.

Revolution Big things don’t happen overnight.  It takes planning and the buildup of small action upon small action, until change starts to grab momentum.  We’re still taking our first small actions.  We invite you to take them with us.

Twenty-ten is going to be an important year for comics online. Things have been a little slow lately because of the holiday season but we’ll be ramping up shortly after the new year. We’ll soon be making a big announcement regarding the launch of Zingerding so stay tuned.

Happy New Year from our team!

I started to set up the Zingerding forums last week, then slipped on a patch of ice and broke my wrist in six places…after a few days of rest (and lots of Percocet…) I’m back at it. :)

We did a fair bit of research to determine what forum software to use. The Forum Matrix website provides a nifty comparison tool that was quite helpful. We settled on Vanilla, in large part because of the level of flexibility they provide.

We’ll be updating the look & feel as my left-handed typing skills improve — visit the Zingerding forums and let us know if there is something you’d like to see.

Zingerding has launched online forums available at http://forums.zingerding.com. They aren’t much to look at yet but we’ve posted some important information for cartoonists.

Cartoonist Terms and Conditions. This is the agreement between Zingerding and cartoonists that will publish on Zingerding.com when the site goes live.

Cartoonist FAQs. While the terms and conditions cover the legal info, they don’t quite cover all the questions cartoonists need answered at this time. If you have a question that’s not covered, please ask in the forum.

We posted this information in the forums so that anyone can easily discuss the topics. We’ll be checking in to be part of the conversation as well.

There’s been some concerns about our lack of publicly posted terms while taking submissions. We’ll be posting them shortly. Stay tuned.

Dec. 11 Update: It’s important that we say exactly what we want when we publish the terms so we’re taking the time to do it right.  Wording matters. I’ve been ill and another of our team had a minor injury today.  Please be patient with us.

Dec. 13 Update: I know we said the terms would be posted a couple days ago, but a slip on ice and a seriously broken wrist delayed us. We apologize for keeping those who have been waiting. They are now posted on our forums.