I’ve explained recently what is a newspaper syndicate. Born from the need to distribute comics to multiple papers, it has since become an antiquated system catering to a struggling market. Newspaper circulation is falling as readers take to the internet for news and inadvertently leave comic strips behind. What’s an alligator to do?

In reviewing the syndication process, I see primarily faults, especially from the cartoonist’s point of view. Being a comic strip character myself, a creation exclusively of my cartoonist, it is only natural for my bias to lean in this direction. I was created this way!

That being said, I’ll start with a bit of praise for the syndicate. Though they are first and foremost a business, the people in employ of the syndicates certainly hold a passion for comic strips. They want what sells and what sells is well written, well drawn (usually) and funny strips. To seek that out from the thousands of annual submissions they receive takes a great deal understanding of the medium and its audience. They want to give up-and-coming artists the opportunities of national and international exposure, to be part of nurturing great successes. If syndicates had it their way, the comic sections would be expanding with more diversity of comics (especially about alligators), more space for them and more readers.