Last month, I blogged about newspaper syndication, explaining what it is and giving them some praise. However, the system is faulty more than it is supportive of the cartoonist, the newspaper and the syndicate itself. Why is this? Simply because the business of newspapers comic strips has changed over the decades, even before the internet. Syndication was in fact a pretty good system at one point and parts of it still are.

Though the business has changed, the syndication system has not adapted well. The result is not so much in how comic strips are distributed, rather in what has happened to the funny pages. They have become stagnant with a lack of fresh new comic strips.

A business must grow to not only succeed, but to survive. Growth comes from continuous higher returns. The life of a comic strip used to end when a cartoonist retires or dies. The result is a sudden loss of income for the syndicate. But this provides a great opportunity to introduce a new strip, right? The problem is that the new strip cannot make as much money as the old strip, because it takes time for the new one to gain popularity and readership. This is then a financial loss for the syndicate. Their growth is stunted.

The syndicate’s answer to this problem is to continue the old strip as either reruns or under penmanship of a new cartoonist. This way, they avoid having to take a loss and can at least keep their current level of income from that strip, even if it is no longer substantially gaining readership because it’s like 30+ years old! Throw into the mix several syndicates competing for that rare open slot and you have a tough situation. Newspapers, cartoonists and you, the readers suffer.

Do you think there is a better answer? Let me ask you my dear blog readers, what do you think can re-ignite the funny pages, the same old comic strips or fresh new ones?

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but Charles Schulz died on Feb. 12, 2000. He personally wrote and drew every single Peanuts comic strip without an assistant for nearly 50 years. His death should have marked the end of Peanuts’ syndication.

Now I know what you’re asking. “But Marilla, don’t lots of comics continue after an artist’s death?” Yes they do and unfortunately, it is quite common. However in these cases, another artist picks up the brush and continues the saga. Schulz’s personal dedication to his craft would have been quite dishonored if someone else were allowed to continue the strip.

The newspapers, so fearful of losing readership don’t want to give up the immensely popular Peanuts whom millions of readers adore. United Feature Syndicate distributed it to thousands of newspapers for decades, certainly one of their top money-makers. Afraid to lose that revenue, they (along with Schulz’s estate) decide to reprint old strips as “Classic Peanuts”. This is what you see in the papers today.

Now here is the main reason why this is bad for the funny pages: There is less room for new comics! How are they (syndicates and newspapers) to find the next Peanuts level success if they limit their opportunities? Do they plan on running Classic Peanuts for another 50 years? How deep in fear will they get before readers simply get tired of rerun comics? Has this terrible precedent been set and will we one day be reading Vintage Doonesbury, Retro Ziggy, Antique Garfield and Archaic Dilbert?

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.

Disclaimer: We don’t condone the use of illegal substances here at Zingerding. Our position is strictly about the publishability of the comic strip.

In the last several posts, Hank posed the question of whether those Get Fuzzy strips are appropriate for the mainstream press. We believe they are. Why? Two reasons.

First, although the humor is centered around marijuana, the strip isn’t taking a position on the subject. In fact, the joke itself is that Bucky is completely ignorant of his references to the drug. Rob never makes mention of them as related to drugs. He acts in a neutral, bipartisan way, that they are “misleading” and “could use a little editing.”

And editing is what they got when they were banned from newspapers. The second reason we believe they should be published is the right to free speech and equality in the press. Why in a newspaper could there be in-depth articles about the war on drugs detailing the hardship of users and dealers, but not a purposely ambiguous comic strip where the zinger is based on ignorance? Comics come in all kinds. If you want sweet and innocent, read Family Circus. If you want off-beat and sometimes edgy, read Get Fuzzy.

We think cartoonist Darby Conley did a masterful job of handling a subject he knew would be controversial. Controversy is okay. It doesn’t need to be banned from the public eye. Controversy sparks thinking and the formation of one’s own opinions. That’s a good thing.