This is something I’ve been following for awhile now before commenting on and if nothing else it’s been a fascinating lesson in human nature and resistance to change. Scott Kurtz is the creator/owner/publisher of a webcomic called PvPOnline.com that has a huge following, of which I am a member, that he’s managed to turn into a full-time job despite the fact that it appears daily on the web for free. He’s done this mainly through sales of merchandise and then eventually publishing comic books with original stories in them—first through Dorkstorm Press and then later through Image Comics. Scott was at the recent San Diego Comic Con and he participated on a panel discussion about the future of the comic strip where he made his announcement that has riled up a number of traditional syndicated cartoonists:
This last year, I was contacted by Universal Press Syndicates about PvP. They know the strip and were very interested in syndicating it as a feature. I would love to see PvP in newspapers and we started talks. I let them know that there were six years of archives available and that I could edit the strips to conform to family paper editorial standards. The only thing I could not do was give up my ownership and rights to my creation.
Under no circumstances would I relinquish my copyright, book deals, merchandise deals, rights to market my strips, etc. If they wanted PvP, we would agree to a newspaper distribution deal and that was it. After six weeks the syndicates returned with their answer: They wanted PvP...all of it. If they could not have the rights to the feature, they weren’t interested. So we parted ways.
But I’ve already become attached to the idea of seeing PvP in the papers, and that’s why I’ve decided to start a new program. In the coming months, I’ll be putting into effect, a program in which papers can receive PVP for free. That’s right, free. They don’t have to pay me a cent for it. I will provide for the papers, a comic strip with a larger established audience then any new syndicated feature, a years worth of strips in advance, and I won’t charge them a cent for it.
That’s right, he’s offering PVP to any newspaper that wants to carry it for free. To an outsider like myself this is a brilliant move and a win-win situation for Scott and the newspapers. PVP already has a large readership and is popular with a demographic that many television networks, let alone newspapers, would kill to get a piece of and appearing in a daily newspaper would likely only increase its popularity which could lead to more merchandising deals and thus greater profits for Scott even if he doesn’t charge the papers anything for the strip. The papers get a popular strip at no cost with an already plentiful amount of material to make use of. So what was the reaction when word of this got out to the syndicated cartoonists? Well if this thread over at ToonTalk.org is any indication then to say a lot of them were less than enthusiastic would be a major understatement. Several folks said it would be impossible—free or not—for Scott to get into any papers without a syndicate. Wiley Miller who does Non Sequitur accused Scott of not doing his research as well as being ignorant of how newspaper editors work and predicted that Scott’s “in for a rude awakening.” Veteran cartoonist and author of the book The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Cartooning Arnold Wagner opined that he’s seen folks try this sort of thing before and it didn’t work then, probably won’t work now. Illustrator Bob Burnett questioned how one makes money when you’re giving your work away—something Scott is already doing—and suggested it was tantamount to “essentially throwing the profession under the bus.” Newly syndicated “Karen” (no information on who she is or what strip she produces was to be found) complained that Scott’s plan might be good for him, but bad for other cartoonists such as herself as she is not a go-getter and doesn’t have the “time OR the temperment to self-syndicate.” She continued to be baffled on why Scott would give away his comic as opposed to asking at least some money for it even if he self-syndicates concluding with “Where is the logic in this? It’s… why it’s CRAZY talk.” Things got progressively nasty from there. “Dawn156” stopped by PVP and opted to shift tactics from criticizing Scott’s idea to criticizing the strip that day saying, “In just a fast casual reading of today’s gag, I found one misspelling, one “typo,” and one comma error. You couldn’t PAY an editor to run this gag.” What she didn’t realize is that the strip that day was a guest strip by another cartoonist and not Scott’s work (Scott often invites other cartoonists to submit strips while he’s off at a convention). Probably the worst critic though is someone by the name of “Malky” (who also doesn’t provide a real name or what strip he draws, though he claims he’s not syndicated) as he’s dropped all pretense of discussion in favor of dictating to others the nature of reality while demonstrating an amazing ignorance of it.
Which isn’t to say that Scott doesn’t have his supporters, but the vehemence with which some of the opposition has responded in that thread is pretty astounding. Despite what many of them claim it’s pretty clear they’re worried about Scott’s venture undermining the status quo or, at a minimum, damaging the value of their own properties in the process of failing spectacularly. The number of people repeatedly asking Scott to consider charging at least some money for his strip makes this pretty obvious. Malky’s comments would be comical in their short-sightedness if it weren’t for the venom they also tend to contain. Comments like: “Yes, perhaps that’s what cartooning, like America generally, should be looking at. The Brazilian model. Where the nuts come from.” This is particularly amusing considering that not one reply earlier he was complaining about the quality of the debate by saying, “DJ, you sound like a sixth grade tattle taler. Glad you’re having a good time. Nobody’s deliberately twisting words, and your childish glee at what you imagine to be other peoples discomfort cheapens this debate.” I suppose he would know best based on his own comments. As a lesson in hubris, Malky is hard to beat.
Now I don’t claim to know jack shit about syndicated comics, what it takes to become syndicated, or why they’re supposedly the best model anyone can come up with. Nor do I claim to know that Scott’s vision is correct or that he’ll be successful with his undertaking. What I do know is that Scott has managed to be successful enough to make a living doing things his way on the Net despite the great “dotcom crash” and all the people who claimed it wasn’t possible. Part of that was hard work on his part and part of that was probably him not knowing what he was getting into and being too stubborn to pay attention to the naysayers. He had his stumbles along the way, but he’s still there and has managed to branch out into comic books in the process which also seem to be doing well. If anyone has a better chance of doing what he hopes to do I’d be hard pressed to name them. While I have no idea if he’ll succeed, I wouldn’t bet against him.
Posted on 12/15/2004 at 05:10 PM 
Posted on 12/15/2004 at 09:33 PM 
It goes a long way toward explaining why our comics page is so lame.
I think it will happen in twenty years, maybe ten. The practice of printing each day’s news on dead trees and delivering to to everyone’s house before sunrise each day has had a good long run, but…
Okay, I’ll jump in here and make a comment or two while Les is pondering his next missive:
Johnny: I really think you are missing the main point that Les is trying to make. He is not claiming that Scott will necessarily succeed or fail; he is saying that Scott should have the opportunity to try his plan, without a bunch of entrenched cartoonists yelling at him about how it won’t work. Maybe it will, and maybe it won’t. He should be able to try it and see.
You state that a web-based model is different from a newspaper model. Again, so what? Logically, it should be impossible to profit from something that you give away for free, and yet somehow Scott has managed to do so. Therefore, Les is willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, and admit that his newspaper plan might just work. Yet to you, this is a statement of unequivocal support for Scott’s plan. I frankly don’t see how you follow this logic.
“Mommies apron.� Wow, you seem to have trouble making an argument without resorting to personal attacks.
You do seem to contradict yourself with regard to devaluing your work. One paragraph you say that, as an editorial cartoonist, Scott isn’t going to devalue your work…and then in another paragraph, you state that his plan devalues the work of all cartoonists. So either an editorial cartoonist is not a real cartoonist, or you have contradicted yourself.
As for people working for no pay, that’s part of capitalism. Deal with it.
To me, the most ludicrous part of this whole thing is that the system is obviously flawed, as Bill Watterson has so famously pointed out. With the syndication system in place, comic creators are forced to either work within the system and lose the rights to their work, or not have their work available in newspapers whatsoever, which in the past has been the only way that they could build an audience. So basically, the choices are: make a little money and give up your creation; or make no money. Not much of a choice.
Yet those people who are locked into the system are afraid that if someone else tries a different business model, somehow their small success at the hands of syndicators will be at risk. Don’t you see the obvious flaw in this position? If you don’t try something new and show others that there are more options, then every new cartoonist will be forced to work within the syndication system, and eventually having the soul sucked out of their creation through merchandising and syndication ownership…and that’s the best case scenario.
Watterson has gone on and on about how the system favors the syndicators, at the expense of the comic creators. And yet you are afraid of anything that will upset this system. That simply makes no sense to me. You talk about how giving something away for free hurts others within the industry, when that is obviously not true, as shown by numerous other people in numerous other markets. In short, your points seem to be contradictory at best, or baseless in shortsighted at worst.