Syndication: The childhood dream

The conversation about becoming a syndicated cartoonist, and whether it's even a realistic dream these days, comes up every now and then on some of the cartoonists forums I frequent, and it's probably the hardest part of being a cartoonist to deal with these days. The reason being, is that the golden age of newspaper cartooning is dead and gone, never to return.

Newspaper circulations are down dramatically as more and more people turn to the internet for their news and entertainment. Not only that, but newspapers themselves have been shrinking the comic strips to the size of postage stamps more and more each year, or cutting comics altogether.

But even with all that doom and gloom, the dream is hard to let go.

The reason being, any working cartoonist today that grew up reading the comics section spread out in the middle of the livingroom floor, doing their best to copy Peanuts or Hagar the Horrible, while dreaming about one day becoming a syndicated cartoonist, and being rich and famous, has had this dream at one time or another.

As I've become older, and have worked as a professional for about 18 years now, I've learned from those that are syndicated about the realities of what it's really like to be a syndicated cartoonist, writing and drawing 365 cartoons a year, no matter whether you're sick, don't feel funny, or regardless of what's going on in your personal life.... you have to produce. And those that become rich and famous are very far and few between!

And if you think producing 365 funny cartoons a year is easy, I can tell you now, it's not easy.

But you know what, it's still hard to let go of that dream. Because it's that dream I had when I was a kid. It was that dream that drove me to spend hours and hours drawing while other kids were playing outside, it's what drove me to read every drawing, cartooning, anatomy, writing, and how-to book I could lay my hands on! In other words, it's that dream that drove me to become a cartoonist.

But what do you do when your abilities finally catch up to where you're finally good enough to pursue your dream, but achieving the dream, at least the way you dreamed about it, is no longer possible?... Or metamorphed into something completely different from what you were working toward?

For me, I plan to keep pursuing syndication because that was, as still is my dream. And I would like to be syndicated at least once, even for a short time, so I can at least say I achieved my dream. Then, I'll rework my dreams to fit todays world.

And that's where the internet comes in, but that's another post.......

Edit tweak: This post was inspired by a cartooning buddy of mine, the incredibly talented Mike Cope, who is sending out his latest creation to the syndicates. All the best Mike, I wish you every success! You can see his blog here where he talks about his submission.