So you think you can make money as a cartoonist? You’ve read all the Calvin and Hobbes books and now your inspiration is flowing like the hate at a Red Sox/Yankees game? Well, welcome to the fold! Luckily for you, it’s never been easier to write and draw your own comic strip and make oodles of cash at the same time!
See, back in olden times, if one wanted to be in the funny pages, one would submit his/her ideas to something called a “syndicate”. These enormous conglomerates would then review the idea and promptly reject it through a nicely photocopied form letter. This would only inspire the aspiring cartoonist to work harder, hone his joke writing skills and perfect the artwork further, possibly copying jokes or a particular style from one of his many successful heroes. Finally, after years of rejection, a deal would be struck for a lucrative, multi-year deal, catapulting another hero of syndicated cartooning into the limelight. Book deals, calendars and public appearances would follow.
This would be a dream realized, allowing the arrogant rookie to grow into the pompous seasoned veteran, eventually spending his/her days berating the new and upcoming talent as “too edgy” and “snarky”. Of course, one’s legacy was guaranteed to live on forever, as the artist’s feature was sure to grace the pages of the morning paper until long after he/she died, where it would either appear as endless re-runs, or when a comparable artist took over the reigns.
That was the old school. Meet the new, pixelated, “express to success” school…
The Internet! The shiny series of tubes tied together by the Arc Angel Al Gore, back in 1995-ish! With the Internet, or the “web” as the kids call it, becoming a famous cartoonist has never been easier! The hard work yielded from the submission and rejection process of the old syndicate model is a thing of the past! As a matter of fact, the modern day cartoonist’s skills need not involve cartooning skills at all! The preferred skills of today’s inkslinger is a marketing and sales degree, with a possible minor in HTML coding and design . Sound silly? It’s not. In fact, it’s a very serious plan, with many forums, chat rooms and conventions having been established to drive home the very dire seriousness of this new, serious business model. It is highly recommended that one spend many hours a day engaging in these discussions in order to understand just how serious a career in cartoons can be!
And just what is this business model? Free comics, my friend – Uploaded and viewed by all. Forgo the editors of the past and post tomorrow’s comic today! Make sure you blog about it, twitter and Facebook it, however. Today’s audience has little time to remember to check your site everyday, so a constant reminder is required to build your readership.
Congratulations! You are now ready to make some money! All you need to do is design some T-shirts and tote bags printed with your comic characters spewing original, possibly confusing and nonsensical phrases, front the cash to have them printed, make space for inventory, open an online store that can accept credit cards and set yourself up with a shipping and recieving department. Viola! You’re an Internet webcartoonist! Oh, and don’t worry if the quality of your work suffers as a result of the day to day workings of your new business. You weren’t really in this for the cartoons anyway.
Good luck and make sure you look up “satire” in the dictionary before you begin.
