Tag: comics

I’m not getting the readership I want. I want millions of followers and readers. To be fair, some of my cartoons do get millions of eyes on them. Most of course, don’t.

I read one time when the comics were revered, I guess in the 1940s and 1950s, Al Capp would get 80 million readers a day for Li’l Abner. If he got that size readership, I’m sure most of the big name strips at the time, did, also – Blondie, Moon Mullins, Dick Tracy, Little Orphan Annie, etc.

While many cartoonists get many views, many don’t. If you look at sites like GoComics.com, those big cartoonists who you would think have a lot of followers, don’t.

I am resigned to the fact that I have fans that get me. I like to think my cartoons are more cerebral. Not on purpose, it’s just how I think. I’ve noticed when I have a silly cartoon, something that plays to the lowest common denominator, well, that’s when I get all these eyes on my work.

A lot of my cartoons are “stolen.” What I mean is that they are picked up and used in anthologies without permission. These jerks at one publication one time picked up 60 cartoons and published them without permission, then other sites similar to their site (clickbait sites) picked up the cartoons and published them and so on and so on.

When I complained about the 60 cartoons being picked up and rerun, they reduced it down to 30. Guess they don’t know the word plagiarism.

Recently, a friend sent me a site where one of my cartoons was published, it was there along with some others which were illegally picked up and reused. My name and copyright were removed from the cartoon, but I was impressed that my friend recognized my work. He knew my style.

When I complained to the site editor, they said, “We did link back to you!” I had to tell them that they linked back to another site that illegally swiped my cartoon. I guess this is journalism today – anyone can publish anything without anyone editing or checking them. Sort of like I do here on my blog.

But it’s nice to know people think the work is worthy of stealing, or maybe it’s just that they need clickbait and anything will do.

I like to create my cartoons thinking of cartoonist Jason Chatfield’s quote: “Don’t curate your art to what gets likes. Curate it to what you like.” So I’ll keep on doing it that way.

By the way, if you are not subscribing, you can subscribe free via email to my cartoons here – five (that week’s worth) will arrive each Friday plus two short blog posts are published during the week.

Till next time . . .