Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Tom Spurgeon: Six Comics Problems

Some thought provoking comments on the state of the comics industry by Tom Spurgeon at his Comics Reporter blog.

On comic strips:

"Success and failure is measured by editorial placements, not viewer eyeballs or reader satisfaction, and the decision whether or not to run a strip is driven to a large extent by factors like nostalgia, apathy and fear of incitement."

1 comment:

Mark Anderson said...

I read that too; what a great article.

Tom's blogging always makes me feel like a poser.

I write about Henry's drawings and food and stuff, and he's always coming out with insightful (and lengthy) entries.

Anyway... I think he's right. the comics would be very different if, like movies, they were judged on a sort of comic box office, but how to do that in the newspaper system?

Reader polls are universally cursed by cartoonists.

Do we just wait until papers are mostly online anyway and count the clicks?

Got me!