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Making Money In Cartooning: It's Not The Newspapers
There was a time when a cartoonist had to be newspaper syndicated to "be somebody" (with apologies to Steve Martin in "The Jerk"). But even then, as now, the real money was not in newspapers. Besides, the chances of becoming a part of a major newspaper syndication are close to a million to one. One should just buy lottery tickets.
There was a time when a cartoonist had to be newspaper syndicated to “be somebody” (with apologies to Steve Martin in “The Jerk“). But even then, as now, the real money was not in newspapers. Besides, the chances of becoming a part of a major newspaper syndication are close to a million to one. One should just buy lottery tickets.
Cartoon money is made with hard goods such as mousepads and coasters and aprson, not newspapers. Sure there are a few bucks in newspapers but not a lot. It is noted that the late great Charles Schulz of Peanuts fame made about 80 million dollars in art licensing to every million he made in newspaper syndication. This is about the average. A lunch box deal is worth a lot more than the L.A. Times in the crazy business of cartooning.
Here is the way it works (and there are various ways but these are a few examples). An artist has an idea for a piece of art to put on a company’s product. The company likes the art and negotiates a royalty deal in which the artist receives a percentage of all products sold. This can be done from business to business as well. For instance Coca Cola allowing a lunch box maker to put their logo on the lunch boxes. Coke receives a percentage.
Like many businesses, even art licensing has their own association called LIMA.
Occasionally a licensing deal works backwards. A manufacturer, of say, school notebooks will approach Hanna-Barbara and ask for the exlusive rights to license Fred Flintstone (or the entire family) onto a notebook or series of notebooks. This is a little more complicated, but is done all the time and is quite lucrative to both firms.
I startes as an unknown cartoonist thinking I would be syndicated within the first months or so because “my concepts were so good and different”. I was fortunate to learn that was my ego talking. So I approached a several trade journals in need of theme cartoons with their articles and sold them for what I could. I slowly built a portfolio and finally was able to take it to a manufacturer/drop-shipper who was willing to take a chance and make the products with a royalty split. I did not have a licensing agent so my attorney handled the contract for me. It is always a good idea, if your strength is in art and not numbers to have a professional in another area (like an attorney or agent) do that part of the job.
Within a few years, I found other manufacturers who made different products than the once I was currently licensing, and was able to negotiate with them using a similar contract.
The old-school tradition of cartooning was dictated by the big syndication firms. First you become syndicated, then you get to sell your products and create wealth. Those days are gone thanks to the Internet. One can enter the field in the way one feels comfortable. I am yet to be officially syndicated though my cartoons appear worldwide on a daily basis.
If you are new to cartooning, or even a veteran looking for new outlets, the Internet offers many. It does not happen overnight. It took me a decade. But it will happen if one is persistent.
In 1997, I began my cartoon venture metal warehouse in rural Mississippi. I could not even afford a website and didn’t even know how to work the Internet, much less a computer. I bought some of those “For Dummies” books and learned as I worked. Now I have eight domains, seven stores with almost 80,000 products in about 100 different categories , and the most visited offbeat cartoon site on the Internet, Londons Times Cartoons with over 8500 original images and almost 9 million visitors. That’s not so bad for ten year’s work, at least not for me.
One might say I paid a heavy price to get this off the ground. But there are a million stories like mine out there. Mine is but just one. Anything worth having takes hard work. Just enjoy the ride and you’ll see that the benefits are worth more than the pain.