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Cage match: Watterson vs Schulz; and the selling out of the comic strip

Over the weekend an article was posted in the Los Angeles Review of Books by Luke Epplin contrasting the careers of Bill Watterson and Charles Schulz and their approach to commercializing their strips (or not). It’s an interesting read and I know there is no shortage of opinions on which of the two was “right”.

Here’s a quote:

No matter how humbly he came across in interviews, Schulz was fanatically devoted to cartooning, even if he didn?t valorize the medium in the same way that Watterson did. As passionate as Watterson would later be about the literary and artistic potential of comic strips, Schulz was equally adamant that cartoonists? artistic concerns could not be uncoupled from their commercial obligations to syndicates and newspaper editors. ?Comic strips aren?t art, they never will be art,? he proclaimed in a 1977 Newsday profile. ?Comic strips are not made to last; they are made to be funny today in the paper, thrown away. And that is its purpose, to sell that edition of the newspaper.?

Ginger Meggs cartoonist Jason Chatfield has posted his response on Medium. I like his point that while we can argue the finer points of the argument of comic strip commercialism in 2015, the reality of the way comics are consumed, if you want to live off your art, Watterson’s position isn’t a very strong one.

The old newspaper syndication model did not make the jump across the vast abyss and onto the web, so nowadays young web comic creators have no choice BUT to monetise their creation by creating merchandise. Crowdfunding as a one-off payment for a comic strip?s creation doesn?t appear to have worked as a viable means of employment for a web comic creator.

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