Comments on: Review: W.T. Duck by Aaron Johnson

By: Alan Jones

Alan Jones — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 23:13:20 +0000

Wow, WTD is fabulous, I am a new fan and admirer of your work, Aaron! The writing is just great. Congrats and best of luck. If I can just find some good quality info specific to those in/outs of the biz as Wiley wrote, maybe one day I’ll be joining you!

By: Chris Laudermilk

Chris Laudermilk — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 14:10:57 +0000

Too bad on the release delay, but what’s a few more months after the long road to get to this point? I’ve been reading the strip since the beginning and always thought it was good enough to get here.

I’ve also always though it compared well with Dilbert. Same efficiency and same cutting humor. Both are daily reads.

By: Wiley Miller

Wiley Miller — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 12:34:12 +0000

Launching a new syndicated feature today in newspapers is nearly an impossible task simply because of the dire state of newspapers. Almost every day, you can read reports in Editor and Publisher of more newspapers making drastic cuts in personnel, which only adds more burdens on editors, as many newspapers today don’t even have a features editor anymore. Quite literally the last thing on their minds right now is making changes in their comics section, as they have so many other things to deal with on a daily crisis basis. And launching a strip, even in good times, in August is an iffy proposition, as editors aren’t paying attention to this stuff during summer. This, I would think, would have been compounded by the two political conventions happening back to back in August.

All of this has absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the feature. This is why we try to explain to those who are trying to break in that there’s so much more to syndication than just creating a good feature. There have been many wonderful features that have failed due to circumstances beyond their control. One needs to learn about the business they want to work in if you want to be successful.

By: D.D.Degg

D.D.Degg — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 00:51:56 +0000

Don’t know why, but the release date for “W.T.Duck” has been moved back to January 5, 2009 according to this page:
http://www.amuniversal.com/ups/newsrelease/?view=885

By: Alex Hallatt

Alex Hallatt — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 22:07:48 +0000

WTD is a great asset for Universal – Aaron has done all the ground work, developing the strip and building a community that reads it. I got into it because it was one of the first strips available as a widget in the Mac dashboard (though now I read it through Google Reader).

Aaron is tech-savy, smart and funny. WTD will continue to do well and it is going to be interesting to see if Aaron really needs Universal, or whether he’ll end up pulling a Rich Stevens on them…

By: Garey Mckee

Garey Mckee — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 22:05:35 +0000

WTD has good art and great writing. I just wish it had kept it’s original full name as the title of the strip! LOL

By: anne hambrock

anne hambrock — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 21:18:10 +0000

Congrats and best of luck!

By: Norm Feuti

Norm Feuti — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 18:02:33 +0000

Ditto on what Mark Buford said.

Best of luck to you in January, Aaron!

By: Rich Diesslin

Rich Diesslin — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 17:56:43 +0000

My guess is the “soft market” this summer means they did not meet their subscription goals yet but hope have more newspapers on-board for a January launch. I am guessing though.

By: Mark Buford

Mark Buford — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 16:43:38 +0000

Well written strip. Very funny.
Aaron, use the time between now and January to get as far ahead as you can. It’ll afford you some vacation time if you want it (or if you just want to take a few days off to decompress from the daily grind).
Keep up the great work!