Newspaper subscriptions and advertising have shrunk dramatically in the past few years as Americans have turned more and more to the Internet or television for information.

In recent months, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Rocky Mountain News, the Baltimore Examiner and the San Francisco Chronicle have ceased daily publication or announced that they may have to stop publishing.

In December the Tribune Company, which owns a number of newspapers including The Baltimore Sun, The Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times filed for bankruptcy protection.

Two newspaper chains, Gannett Co Inc and Advance Publications, on Monday announced employee furloughs. It will be the second furlough this year at Gannett.

I have to say that Agnes certainly should be charging 75% less the rate than the rate Zits gets because it isn’t a tenth of the strip Zits is in quality. There’s ittle consulation to the creator of Zits and its fans in Canada that won’t be able to read it in one of the low rent Sun Newspapers.

Our rates for new sales are competitive with all other syndicates, as any newspaper editor will tell you.

The comic strips that have been around for many decades, getting annual rate increases, are the highest items on a newspaper’s invoice. They are also the most vulnerable to cancellation in these economic times.

The comic strips sold at lower prices are typically new features that lack a proven track record. All of the syndicates want to get their strips exposure, so we all frequently offer slightly lower rates on new sales.

Cartoonists with Creators Syndicate have won dozens of Reuben awards and more Pulitzer Prizes than any other syndicate.

The Toronto Sun and the Toronto Star are both fine newspaper companies and are doing what they have to do to succeed in this brutal marketplace, while so many newspapers in the United States are in bankruptcy or have been shut down.

As for our “giving away” comics on the internet, we are offering a revenue sharing program with online newspapers and websites in which they keep the revenue from their ad and we (meaning the syndicate and the cartoonist) keep the revenue from our ad. We have just started this program, but I am very confident that it will result in substantial royalties for all of our cartoonists in the years to come.

In the meanwhile, just ask some of our cartoonists, such as Leigh Rubin, Jerry Van Amerongen, Dave Coverly, Adrian Raeside (who is, indicdentally, another Canadian cartoonist) or the legendary Morrie Turner how they feel about having their work suddenly appear every day in the online edition of the Arizona Republic, where millions of readers are seeing their cartoons.

Our goal and theirs is to see their work in thousands of websites, with a combined total of hundreds of millions of readers and much more revenue than they would receive if we were charging flat weekly rates.

Like it or not, nearly every newspaper editor in the country is focused on new media, as is Creators Syndicate. The ones who care only about print will go the way of the horse-and-buggy makers of a century ago.

Translation:
All comic strips are alike to editors.

“While some fans of other comics from other syndicates might be disappointed, Garnett says there hasn’t been any major complaints from readers apart from the few that were anticipated.”

Translation:
They don’t care what the reader reaction is.

The Toronto Star seems to get it right….of course they have “Between Friends” so it’s worth the read for that reason alone.

Nice plug, eh Sandra? :)

Quint, you raise a good point about Mr. Garnett not caring about his readers and only looking out for the bottom line…truth be told, however, in this economy he HAS to look out for the bottom line if he wants the franchise to survive.

Let’s say Jimmy self-publishes an Arlo & Janis book and puts it up on his blog for sale. I do think a good number of his blog readers would buy the book. I know I would. The big question is would the syndicate demand a cut of the profits? At that point, would it be worth doing?

And I would say that comic strip collections are enough of a niche publication that I’m not too concerned about what is on the shelves at the stores — if you have a following, you can find a way to market them even without generous shelf space.

Example: If Jimmy Johnson got an Arlo & Janis collection together, he’d have no trouble selling a comfortable number of copies — even though his fan base isn’t of “Peanuts” or “Garfield” proportions, it is devoted and he’s done a reasonable job of building a sizeable little community around his blog.