Many people have been asking me since my diary entry last Tuesday (
here) why King Features and I decided to go our separate ways.
And but so the scoop is after the cut...
So, what happened with King Features:
- First, here's the preamble:
- I'd been getting increasingly dissatisfied with King Features over the past several months.
- They were using fewer and fewer of my cartoons, and especially shying away from the harder-hitting ones.
- I should add here: my work had been running as part of King Features' "Best & Wittiest" package since 1997, The Best & Wittiest package includes about a dozen cartoonists, all sending their stuff to King each day hoping to have one of their cartoons be one of the six King sent out to clients every day, five days a week--an average month for me had been right around ten of my cartoons being included in the package a month, at $55 per cartoon (syndication is NOT where the money is, yo). I was currently the only cartoonist in the package NOT on-staff at a newspaper, which meant I depended on that scant syndication much more than my peers in the package.
- Granted, my work's been getting edgier in tone and design, but still--in terms of content, it's nothing worse than say, The Daily Show.
- This culminated with them using only three (out of nine I submitted) in February.
- And since I get paid per cartoon they pick up, that meant a very scant payday in mid-March.
- And so on Sunday, March 20, I drew and submitted this cartoon:
- This cartoon struck a nerve online and by Monday it had appeared on numerous blogs, bulletin boards, and LiveJournals, generating a whole lot of discussion of President Bush, the Texas Futile Care Law, and Dubya's hypocrisy in the Schiavo case.
- In fact, within 24 hours, the cartoon had been seen about 15-20 times as many times as a typical new cartoon of mine would have been, according to my web logs--and that doesn't count those who saw it on the Slate political cartoon site, or people who posted the cartoon to their own server to post on their blog or web site.
- Also by the end of the day Monday, it was clear that King hadn't used the cartoon in the Best & Wittiest package, so I sent this email to King:
You'll be using my Schiavo cartoon from yesterday in the Best & Wittiest package, right? It contributes a HELL of a lot more to the debate than that Shelton cartoon, yo. And it has already become one of my most popular cartoons on the web ever, and inspired a large discussion on DailyKos.com.
If you don't use it, I will want an email explaining why.
And after you guys only used three of my cartoons last month, I'll be happy to quit the Best & Wittiest package if King continues to not distribute my best work. I'm starting to think I need someone a little braver backing my work...
- 24 hours later, on Tuesday, I sent another email:
Hi--
Still waiting for an answer re: my Schiavo cartoon.
I should re-iterate that the cartoon has already appeared on many blogs and message boards online--by far, my most popular cartoon of the past year. Newspaper editors should have the chance to use it in their papers.
I should also re-iterate that a) the facts in the cartoon are absolutely true, and b) I'm willing to walk over this, cuz, hey, if you're only going to use three cartoons of mine a month (as you did in February), do you really think I'm going to miss the monthly check for $165...? I'm pretty much the only political cartoonist in America who actually lives on his meager syndication income, and I'm sure I can do better than $165/month SOMEwhere.
- That prompted this response from King:
Scott:
I am not the person who makes the BEST & WITTIEST selections. The
selections are made by a group of editors.
I did ask to see what you have submitted in the past two months.
Having looked at the batch, it is not surprising to me that so few of your
cartoons were selected for inclusion. The bulk of our clients are still
print clients - daily newspapers. Daily newspapers are unlikely to print
cartoons with endings such as: "Remember, America - you can't spell
"B*s**" without "Bush!" and "Screw unto others!"
You do interesting work that you obviously put a lot of thought into,
but your cartoons are generally so verbose that they are better described
as illustrated opinion columns than as editorial cartoons. That approach
works better on websites where newsholes aren't physically limited by page
counts, as is the case with print publications. The trick with websites of
course is figuring out a viable business model to support the creation,
marketing and distribution of the work.
I'd like to see you do well and I want you to do well. Your
involvement with The BEST & WITTIEST feature is clearly upsetting to you,
so at this point I agree, it is best that you move on and leave the BEST &
WITTIEST.
I'm sorry that the experience has been frustrating for you, and wish
you the best. Hopefully, you'll find a paying staff editorial cartoon
position on some website.
- I pinged back with an email agreeing that yeah, it was probably time to move on.
- So now, I'm out of work, and nobody's beating down my door to hire me.