Breakfast of Champions

greyhame on Jan. 11, 2007

I think this comic is pretty self explanatory. I still laugh at that last panel and it’s been on paper for a few months. Hope you enjoy it.

In other events Scott Kurtz, Viceroy of the PVP Empire, had this insight earlier this week and it has really drudged up a concept that I have never had any love for, syndicated comic strips.

Now I have heard many a comic artist’s story of woe with the state of syndicated comics or the difficulty of getting into said comics country club. And I always wonder why this is still something to aspire too.

Before I go on let me clear up that I by no means have any beef, or other meat kosher or otherwise, with syndicated comic artists. Nobody can blame an artist for wanting that kind of exposure. My problem is with the syndicates themselves and the newspapers they hawk their wares too. It is an archaic labyrinth of entrenched, out of touch, management and editors, their fingers far from the pulse of anyone under 35. And it is a dinosaur in the last throws of extinction. Why anyone would want to save this decaying corpse is really beyond me, my suggestion is euthanasia and make it quick.

The fact is that print media like newspapers, and ergo the comics they print, is dying out. It’s nothing to cry about though, the way we get information and entertainment has evolved and with that evolution must perish the old ways. Most people under 35 don’t read a newspaper, they read a news website. This trend is not going away; it will only get worst and worst for print media. And there is no stopping this trend, the best anyone could achieve is to slow it, and to do that only impedes the progress of the newer, better way of doing things.

The web is the here and now and it is the only future for media. And for comic strips the only lasting future is in webcomics. If Scott wants to make something historic happen then he should gather the most talented in the industry and convince them into a “Blank Label” style site where the best of the currently syndicated best can all gather under one big tent. The sooner the Syndicates fall the better it will be for the readers and for the artists who actually deserve to be included in this new world regime.

People like Kurtz, Tycho & Gabe, Tim Buckley, Tatsuya Ishida, among many others are already heroes to many readers. And while one would still call them folk heroes the fact is when the concept of webcomics becomes truly mainstream, something I believe is happening soon, these people will be the Shultz, Watterson’s, Larson’s, and Amend’s that we will be talking about in ten years.

So why not try to do more to hasten the future than to prop up more crutches for the old ways? Instead of trying to force what your doing into the mainstream, thereby having to conform in part to, why not work to make what your already doing the new mainstream?

See you guys Monday.