Marketplace: The fate of comics after newspapers
The staggering lack of research in this article is staggering. There are dozens if not hundreds of comic creators online who make a living at it. Besides the obvious choices like Penny Arcade, PVPOnline, XKCD, Achewood and Girl Genius you have . . . y'know, I'm not even going to bother to list them here. NPR ran an incredibly ignorant segment and now I'm sure baby boomers all around America now believe this. Which means that all of these comic creators who *do* make decent money online are about to get calls from their parents saying, "I know you say you're doing good with your drawings, but I was listening to NPR and . . . "
For bonus fun, check out the comment section on the linked page wherein comic fans line up with bats to take a whack at the reporter as if he were some pinata full of hemp totebags and free-trade coffee mugs and green energy wind-up radios.
One reason newspapers are in trouble is that you can so happily get your news other places. It's fun to scan the Web for stories. It's easy to, you know, check your stocks on your phone. But there's one part of newspapers that seems to go best with a cup of coffee and some crinkly newsprint, and that is the comics section. Reporter John Rabe wanted to know: What happens to comics if newspapers die?
. . .
All comics are already online, but nobody's found a way yet to get the web to pay enough so that drawing a strip can stay a full-time job.
Cartoonists are worried. . . .
*via Gabe from Penny Arcade's twitterstream*
