Cartooning: Where Is The Money?

There was a time when a cartoonist had to be newspaper syndicated to "be somebody" (with apologies to Steve Martin in "The Jerk"). But even then, as now, the real money was not in newspapers. Besides, the chances of becoming a part of a major newspaper syndication are close to a million to one. One should just buy lottery tickets.

The real money in funny pictures is in art licensing. Art licensing is a huge business, almost 100 billion dollars per year, yet not many know about it. Basically it is the process of putting an art image on a manufactured product from lunch boxes to tshirts to greeting cards. Most of the public rarely sees this business activity as they are too busy buying the end product.

Art licensing can work in a variety of ways. It can be an individual artist approaching a manufacturer with an image that the artist feels will make the manufacturer's products sell better. Sometimes a deal is made, more often not. When it is, the artist receives a negotiated royalty, a percentage of each sale. There are other types of licensing that work with sponsorships, such as an oil company sponsoring Nascar and they get to put their logo on an actual race car.

LIMA is the industry association. One does not have to be a member to be in the art licensing game but it doesn't hurt. Such associations are a great way to make contacts.

A lot of times the artist is a cartoonist. This is a hard sell for licensing but occasionally works and is done in reverse. Let's say Disney or Hanna-Barbara has an image like Mickey Mouse or Barney Rubble. A tote bag maker wants the exclusive rights to manufacture and market those images on their totes. In this case, they pay Disney or HB a royalty of sales.

In my case, I started as an unknown writer and cartoonist I was having no luck becoming syndicated yet my naivity kept me from becoming pessimistic. So I approached a number of trade magazines that desperately needed good cartoons with their articles and sold them for what I could. I slowly built a portfolio and finally was able to take it to a manufacturer/drop-shipper who was willing to take a chance and make the products with a royalty split. I did not have a licensing agent so my attorney handled the contract for me. It is always a good idea, if your strength is in art and not numbers to have a professional in another area (like an attorney or agent) do that part of the job.

In time I discovered more manufacturers who made different products than my first ones and was able to make deals with them, using the same contract.

The old-school tradition of cartooning was dictated by the big syndication firms. First you become syndicated, then you get to sell your products and create wealth. Those days are gone thanks to the Internet. One can enter the field in the way one feels comfortable. I am yet to be officially syndicated though my cartoons appear worldwide on a daily basis.

The Internet has opened all kinds of doors for the new and even veteran cartoonist who wants to be published with Ezines, blogs, and thousands of commercial websites that want a humor section on their site to attract customers. It takes a lot of legwork and it doesn't happen overnight. But it is worth the trouble.

In 1997, I began my cartoon venture metal warehouse in rural Mississippi. I could not even afford a website and didn't even know how to work the Internet, much less a computer. I bought some of those "For Dummies" books and learned as I worked. Now I have eight domains, seven stores with almost 80,000 products in about 100 different categories , and the most visited offbeat cartoon site on the Internet, Londons Times Cartoons with over 8500 original images and almost 9 million visitors. That's not so bad for ten year's work, at least not for me.

One might say I paid a heavy price to get this off the ground. But there are a million stories like mine out there. Mine is but just one. Anything worth having takes hard work. Just enjoy the ride and you'll see that the benefits are worth more than the pain.

Article Source: Main Articles

Cartoonist Rick London and his illustrative team has created over Over Eight Thousand Cartoons original offbeat cartoon, Londons Times Cartoons Cartooning: Where Is The Money?

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