Fleen: First of all, congratulations — it’s no secret that you’ve wanted [syndication for Little Dee] for a long time. With absolutely no sarcasm at all, why? What is it that drew you towards the dream of syndication?

Baldwin: I’ve always loved to write and draw, not only Little Dee, but also other daily comics, comic books, novels, poetry, plays, children’s books, and I am even currently doing work for MAD Magazine.

Fleen: How did you come to get this weirdly unique syndication deal? Who approached whom? How long were the negotiations? Did you get taken out to dinner? Were there side dishes?

Kellett: When I was finishing up grad school in England, I started submitting Sheldon to US syndicates. Amy Lago, the then-editor of United Media, contacted me to say that she really liked the strip, and asked if I’d be interested in bringing it to Comics.com. I saw this as a toe-hold onto that next step of newspapers … so I said yes. There was, I think, two rounds of contract revisions (nuthin’ fancy, per se), and the deal was done. Au gratin potatoes were served with a dry Pinot Noir.

Fleen: Can we get one good drunken Bil Keane story? Does he leave a dotted trail behind when he staggers from the bar to the bathroom?

Fleen: You’ve spoken very bluntly here about (a) the impending doom of print and (b) considering a move to Blank Label‘s servers. How do your syndicate editors respond to statements like these? Are they pissed? Do they chalk it up to cartoonist iconoclasm? Do you even HAVE an editor?

Kellett: It’s pretty telling that United has had three head comics editors in as many years. That’s not me being snarky, that’s me getting a bead on a situation just by turnover alone. If you’re ever going to invest in a company, keep an eye on the turnover rate of key positions: it’s very, very telling.

So yes, I’m sure on some basic, day-to-day business level it bugs my editors, but they’re smart folks. They know what’s going on with their industry. They know it far more intimately than I do … hence the turnovers.

Fleen: Could syndication possibly work with a feature other than 3- to 4-panel strips? With a web-only deal, could you do odd layouts or shift the visuals, or would that break the daily and Sunday templates? For example, Achewood has a history of altering the number/size of panels to suit the story; forget the fact that it could never make it with a big corporation based on content … what about the physical shape?

Fleen: Given that you’re already syndicated, what benefit do you derive from being in a webcomics collective? Is syndication something that you would seek out if you were just starting a cartooning career now? Or would it be web all the way?

Kellett: Like I said, I’d probably make different choices now, knowing what I know. Unless you’re absolutely hell-bent on syndication, the web-syndicate limbo I’m in is probably not the best way to go. It has its benefits, as I said earlier, but I’m not sure they outweigh the restrictions. But if, like me, you’ve been hell-bent on it most of your life, then it’s very appropriate. You’ll notice I haven’t left for the [Blank Label] servers yet … despite all the invites from the fellas. So I still see value in that path, just in lessening amounts.

As for being in a collective like Blank Label Comics, that’s sort of a no-brainer for me. We are a co-op, sharing strengths and pooling resources for the betterment of all, with little to no restrictions on how we run our individual businesses. And at BLC, we all hold one another in really high esteem, which is nice for any artist.

As for going web “all the way”, as you say … it’s a question I’ve been talking a lot about with Kcristofpher [sic] Straub of Starslip Crisis. We’ve been having talks on and off the podcast as to how a general-audience strip can succeed on the web. And it’s undeniably tricky. With a sci-fi comic strip or a gaming strip, you know immediately what audience to cultivate on the web. But to what existing audience would you pitch a Bloom County or a Calvin & Hobbes, were they launching on the web today? It’s not so easy. They could be the exact same strip that appeared in papers, and still not find the broad audience they had in newspapers.

It’s the punishment for having that “selective” audience you talked about earlier: more often than not, people will “select” new forms of entertainment that already mirror their established likes and fetishes. What’s the answer? I’m not sure. It’s one of the questions that keep me from leaping off Comics.com today: a part of me still thinks I can better tap into a broader audience for Sheldon on Comics.com.

Fleen: It’s been 18 months since Scott Kurtz‘s broadside at the syndicates and about as long since Keenspot‘s attempt to syndicate. Bold moves, but neither of them changed how the syndication model works and they’ve both just sort of faded from view. Yet there’s a pretty common perception among webcomics creators that syndication is, if not dead, in an an accelerating decline. Are they right or wrong? Why?

Kellett: They’re right, although the pace of the decline is known only to the board members of Chicago Tribune, Newsday, or the various other newspapers who have been caught lying about their declining readership numbers. Personally, I don’t think the death-knell for newspapers will come until Baby Boomers begin to loose their eyesight, which will start to happen over the next 5-15 years. They are really the last die-hard, tried-and-true audience that newspapers enjoy. After that, I really foresee a freefall.

And the basic reason is that, under corporate control, and with decreased (if not nonexistent) competition, newspapers have become so bland as to appeal to no one. Look at a strong, competitive newspaper market like London. The London newspapers are strident, they have a voice, they’re distinctive. You pick up The Guardian, you know what you’re going to get. It’s going to be well-reported, well-researched, well-written, and it will have unique arts and entertainment pieces that will appeal to their core audience. Not at all like the US, where the papers have to speak to and for an entire city, and so end up pleasing no one.

Comics are part and parcel of that. To appeal to the broadest possible audience, (and to never, ever scare away one of the precious few remaining readers). comics have become stuck in 1950’s Americana. And it’s a shame, because American newspapers comics are capable of so much more. Even with its basic space limitations, the comic strip is capable of so much more.

Fleen: One of the traditional advantages of webcomics is the archive: it allows new readers to come up to speed and may help boost an audience. But working with Comics.com, your archive is locked without paying a subscription fee. Long term, is this a viable model?

Kellett: No, it sucks. I know it sucks, my readership knows it sucks, and new readers who stumble upon Sheldon and want to read more know instantly that it sucks. But as I said at the NYCC panel on The Future of Comics, the reason it’s done is because these large media conglomerates have no idea of the long view. They need to justify these “web initiatives” to their bosses, to their overhead, and to their launch costs. And the only way they can do that is with a provable, immediate cash return like subscriptions. But it limits growth, and more importantly, it limits fandom.

Comics.com can get away with it better than most because

1. They’ve mitigated it somewhat by offering 30-day free archives, and
2. Because they have 80 titles that are included in their subscription price … of which 5-25 could reasonably be considered “must-reads” for a lot of people.

So their subscription model may yet survive. But you have to wonder how viable subscriptions are for a group like King Features. How many subscriptions are they going to sell when the last of the Popeye readers dies off?

Syndicates will survive the death of newspapers, but their basic business model won’t. They’ll transform into smaller organizations with far less head count, managing online portfolios of old (and new) comic strips.

Fleen: Unfit is in the papers. If you had gotten the artist’s gig, how would that change how you work? Would there be more editorial control, or a greater pressure to keep everything appropriate for young kids? Is there room on the comics page for features that appeal to different age groups?

Kellett: For me, the prospect of drawing Unfit was not one I relished with glee. I saw it more as a secondary or tertiary job to supplement my income. But as more than one cartoonist has pointed out, I probably dodged a bullet by not getting that gig. Had I gotten it, it would have very much been a tradesman-for-hire sort of deal, I imagine. I’d get a script, draw it, and send it in. Nothing particularly tricky, or particularly enjoyable, about that creative process.

And yes: there should be room on the comics page for feature that appeal to different age groups, but I think at this point in the newspaper’s life-cycle, it will never happen. They’ll continue to fade away slowly in their blandness, I think.

Fleen: Mike Belkin: Scot Adams or not?

Kellett: I think not, but it honestly wouldn’t surprise me if it was. The level of personal backing that Scott has given the strip, and the not-very-well-hidden similarities in the font, give me the distinct impression they are one and the same.

Fleen: Any bump in readership from the Alyson Hannigan product placement? Can you get me her autograph? It’s, uh, for my wife.

Kellett: It’s funny how something like that can have an impact. The online book sales bumped up considerably after that story spread on the ‘net. We’ll see if the effect is long term. And yes, I can get you her autograph. But if I mis-spelled her name when signing it, please forgive me.

Fleen: You’re already a syndicated cartoonist with Sheldon, but still web-only. What do you get from being in a syndicate that you don’t get from going solo? Conversely, what do you give up by involving a syndicate?

Kellett: I’m sort of in the nebulous world between webcomics and the syndicates, sometimes to my benefit, and sometimes to my detriment. I can tell you this outright: I’ve been actively considering moving myself off of Comics.com and onto a Blank Label Comics server for a while now. I would just feel so much — I dunno the best word here — closer to my readership were I to return to independence. I’d be infinitely more capable of cultivating and catering to my audience than I currently can on Comics.com‘s cold, green pages.

But I do derive benefits from being associated, however nebulously, with a syndicate. I’ve had a few gallery showings in LA, a few freelance cartooning jobs, and a few speaking engagements which I know were delivered based on the shine from that association. So it does have benefits. Plus, I get to get drunk with Bil Keane at NCS parties. That can be fun, as Bil can really go blue as the night goes on. (I’m not joking about that.)

But wrapped up in all of this for me is my stupid, unshakable desire for newspaper syndication. It’s hard to escape the childhood dreams you cultivated for years and years, you know? This is true, even when I logically know there are 5-10 guys (who I won’t name) who keep up second jobs just because they make so little money at newspaper syndication. But then, the choice to be a cartoonist is rarely about money, isn’t it? If I just wanted pure, hard cash, I’m smart enough to know the myriad careers where I could make more money in this world. But I don’t necessarily want money: what I want is to create and entertain.

To answer your question as to what I give up by involving a syndicate:

1. Direct links that I control.
2. A forum: due to their COPPA-compliance regulations, United Media has no forums.
3. A blog: which really, really helps to accentuate and expand upon the “world” of the comic strip.
4. New and varied ways to monetize the strip: some big, some small

Fleen: Traditionally, the purpose of syndicates is to get comics into newspapers. If Sheldon got packaged and offered by United Media, is there any way to estimate what kind of readership you’d get?

Kellett: This is the funny part, in my mind. Wizard of Id could be in 800 newspapers, and not have had a single reader since 1972, for all we know. Once you’re in, all you have to do to maintain your position in newspapers is fall just below the radar of the editorial chopping block.

But having said all that, if Sheldon were to get into even one large metropolitan newspaper (LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, etc.), it would probably immediately triple its readership. There are still a hell of a lot of newspaper readers out there. And as a new strip on a comics page, you’re given a lot of exposure to a captive audience. A smart webcartoonist could parlay that exposure into a solid, solid base for a career on the web … as newspapers continue to die out, and the web swallows the industry whole.

Fleen: Premise: A common impression of newspaper comics is that they’re a passive sort of medium; a few people (mostly older readers) seem to passionately care about a couple (mostly decades-old) strips, and furiously vote for them every time there’s a reader’s poll of what to keep and what to ditch. Most people read what happens to be on the page, unless it’s truly awful. Somewhere between the national headlines and the idiot daughter of Dear Abby are the comics and you just kinda read them.

Webcomics, on the other hand, require you to actively go to a site to read, so presumably the readers aren’t reading a strip just because it’s there. Do you think those impressions are true? And if so, which audience do you want in the long term?

Kellett: By their very nature, webcomics have a “selective” audience — in the sense that that audience has selected your comic as being worthy of the effort to seek out every day. It is a noticeably different dynamic than the casual newspaper reader, who follows Beetle Bailey because the Features Editor of their paper thinks they should.

But now, look at how that relates to making a living. If a webcomic can reliably monetize 5-10% of it’s audience, a newspaper comic can probably only monetize 1-5%. Where the big difference comes in is scale, I think. Most mid-level comic strips probably still outstrip P-A in daily readership, I would hazard to guess. But guess who’s making a better living off their work?

So, I’ve tried to thread the needle between the two: use the syndicate to find a broader audience, then capitalize on my web presence in a way Ziggy can’t. As I’m increasingly finding, though, it’s probably a failed strategy. If you’re only going to appear on the web, it’s probably better to run your own show.