So we’re back!
Sorry for the long delay, folks. Sometimes, when you’re not doing something for a long time, it becomes really easy to keep not doing that thing. Apologies. Hope you all had a great holiday season.
And now back to the webcomics.
When I was growing up, one of the most important shows to watch on Saturday mornings was “Garfield and Friends”–if only because the songs were so great. (and this–personally, I like this one better).
At the time, though, I remembered being confused: who the hell were these friends of Garfield’s? It was a bunch of farm animals who–not once–ever actually talked to Garfield (at least, not that I could remember). In a way, it reminded me of the “Heathcliffe” cartoon, in which some parts of the episode was about Heathcliffe, and some were about these junkyard cats (which I never really found all that compelling). But I digress.
The fact is, those farm animals were from Jim Davis’ strip, U.S. Acres. Why, you may ask, am I bringing all this up in a column about webcomics? Well, because Scott Kurtz at PvPonline told me to. Okay–he didn’t actually tell me to, but he wrote an article that caught my attention.
What it boils down to (and this is for you who are too lazy to click the link and read it yourself) is that Jim Davis has decided to make U.S. Acres exclusively a webcomic.
That’s right: Jim Davis, one of the biggest comic-strip artists in the game, has decided to eschew traditional print outlets (and/or their syndicated web-presence) to only offer U.S. Acres on his website.
Which makes me wonder: is U.S. Acres a webcomic?
Just as curious is what this means to comic-strips in general. As we hear more and more about the demise of newspapers–and the rise of digital media and news-sources–is it telling that one of the great comic-strip artists is moving to this medium (albeit with a secondary strip)?
I’m not sure, as I don’t know too many other examples of this kind of thing happening.
My dream, though, would be for this to be true–and for artists who complained about the strictures put on them by newspapers in regards to format and schedules (I’m talking to you, Bill Watterson and Gary Larson!) to realize that there’s an avenue to explore that can not only be profitable, but keeps them firmly in control of their content and distribution.
I applaud Mr. Davis, and can only hope others follow suit in making the Internet the premiere place to read comic strips (I right “premiere” because as much as I love web-comics, the “stigma” is still there that these are strips that “couldn’t make it” in newspaper format, despite the fact that’s a bogus sentiment).
