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Comic strips have been a part of newspaper
publishing since the 1800's. Comics were added to
newspapers to help increase sales of the paper. Some claim that
the Yellow Kid, the first color comic (1986/87) eventually lead to the
derogatory term "yellow journalism." Anything's possible, I
suppose. Since many comic strips are humorous, we often call
them "The Funnies" or "The Funny Pages." At one time in America,
it was popular to joke with a friend when parting, saying, "See you in the
Funny Papers!"
Comics add readers.
Believe it or not comics are one of the
most important features
for any newspaper, regardless of its size. Lots of people (including yours truly) will often read the comics before
anything else. In fact, even the most specialized and serious
periodicals, including magazines devoted to medical research and
political rhetoric, include cartoons and comic strips. You definitely want to include comic strips and other features in your
small newspaper.
How to Find Comics and Other Features
You can find comics and other popular
features by contacting the syndication services, such as
United
Features (Peanuts, Dilbert),
or
King
Features (Spiderman, Crock, Family Circus), and
others. All the big services are on the web. Do an
internet search
(with Google,
MSN,
YAHOO, for example) using the name of the comic strip or feature that you'd like to
include in your paper.
You may need to use additional words such
as "features," or "comic" or "newspaper" in your search, if the agency
doesn't show up on the first page or two. |
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You may be surprised to discover there are
also local comic strip creators in your own area, and all over
the world. Some of these individuals produce very entertaining
strips and cartoons, but are not listed with any of the big feature
syndication agencies or services. Many now have websites, or
they're listed with state and regional newspaper associations.
You will hear of some only after you start publishing your paper, when
they send you a copy of some of their work.
Popular Cartoonists for Your Small Newspaper
The cartoons at the top
of the page are provided by (and used with the permission of),
respectively,
Randy Glasbergen and Dan Rosandich.
Randy Glasbergen
Randy Glasbergen cartoons are available (for a reasonable fee) to
use in newspapers, newsletters, magazines, advertising, web sites,
and more. Randy says he’s always glad to hear from new publishers.
You can contact him direct by email. Rates are based on usage
and each request is answered personally.
Selected cartoons from Randy's web page are made available to weekly
newspapers from
DBR Media Inc. The DBR Media weekly syndication package features
four Glasbergen single-panel cartoons each week on a variety of
topics.
No matter how specialized your newspaper publication, Randy has
material to fill the bill. The list includes hundreds of Business
Cartoons, Computer Cartoons, Office Cartoons, Family Cartoons,
Health Cartoons, and more.
Dan Rosandich
For the past quarter of a century, fulltime cartoonist & humorous
illustrator Dan Rosandich has continually produced article
illustrations and panel cartoons for magazines, newsletters, books,
educational manuals, presentation specialists, websites, graphic
design firms, T-shirts, fortune 500 company art director business
cartoons, custom illustrations, medical cartoons offered by
cartoonist Dan Rosandich including daily web comics-r-s and a wide
variety of other projects. Dan's cartoons have appeared in Reader's
Digest, Better Homes & Gardens, The American Legion, The Saturday
Evening Post, Woman's World magazine, First For Women, Barron's
magazine, The National Enquirer, Boys' Life magazine, Medical
Economics, Highlights For Children, The Sun tabloid of London, and
the late satire magazine National Lampoon. Pearson Educational
Publishing, John Wiley & Sons Publishing, McGraw-Hill Publishing,
Mosaic Media Publications, Teacher's Discovery Publications and The
Xplain Corporation are some of the other publishers which have
worked with Dan on an intermittent basis.
Dan's work also appears in the popular Chicken Soup For The Soul
series of books which include Chicken Soup For The Christian Soul,
The Pet Lover's Soul, The Gardener's Soul, The Mother's Soul, The
Bride's Soul and The Woman's Soul. Rosandich also has his cartoons
distributed and translated to the Italian print market in hardcopy
format via New Blitz International based in Rome. The Public
Relations Society Of America also calls upon Rosandich to create
special colorized article illustrations. Rosandich also illustrates
print ads for Computer Associates International. A leading worldwide
provider of solutions & services for the management of IT
infrastructure, business information and application development.
© 2009 Jim Sutton |
