In the mail yesterday, I received the two Girl Genius books from Phil and Kaja Foglio's most recent Kickstarter. The package, like many Kickstarters, contained some additional goodies like bookmarks and stickers and -- most significantly for me -- a 2026 student ID card for Transylvania Polygnostic University,...

(To be clear, the card arrived blank. I added the personal information in the above image digitally.)

I'm particularly amused by the "accelerated learning program" notation on the card. Because I've been a student at TPU since 2001! I still have my acceptance letter and first report card...
Personally, I always like this kind of promotional material. Real world artifacts of a fictional place. Particularly when you, as a reader, are able to become a part of it. I've created a small shelf display of my comic book alter ego's adventures. You can see here various coins, some badges and ID cards, a folder of "Above Top Secret" material, and a Tesladyne field guide among other things. Relative to Girl Genius in particular, you can see three medals in the back identifying me as a "Monster Wrangler," an "Aetheric Machinist" and a member of the "Incorruptuble Library." (So yeah, I have been at TPU for a quarter century, but it's not like I haven't been doing anything during my time there!)

When combined with the appearances I've made as a character in various comics over the years, I think it makes for an exciting story trying to weave together all of these elements into a single narrative. I've had others comment in recent years that my actual life has been interesting and exciting and cool -- climbing volcanos and running marathons and getting struck by lightning and saving people from drowning in the ocean... But I'm only able to do those types of things because I'm trying to live up to the potential my fictional alter ego has shown through these half-seen adventures. I can push myself to do cool stuff in real life because I've got hints like these of what my fictional self has been able to achieve.

I came across this piece that I wrote way back in 2009, not even a decade into the 21st century. And while a lot has changed in that time and even some of the people I quote below have passed away, the thrust of my point here still stands. Possibly even moreso than it did when I first wrote it.

Despite some of the specifics being a little dated, I've kept the original text intact, other than to add a few notes where links appear to have died.

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Without getting into editorial cartoons, I've just pulled together a small collection of December comments from comic industry folks, reflecting on the current state of the economy, their finances and health care...

Harvey Pekar, via Graphic NYC [dead link]...

Steve Greenberg, via The Steve Greenberg Blog [dead link]...

Joey Manley, via Facebook [dead link]...

Julia Wertz, via Time's YouTube channel...

Erik Larsen, via Twitter [dead link]...

Some of this has to do with the nature of freelancing; there's an inherent instability in income. But as Greenberg noted (if you read through his entire piece) the stability that once was taken for granted in corporate America is no longer quite so assured. Further complicating matters is that increased specialization means that the bills we pay go in more and more different directions simultaneously. (Consider almost any health procedure: where you once just paid a single doctor, payments now need to go to the hospital, the surgeon, the anesthesiologist, the pharmacist, the lab technicians, your primary care doctor, etc.)

Given that high degree of uncertainty and complication, it would seem that no one person can rely on a single revenue stream any longer. This really started back in the 1970s when a single income family was simply unsustainable and many housewives found they had to go back to work in order to bring in enough money into the household to survive. If one member of the household lost their job, there'd be another to at least keep things going for a little while. This has gotten more pronounced in recent years where we see people working two or three jobs in order to keep up.

Now what strikes me as particularly interesting is when you start looking at successful webcomic creators in this context.

Many (I daresay "most") successful webcomic creators essentially follow the same basic business model: give your comic away for free, and make money via advertising and selling books and t-shirts and whatnot. Charlie Trotman's upcoming book, Poorcraft, specifically speaks to being able to live comfortably while earning a viable living as a cartoonist in this manner. (Check the link for a better explanation from Trotman herself.) But look at that business model more closely. Folks like Trotman are making comics, but they're making money through multiple, simultaneous revenue streams. Some fans read the comics online for free and buy a t-shirt or mousepad or something. Others don't care about a silly tchotchke, and would prefer to have a printed copy of the book. Still others won't read anything online anyway, and stumble across a creator's booth at a comic convention. And still others don't care about the creator's own work per se, but would love to have a really cool sketch of Batman. While all of the income associated with that creator is centered around his/her comic in some way, they're all from different sources. Now, if your t-shirt vendor suddenly goes under, you've still got book sales to go on for a while until you can locate another one. If your transportation craps out and you can't drive to all the conventions you planned on having a booth at, you can still have money coming in from online sales.

These creators make their own form of security through diversification. Much the same way mutual funds have more security than individual stocks because they have a little money in a lot of different companies. "Don't put all your eggs in one basket."

I think freelancers, at least to a degree, have known and acted on this idea for many years. But it's a lesson that now needs to be carried over to the classic 8-to-5er as well. Admittedly, this is NOT an easy way to change to make! I've been struggling for YEARS trying to develop additional means of income for myself beyond my day job and I can tell you first-hand that is incredibly difficult to even think of, much less develop, multiple viable income streams! (I'm hoping my book alleviates that somewhat, but we'll have to wait to see how that goes.)

But the more I think about it, the more it seems to me that it will become increasingly difficult for one person to live on a single source of income. We've been seeing a trend (at least here in the States) of households including more extended family members; I think that's likely to continue to increase and broaden to something that begins to resemble a commune. (Clarification: That is NOT to say I think we're heading towards Communism! But I think more people will try to take advantage of living in greater numbers to diffuse common costs like, say, shelter. Think of the Fantastic Four: a man, his wife, her brother, and some guy they all know but aren't actually related to.)

One of my personal concerns is that of relevance. I see the speed with which technology is changing and how it's changing society, and to remain viably employed in any capacity means that I need to at least keep pace. Not too much of a problem now, but I question whether I can continue when I'm 70. (As much as I'm trying to save for retirement, I've pretty well resigned to working until I die. I don't think retirement as we know it today will be a realistic option 30 years from now.) Am I adaptable enough to flow with an ever-changing economy?

I think that people are starting to get that at some level. That's where Pekar's comments stem from. The plans he may have had for retirement 25 years ago when he agreed to appear on The Late Show are completely out the window now. This is a guy who didn't just freelance -- he had a regular, paying job with benefits and social security and all that. But he still needs to keep developing new forms of income at 70 years old to live. Granted, he didn't have a great-paying day job as a file clerk and American Splendor never netted him huge amounts of cash either, but that's going to be the dilemma more and more people face. Can you juggle multiple ways of earning income as you get older?

AND NONE OF THAT REALLY EVEN SPEAKS TO HEALTH CARE!

I don't claim to have the answers here. But I think the webcomic creators are on to something real and practical, and that more people are going to have to start taking their cues from them. You need to develop something current than has legs enough to build on for years. You need to be adaptable. You need to get creative. It doesn't necessarily have to be comics, but I think there are good lessons to be learned there.

Pay attention to the Charlie Trotmans and Jennie Breedens and Ryan Sohmers that are out there. Not just their comics, but their business models and ethics. What are they doing BEYOND just creating good comics? And how can that be adapted to fit the talents you personally have? How can you leverage your assets with others' to benefit everyone?

That, I believe, is going to be what it takes to live in the 21st century. I think there was another drummer a few years back who said something about getting by with a little help from his friends. Just something to think about.

Here are this week's links to what I've had published recently...

Kleefeld on Comics: Marvel Dimensions Review
https://ift.tt/glDW2Xp

Kleefeld on Comics: Are Webcomics Financially Scalable?
https://ift.tt/2S1Ogkw

Kleefeld on Comics: Comix Wellspring Update
https://ift.tt/14oYN8W

Kleefeld on Comics: Charlie Everyman Brown
https://ift.tt/KerELDf

Kleefeld on Comics: Carl, the Carpenter Cartoonist
https://ift.tt/gGMj2dm

Carl Thomas Anderson is the cartoonist behind the comic strip, Henry. He had actually created other strips before then, including Raffles and Bunny, the Amateur Cracksman and Herr Spiegelberger. He freelanced for Judge, Life , and Puck. In 1935, he wrote How to Draw Cartoons Successfully which was republished repeatedly over the next decade. Throughout all of this, Henry was unquestionably his most successful cartoon, but it's clear that, despite not really taking up drawing until his 20s, he worked hard at it throughout his lifetime.

But one of the things that often gets lost when discussing cartoonists from Richard Outcault to Charles Schulz to Stephan Pastis is their lives outside of cartooning. These people are all multi-faceted individuals, and pursue interests beyond what they're famous for. Even in David Michaelis' comprehensive biography Schulz and Peanuts, he continually resorts to tying the events in Schulz's life to what happened in the strip.

So it's kind of interesting to come across items that aren't directly related a cartoonist's comic strip. In the case of Anderson, he actually holds a design patent in the U.S. for a desk he created. He was actually a carpenter before becoming a cartoonist and used those skills in his 50s to craft a different design for a desk. The patent filing isn't terribly elaborate in its description, but it includes a wondefully done illustration... It's essentially a more elaborate artist's horse and, although it doesn't appear to be written as such, I've read elsewhere where this version supposedly folds down. I've only found one other piece of art (by Anderson) showcasing the desk but it doesn't explain how this folding feature might work either.

My best guess is that it doesn't "fold", so much as "come apart easily." I suspect the legs and the drawing surface itself aren't actually connected, but are held in place with friction and gravity. This would certainly require a bit more ingenuity and craftsmanship than simply screwing the pieces together, and points to Anderson's continued interest in carpentry decades after he supposedly would have given it up.

Not a huge discovery, but a fascinating contextual one that puts a more colorful light on someone who might otherwise be thought of as just a cartoonist.

Peanuts was established as a staple of the comics page long before I was born. Indeed, the Christmas and Halloween specials were already expected viewing on their respective holidays by that point as well. Snoopy, for me, has always been in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. The comic, for me and my generation, was not the revelation in comics that it was when it came out. Nor was it unique any longer. Ziggy bore many physical characteristics to Chuck, The Born Loser seemed to run into adult versions of the same problems that the Peanuts gang did, and Johnny Hart's various strips bore many of the (then) quasi-religious overtones shared by Schulz's work.

That said, though, Charlie Brown still stood out. He was the perpetual outcast that I could readily and regularly identify with. My Halloween costumes sucked. I never got Valentines. I was laughed out of the auditorium for not fitting in. I never had the courage to ask out the pretty redhead. I just could not seem to win. Ever.

Naturally, it was that sense of alienation that all children feel that Schulz was able to tap into. I'm more than certain I wasn't alone in my thinking. (I actually had a conversation several years ago with one of the most popular girls in my grade/high school. She was pretty, athletic, smart, talented, friendly... everyone liked her. But it turns out that despite being popular, she too felt estranged from her classmates!) What Schulz mastered was allowing us to see the pain of isolation and rejection, filtered through the printed page to make it more humorous. (Tragedy + time = comedy.) His drawing style was so simple that it was incredibly easy for readers to project themselves into the characters. What is Charlie Brown, after all, but a smiley face with a nose and ears?

But you've read/seen those types of comments in numerous places by now. Since Schulz's death, there has been plenty of artwork honoring/capitalizing on his work. I'm sure you've seen drawings of various superheroes drawn in Schulz's style. Or Michael Paulus' skeletal studies of Charlie, Linus, Pigpen, Patty and Lucy. Or the Peanuts crew drawn as manga characters. Jason Yungbluth's Weapon Brown, which recasts Chuck as a post-apocalyptic mutant cyborg. Not mention the endless Photoshop riffs that give the old strips new (and often off-color) dialogue.

But, you know what I find particularly striking in absorbing all this material? That I still absolutely connect with the originals. Those comics that feature Charlie Brown not being particularly funny, but making pointed statements about who we are, how we think, and how we react to the crap Life throws at us? I'll be damned if those don't get to me.

For that matter, Schulz himself got to me. When I was watching that "American Masters" documentary on Schulz from 2007, I found myself wiping tears off my cheeks towards the end. Not because it was a particularly sad story in and of itself -- although Schulz's death was indeed quite sad -- but because I could see far too much of myself in Peanuts all of a sudden. I could almost see that iconic zig-zag strip running across my shirt: the tread tracks from Life effortlessly running me over. (Crap, that's almost literal as I think about how I was actually struck down by an SUV back in 2017!) I saw myself paying a nickel for psychiatric advice from the closest thing I have to a female friend. I saw myself running towards that football and landing smack on my back, causing little physical pain but more than enough mental anguish to prevent me from even bothering to get up.

After work today, I'm probably going to have some leftovers for dinner and read comics for a bit. Probably play with the dog. Much like Chuck would. And maybe sometime over the weekend I'll watch A Charlie Brown Christmas and shed a few tears when I hear, "I've killed it."

At least, though, I'm not the only one.

Remember back in July when Comix Wellspring suddenly decided to "temporarily suspend" all of their work and stop accepting new projects? It caught everyone by surprise and no one was talking about what happened. The Comix Wellspring site itself avoided saying anything explicit about when they might be up and running again, and/or how their services might need to change. But I happened to check their website today to see if there were any updates and found...

That's about as final as it gets. A digital gravestone. The site's gone entirely now. The Internet Archive's last snapshot of the old site is September 4, so things appear to have gone dark in the just the past week or two.

My guess is everything officially closed at the end of July or the beginning of August. Former COO Brian Thomas has his LinkedIn account updated to say his tenure at Comix Wellspring ended in August and he's begun working at HH Global, a "tech-enabled creative production and procurement" firm. Most of the handful of other CWS employees I can find on LinkedIn list ending dates of July. I can only find one employee who still has CWS listed as their employer but he doesn't appear to have made any updates of any sort to his LI account in nearly three years, so I couldn't say that's necessarily current.

Heidi MacDonald ran a piece yesterday on the potentially large number of Marvel employees who may be losing their jobs in the company's impending move to California. Comix Wellspring certainly was nowhere near the size of Marvel, but for those individuals who worked there, the impact is the same. Whether they're one of a couple dozen or a couple hundred, they're most likely focused on their own survival and wondering how they're going to pay their bills now. Folks work in the comics industry because they love the medium, and the folks at Comix Wellspring -- all of them, seemingly -- have recently found themselves out of work. I don't know for certain that each and every one of them loved their jobs, but I'm sure that very few of them fell into it by accident.

Best of luck to everyone at Comix Wellspring and Marvel who find themselves looking for work now. The hiring market in general seems pretty stagnant right now, and prices on basic items like food, gasonline, and utilities continue to creep upwards. I hope everyone involved is able to land on their feet.

One thing I heard about my Webcomics book, which isn't exactly a complaint but I think caught some people by surprise, was that I spent a fair amount of time discussing the financing of webcomics. How people make money from webcomics. I felt this was a necesary discussion point for a few reasons. In the first place, it's a distinct differentiator from traditional comics. Historically, people were able to make comics by selling physical copies of the actual comic. You give the creator money (directly or indirectly) and they give you (directly or indirectly) a bunch of pages stapled or glued together with some ink on it to relay a narrative of some kind. But with webcomics, that transaction is out the window; that narrative is still given to the reader, but not in any way that transfers a physical ownership. The webcomics are offered up for free; there's no exchange of any sort to get the narrative. So how are webcomic creators able to afford to keep doing that over an extended period?

In the second place, because we collectively haven't figured out how to do that at scale means that webcomic creators have to handle that directly. A traditional creator today is often paid by a publisher or syndicate to create the work, and their business transaction can (but doesn't have to) end with that contract. After Steve Ditko turned in his artwork for any given issue of Amazing Spider-Man. he'd collect his payment for it from Stan Lee, and he was done having anything to do with the issue after that. He didn't sell it, he didn't promote it, he didn't license it. He was done. It was up to Marvel to print and distribute and promote it. If the issue didn't sell, that was because Marvel didn't do its job. Dikto was only hired to create the story. Same with any creator working on Spider-Man today.

Now, many creators DO indeed try to promote the books they're working on. More sales means they get more money, as they often get a percentage of the sales revenue. And if their work sells well, that means more publishers will pay more to secure their services. So there is an incentive for creators to stay involved with the work after its creation. But they don't HAVE to do anything, and there's not a lot of abstract account crap for them to go through. Whereas a webcomic creator HAS to be involved at every single level. They're not just creators, but they're also accountants and PR and marketing and licensing and publishing and tech support and...

Third -- and this is why I'm bringing this up today -- webcomics are judged less on their popularity but more on how much money they bring in. And that is frequently judged by how well they sell in print form. Some of the most seen, most popular webcomics on the planet make no money. How many multi-panel memes circulate online on a daily basis and receive no credit, much less any financial reward for them? Those aren't considered a "success." What's considered a success is Smile and Lumberjanes because they sold a bajillion copies after they transitioned from the web to print.

ICv2 is having a "Webtoon Week" this week (sponsored by Webtoon) and even in the couple days' of material so far, the underlying theme of the articles is NOT how good the comics are from an execution standpoint or how many readers each one has, but how much money they're bringing in. Rob Salkowitz's piece is all about how Webtoon can financially run their operation at scale. What their options are for becoming profitable. (So far, they are not.) I mean, even the short introduction article about Webtoon Week leads with how well things are selling in print. ("With more and more webtoon collections being released (including the best-selling Dungeon Crawler Carl) and a growing backlist, sales of print collections of webtoons are hitting new highs in 2026.")

It's all about the Benjamins, as the kids say.

Comics as a medium can be creative and expressive and really speak to people in a way that no other medium can. That's why I love them. That's why I've been writing this blog for twenty years now. But let's be clear, too, that any form of comics -- graphic novels, newspaper strips, webcomics, whatever -- need to be considered financially as well in a capitalistic society. They're simply not sustainable otherwise. We talk about printed comics in terms of their financial success -- how many issues of any given issue sold each month, what percentage of sales were from this publisher or that, what creators have exclusive contracts with which publishers, which publishers have what licenses... those are all financial discussions. Webcomics have proven they can be financially sustainable for individual creators, but no one has quite figured out how to do that at scale. Webtoon is trying to do that but, as I said, they haven't become profitable yet. No one else has either. And that's why it's still relevant to talk about webcomics in financial terms and that's why it's a not insignificant part of my book.