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Dan Shahin of Hijinx Comics on the United Media On-Line Initiative
posted November 9, 2008
 

I don't see what's so baffling about the United Media online initiative. Just like the newspaper game, it's all about advertising. If you can get a lot of people to look in the same place every day, you can sell ads there. As for how it helps the artists, it builds the fanbase which buy collections and merch which creators can make themselves, or sell the rights to. Sounds a lot like how the funny paper business has run for a long time.

Since papers are on the decline and scaling back on features like comics, UM needs to make up for that loss of awareness of their strips somehow. And if they can make a portal lots of people go to every day, they can sell the adspace for a premium. Despite the economic conditions, online advertising is still a huge growth market.

Tom Spurgeon: Actually, a lot of people believe that on-line advertising is either flat or has dipped slightly; it's definitely flat for newspapers. I know this is the conventional view, Dan. I just disagree with it. Comic strips are set up differently in that they partner with newspapers in order to make money. United Media in my view has taken partnership options off the table in the belief that there will be a benefit through the exposure. I don't believe there will be as big a benefit from this exposure as they seem to think. I don't believe that people are going to suddenly discover Drabble, or that free content at the syndicate level is a good idea, period. We'll see. Obviously, as with all such criticism, these are people paid a lot of money and that are much more successful than I am when it comes to making such initiatives. I just hope that this doesn't lead to a bonus for the people setting up the program and lead to little or no money or even less money long-term for the cartoonists.

I mean, a "portal"? Isn' that 1997's Internet model?