The Daily Cartoonist

Hmm. NOW I might be inclined to go to Wizard Con this year. They don’t usually have syndicated comics cartoonists.

All I know is that Carlos was a great guest on Comics Coast to Coast (plug!) and incredibly supportive and funny. It’d be great to talk to both of those guys because they’re very approachable.

And it actually begs the question “why aren’t syndicates more active at comic conventions in general?” At San Diego Comic Con, one of the biggest gatherings of comic fans on the planet, there was virtually no syndicated comics presence. “Peanuts” had a booth, and a ton of webcartoonists were there…would it be so hard for the big syndicates to combine forces and open up a decent sized booth and have a couple of artists there? They talk about newspapers shrinking, but getting more fan exposure certainly couldn’t hurt!

And interestingly enough, Tom, there WAS a considerable presence of syndicated EDITORIAL cartoonists this year.

John, I wonder if that has to do with some of them having graphic novels out?

I must’ve missed those guys, John…would’ve loved to chat with them, as I have a deep admiration for the art of the political cartoon. But I think we need to start some grassroots campaign to at least get the syndicates out in force in San Diego next year. I think several booths with some big name comic strip creators would be huge. The general public would love meeting the faces behind their daily ‘toons.

Well, there were couple of syndicated guys at the NCS booth. I met Greg Evans (Luann) and Andrew Feinstein (Girls and Sports) over there. Plus editorial cartoonists (although I only managed to meet Daryl Cagle).

Oh, and Jeff Keane was there, too. Nice guy.

With the hits comics pages have taken in recent years, and with the all-media pop culture direction SDCC has gone in, now would be a very good time for the syndicates to have a real presence there. SDCC has a much broader audience nowadays than it did back (in the 80’s) when it was geared toward just comic book fanboys.