After 16 years, close to half his young life, Jason Chatfield got the news he had dreaded:
It was from Dave Braithwaite, Head of Editorial Operations at Fairfax Media. He told me in no uncertain terms that it was the end of the road for the comic strip I’d been writing and drawing every day. This news was followed shortly by an identical email from News Ltd, sealing the fate of Ginger Meggs. The 102-year-old legacy strip I’d tried to keep alive (yes, even by attempting to turn it into a webcomic) had drawn its last breath as the bean counters turned the lights off for the thing keeping my lights on.
What’s a young cartoonist to do when he loses his main source of income?
With no regular gig to pay the bills, I turned my attention to evolving my years-long weekly newsletter into something I could —God forbid— charge for and build a more substantial body of work in the process. I poured a lot of time and effort into making it something worth reading.
So, about a year ago Jason took the plunge and…
moved my mailing list over from Mailchimp to Substack (that’s the precipitous jump you can see in the graph below) it became evident I was better off here on Substack. The increase in finding readers like you who want to read my work has been nothing but positive.
Jason now has over 100 PAID subscribers to his New York Cartoons Substack.
Over 100 paid subscribers might not sound like much, but it’s the difference between this being a side hustle and something I can honestly dedicate my time and energy to.
Yeah, Jason has a start and has incentive to invest his time to entertaining the hordes that will be coming.
Jason isn’t the only one.
A number of cartoonists now lean on their Patreon and Substack accounts to help “keep the lights on.”
Check our Support Your Local (or Distant) Cartoonist list to maybe help one of your favorite cartoonists.
It’s a good read too. Lots of variety in his posts.
Thank you, Mike!
(note (or warning): certain “New York Cartoons” Substack text found to had been vulgar (or profane))
I should hope so!
I love Jason’s substack and I love using this platform as a way to connect with cartoonists I know in real life and ones I haven’t met yet. It’s like twitter used to be.