March 28, 2024

Journey Into Syndication (Final Post)

Developing on GoComics allowed me to increase my readership while also continuing to improve (depending on who you ask) my comic. And it really helped me get used to a 7 day a week schedule. But most importantly, it gave me a little over a year’s worth of comics to pull from for future projects.

Now, I don’t know how the typical development period goes – but for me, it was more or less a waiting game. While there’s always room for improvement – for the most part, my editors seemed pretty satisfied with my work and where I was at creatively and didn’t seem to feel the need to hold my hand too much. My biggest problem was drawing what I thought was funny without being too controversial. I was usually pretty capable of pulling this off (at least I thought so) but there were a few comics that I thought were rather benign at the time that, in retrospect, may have toed the line a bit more than usual – 3/8/07, 9/6/07, 11/29/07. I haven’t gotten any complaints or anything – but after looking back, I realize that these are panels I could probably get away with displaying online but might not be so well received in print. I dunno.

During this development period, I also produced new artwork for marketing purposes, modified, re-colored and reformatted some of my old artwork and learned the process of colorizing Sundays.

Anyhow, after several months of development, I was invited up to Kansas City to meet all of the fantastic people at AMU. In complete awe, I met and had dinner with Mr. Lee Salem, and Mr. John Glynn. I also met with Mr. John McMeel. I can’t begin to explain what a privilege it was to sit in this man’s office and talk with him one on one. In fact, it was nice to finally meet with everyone at Universal. To become acquainted with all of the people that have helped make so many of today’s comics such a success was a completely surreal experience to say the least.

After my visit, I came home and continued to write and draw. And after many more uneventful months had passed, it was finally time to start selling the panel. Let me just say that, with no disrespect meant towards other syndicate sales staff, there is no doubt in my mind that Universal’s sales guys are the best in the business. They started selling and to my pleasure, we immediately picked up several papers including the L.A. Times, The Washington Post, The Detroit Free Press, The Seattle Times and now the New York Daily News. After getting some initial sales under our belt, Universal went ahead with the announcement that The Argyle Sweater would be syndicated and will launch on April 7th.

Well, that pretty much sums up my journey into syndication, but there’s more in store for The Argyle Sweater – much more… Stay tuned :)

Comments

  1. Clovis says:

    That was a great read. Thanks for the post! You have a great comic; best of luck!

  2. Larry Levine says:

    Thanks for the ‘behind the scenes’ insight. You’re an inspiration for all of us on Comics Sherpa!

  3. Richard Krauss says:

    Thanks for sharing your path to syndication, Scott!

    Your comic is terrific!

  4. scotthilburn says:

    Thanks Clovis, Larry and Richard!

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