Mmmmm…yes. One month til Go Time. I don’t have an exact date yet, but yes in 30 days or so, you shall witness the massively delayed, triumphant return of The Mighty Tubularman. Can’t wait that long? Click on the link to see the first Tubularman video. Produced by some dude from somewhere who probably never read Tubularman. But who cares? It’s unofficially the first ever Tubes video and it rocks.

Tubularman Video

Like the mock album cover? Care to guess what album cover we tip our hat toward? (HINT: Use the title of this post) Well, my friends, the studio is intact after weak-ass Tropical Storm Ed tore right up through the middle of the great city of Houston. Electricity was down for a few hours and that’s about it. The rain was much needed. But seriously, all of you that bought all those batteries and bottled water at Target, you really need to calm down and stop watching the local news. 40 mph winds will not cause you to be without basic services for two weeks! Relax. Make a batch of Hurricanes, light some candles and ride out the storm. Now if you live on the beach, I’ve got no sympathy for you. You’ll never be “caught by surprise” from a Gulf storm. You live on the Gulf Coast. You should have had storm shutters on your home the day you closed. Never understood the panic of buying plywood when a storm enters the Gulf. Keep. The plywood. In Your Garage. A storm surge will happen again! Holy cow it’s insane. Anyway, the studio is still being unpacked and will be ready for next month’s triumphant return of The Mighty Tubularman. Rock on.

After the next eleven Classic Tubularman strips, its time for the continuing adventures to be seen soon in The Mighty Tubularman. It has been almost ten years since a new Tubularman comic strip has been published. So where has Tubes been since the end of Classic Tubes? Somehow, ol’ Tubes got trapped in another dimension for several months. But back on Earth time, he’s been gone for almost ten years and declared dead. Will Tubes get back? Well, duh. How else am I going to make fun of everything and everybody?

As I type this, a big storm is heading this way so I am posting now in case the power gets zapped. The approaching storm (Eduardo or something stupid like that. What’s wrong with plain Ed?) is loaded with symbolism for me. Tropical Storm Allison welcomed me with my last new Houston house in 2001. I thought Allison was going to be the biggest story of 2001. Oh how I was wrong. If Allison had occurred in a slow news year like when Katrina hit, oh man I’d probably have a few FEMA checks to call my own. Instead, I cleaned up my house and went to work the next day even though mass destruction littered my commute. I think it is important to put events and people in proper context. Nobody ever mentions TS Allison but Hurricane Katrina is a non-stop bleeding heartbreaker. We all suffer large and small setbacks from time-to-time. It’s how you handle these events in your life that define you. You can weep and moan how you survived a hurricane or you can get on with your calling in life. I’ve survived three hurricanes and two tropical storms. It’s life on the Gulf Coast and it ain’t gonna slow me down ever. Anyway, as I prepare for the approaching storm, I look forward to picking up the fountain pen again soon and bringing back my Tubularman comic. There’s always room for a little laughter. Even in the eye of the storm.

What a long strange trip it has been. I thought the move back to Texas would have been a little more easier, but five months later and I am finally in a house of my own. Equally important, my new studio is currently being assembled amongst the wreckage of my Florida studio. Drawings will commence soon. I formally apologize for the delay in getting Ol’ Tubes to all three of you out there. Here’s the new improved super duper plan: post about a dozen more “Classic Tubularman” strips from 1997-2000 and then bust out a new weekly installment once the Classic Tubes strips run out. No set date since I’ve been delayed quite a bit in this crazy year we call 2008.

Has anyone else noticed in my five-month absence that we can’t afford anything anymore? As if I didn’t spend enough to move back to Texas, the groceries and the utilities are off the charts. I am contemplating using my Monopoly money at the local Kroger to buy food. How does one go about getting those food stamps? Do our taxes still pay for those programs? If so, sign my ass up. Until then, I’m off to print more $500 goldenrod Monopoly bills.

Back on schedule soon. Rock On.

Warm winds blowing
Heating blue sky
And a road that goes forever.
Been thinking ’bout it lately
Been watching some TV
Been looking all around me
At what has come to be.
Been talking to my neighbor
And he agrees with me
It’s all gone crazy.
Well my wife returns from taking
My little girl to school, she’s got beads of perspiration
As she tries to keep her cool.
She says that mess it don’t get no better
There’s gonna come a day
Someone’s gonna get killed out there
And I turn to her and say “Texas.”
She says “What?”
I said “Texas.”
She says “What?”
They’ve got big long roads out there.
Warm winds blowing
Heating blue sky
And a road that goes forever.
I’m going to Texas.
We got to get out of here.
We got to get out of here.

–Chris Rea, Texas

Whew. Moving to Houston this week. Good-bye Orlando; I hardly knew thee. Or maybe I know too much…

As I leave you Orlando, may I suggest that you study cities like Houston so you may one day be an international city. People from all over the world pouring into your amusement parks does not make your town a global metropolis. Concentrate on more arts and less dependence on tourism. Full-Sail and companies like EA are your aces-in-the-hole. Make people want to live and work in your town. Build enjoyable villages that look like Winter Park, Maitland and Thornton Park but without the Beverly Hills price tags. For inspiration, please visit Houston, Austin and Ft. Worth.

Connect the 417 to the Turnpike. Two major tollways passing each other but not connecting. Are you insane? Add the words “South” and “North” to all of your Interstate 4 signs. We know I-4 is an east-west highway, but in Orlando, it is the most heavily traveled road and it only runs north-south. That causes quite a stir for the thousands of rental cars on the road every day. Stop directing people to the 436 to get to the airport. There’s a million traffic lights and it stopped being a viable route decades ago. Do not build a light-rail unless it runs all over Central Florida for hundreds of miles. A poor example of light rail can sadly be seen in Downtown Houston. It did nothing but benefited people who were already taking the bus and the company that built the rail.

Your pizza and sandwiches are stellar but your BB-Q and Tex-Mex (Flo-Mex?) are mediocre at best. Add more non-chain restaurants. Where are the upscale Cuban restaurants? Somebody push someone to open one. Your downtown entertainment district is for college burnouts and Paris Hilton wannabes. Orlando is not Miami. There needs to be something for people over 25 to do downtown besides getting wasted on a crappy dance floor. See the Museum District and Theater District in Houston for examples.

That’s about it, my head hurts. Farewell Sunshine State. I’m going to Texas.

Well, technically, this post should be called My Top Five but it is the top half of a larger list. Anyway, these fab five below are my heroes of the line art world. If I had to take only five cartoon collections with me to a deserted island, these five cartoonists would be providing the publications. I regret never having the opportunity to meet these fine gentlemen of the pen and ink realm. The least I can do is continue to study their works, introduce these men’s masterpieces to my offspring, and give these men praise and thanks when the opportunity presents itself; like right now.

5. Sergio Aragonés
As a child, my bookshelves contained cartoon collections, but my closet contained boxes of comic books and MAD magazines. OK, they still do. As thrilled as I was to read MAD magazine’s monthly send-ups of the current movies and TV shows, nothing delighted me more than finding Sergio Aragonés’ marginal drawings peppered through each issue. I collected Aragonés’ Best of Mad issues and absorbed his sense of humor and artistic details by the time I was publishing my comics in high school. His little details of characters outfits, accessories, and facial expressions always fascinated me whether it was in one of his collections or printed in fineprint on the side of a MAD magazine page. Assuming it was because of Aragonés’ limited printing space, he had the ability to take a few lines and make them very detailed. The hundreds of high school and college notebooks I went through all contained marginal drawings on each page. I attribute this infection to countless hours of scanning MAD magazines for that one Aragonés marginal that I may have missed.

4. Bill Watterson
What can I say? If you grew up in the 80’s, you read Calvin & Hobbes everyday. Kids today still read C&H and there hasn’t been a new strip made since 1995. While drawing my first comic books and even through high school when I was drawing my first published comic strip, I always had a C&H comic strip taped to my drawing board. It featured Calvin with one of his devilish whiplash smiles. If anything, Watterson showed me the art of facial expressions, the pace of a four-panel strip, the importance of friendship, and the joy of daydreaming. Watterson is the anti-thesis to Jim Davis. A consummate recluse, he refused to give what every kid in the country wanted: a plush Hobbes toy. Then he went one step further and pulled the strip completely. That’ll teach you crazy kids to complain! Well Mr. Watterson, I must complain too. Like The Far Side’s Larson, you ended your masterpiece too soon. Ten years may be too long in the tooth for a TV sitcom, but it is just the beginning of a classic comic strip. Still, the ten years we got is some of the best comics ever printed.

3. Bil Keane
Yes, that Bil Keane. It shocks me how The Family Circus is berated by younger generations as an unfunny comic creation. A long time favorite of mine, I’ve been reading Circus since I was a tot. I had 10-15 books growing up in the late 70’s and early 80’s. His ability to draw a flawless round curve is still mindboggling. Though the humor is at times too cutesy for today’s anything-goes mentality, Circus is perfectly drawn for the tween and below demographic as well as for parents. I wrote to Bil Keane when I was in 4th grade and he was kind enough to write back (his handwriting is like his signature!) and attach an autographed drawing. Something like that makes a 4th grader’s eyes pop out of their sockets. I was the envy of the entire classroom as my letter was addressed to my school and read in front of the class. The drawing is still framed and prominently displayed in my office to this day. He is a true inspiration and a legend to be studied and applauded. For the uninitiated, check out Keane’s Circus book collections from the 60’s & 70’s.

2. Charles Schulz
The Gretzky of the modern-day comic strip. Volumes have been said about this larger-than-life person. His most recent biography that came out last year focuses on Schulz depression and anti-kid rants. I’ve heard it all before. Most great artists have some kind of personal demons they are battling and Sparky was no exception. What came out in his Peanuts comic strip was pure genius. I don’t even know what influences I can attribute to Schulz since I’ve been reading Peanuts since I was in the womb (I believe my mom would swallow the Peanuts comics from the paper and the jokes and art would absorb into my placenta). I received the Peanuts Golden Collection a few days before Schulz passed. The book went from a collection to a national treasure in the blink of an eye.

1. Al Hirschfeld
The New York Times was always a newspaper lying around the family room when I lived in NYC and to this day when I visit my father in the Upper East Side. Up until only a few years ago, the only art that stood out in the Times was the one emblazoned on the front page of the Sunday Times art section. For an unprecedented 60+ years, Hirschfeld covered all things Broadway, TV, music and film in his simple, but not simple art. Longtime friend and Hirschfeld gallery owner, Margo Feiden, said it best. “I believe that Hirschfeld’s devotion to line comes from yet a more fundamental aesthetic – his respect for absolute simplicity.” Whether it’s looking for Nina’s or trying to pick out all the actors in a Broadway drawing, I have always been blown away by Hirschfeld’s ability to use a few lines to represent a person. I don’t think you’ve made your mark as a 20th Century entertainer unless Al Hirschfeld made a drawing of you. Once he draws you, the drawing becomes attached to that person. So many actors and musicians have used their own Hirschfeld’s for book covers, posters and albums that I doubt one could catalog it all. Today’s newspaper art is mere background noise to accompany an article. With Hirschfeld on your front page, his drawing was an article. I hope to one day fill an entire wall with Hirschfeld lithographs. If I ever accomplish this feat, I will never get any work done as I will waste away the days staring at these framed masterpieces. Until then, I will continue to get my Hirschfeld fix from my ongoing visits to his art expo and gallery exhibits as well as the many book collections dedicated to the Line King.

-Boomer Cardinale
www.tubularman.com

Who are the greatest cartoonists of all time? Ask a 15-year old and you’ll get a different answer than a 55-year old. Ask People magazine to take a poll and the results will be vastly different than a poll from Comixpedia (somehow, the People magazine results will include Brtiney Spears and Lindsay Lohan). My criteria in selecting my favorite cartoonists is strictly personal. The creations of these cartoonists fill my bookshelves. I’ve visited their galleries, their museum exhibits and read the publications where their works appeared. By following these legends throughout my life, they shaped the way I currently view sequential art, the timing of a joke, the subtlety of a line, a facial expression, and how I envision my life if I were a professional cartoonist. These gentlemen (no women? that is sad) are not all daily comic cartoonists. But they are all talented professionals who should have college courses and volumes of textbooks dedicated to them and their work. It’s not only the physical finished piece of art that makes the cartoonist. To me, it is the expression of the piece, the timeliness of their peak performance, the purpose, the audience and the cartoonist himself.

10. Gary Larson
What can be said about Larson that hasn’t already been said? Ask anyone 40 years old or younger which comic strip is their all-time favorite and they will either choose Calvin & Hobbes or Larson’s The Far Side. I found every last one of Larson’s gags funny, clever, original and at the time quite edgy. Every single gag comic since Far Side has tried to be the next Larson through more envelope pushing and with some being flat out obscene. Larson is the gold medal gymnast who was able to balance good taste and vulgarity year in and year out. I’d say Dan Piraro’s Bizarro comes closest to capturing The Far Side magic and reinventing it into a consistently funny and well drawn strip. But Larson is still king of the gag cartoon panel even though he quit way too early. The man took a two-year sabbatical after only 8-years of cartooning! The true sign of someone making a mountain of cash.

9. Scott Adams
Adams has been a huge influence on me since his Dilbert comic strip was still earning its wings. My first big office job out of college is where I first started seeing Dilbert strips posted on the fridge in the office breakroom. The office fridge was the de facto final resting place for all Dilbert strips. That was until the Dilbert marketing machine was cranked up and those same Dilbert strips started appearing on coffee mugs, calendars and dozens of books. This is the same kind of merchandising seen in years past from Garfield. Peanuts and Far Side; however Dilbert’s products were welcome in the workplace. And I mean all over the workplace! Screensavers, newsletters, industry pubs, it seemed to never stop. Adams perfectly positioned Dilbert at a time when there were no other office-humor strips and his tech-company theme was another stroke of creative timing during the Dot Com Boom. In an old Newsweek interview, Adams mentioned that he had just recently left his office job even though Dilbert had been syndicated for several years. He also said that he would slap Dilbert on everything and make as much money a possible. I admire Adam’s ambition as much as I admire Larson’s two year MIA.

8. Jim Davis
Say what you will about Garfield, but Jim Davis is a creative and marketing genius. I’ll forgive him for U.S. Acres. For those of you too young to remember, Garfield actually used to be funny. Though you will have to journey back to the archives some 25 years, the classics are in there. As a young pup, I read the first ten Garfield books almost everyday. The timing of the jokes and the consistent character traits of Jon and Garfield were very influential back in the day. So influential that I used the same childhood Garfield books as the book dimensions for my self-published Tubularman books years later. Today, sadly Garfield is a ghost of a ghost of its former self. What a comic strip would look like if The Hallmark Channel was a cartoonist. Like Adams, my admiration these days for Davis is for his mass marketing genius more so than the physical daily effort. The strips are mere background noise that is part of a much bigger corporate machine. Like Davis, I am not against making money from my comic strip. Unlike Davis, I would retire the strip as soon as it became unfunny and irrelevant.

7. TIE: Edward Gorey and Charles Addams
I don’t remember if it was a recent Boston or NYC trip, but I was at a museum and I took a wrong turn down a hall and found myself in a Charles Addams exhibit. Oh how I love old cartoons. Old Peanuts, old Family Circus, old Krazy Kat. Something about the retro feel to it. Both Addams and Gorey’s gothic creations have such a timeless feel to them. I thoroughly enjoy flipping through Addams’ New Yorker cartoons or Gorey’s children books. My favorite Gorey piece that I have is the original theater program of the Broadway musical production of Dracula. It is a masterpiece. How did they draw their creations? Oh if I could have been a young padawan learner in their respective studios for just a weekend.

6. Winsor McKay
You’ll have to go back 100 years to realize the impact that Winsor McKay had when he started drawing comics and tampering with the beginnings of animation. In college, I stumbled upon one of his collections in a used-book rack. It contained a few samples of his Little Nemo in Slumberland and his Dream of the Rarebit Fiend comics. If there ever was a reason to create the Sunday comics section of a newspaper, then Winsor McKay’s comics must be it. A century ago, you could fill half your dining room table with an open page of the Sunday comics. McKay took advantage of this over-sized comic space and a limitless printing press color palette to create sequential art paintings. It doesn’t even matter what the punchline was in McKay’s works as the words got lost in the overtly detailed and colorful masterpieces. It’s hard to imagine his finished pieces were meant for a newspaper and not a museum of fine art. After discovering his works, I subconsciously found myself inventing imaginary characters (i.e. Captain Jack) in my comics. Or was it another McKay inspired creation, Bill Watterson’s Hobbes, that caused my fascination with the imaginary? Regardless, McKay is the Godfather of comic strips and his influence can be seen today as online comic strips have once again picked up the large workspace and unlimited color palettes not seen since Little Nemo’s time.

Bottom half of the list coming soon…

-Boomer Cardinale
www.tubularman.com

You know what took a looong time? Getting the Tubularman Comixpedia profile up and getting Project Wonderful ads chugging. Glad that is finished. I’m amateur at best in the HTML department so I had to have my ol’ webmaster Chad post the PW spots on the main Satstu.com page. The Comixpedia profile was partially coded for me already by the Comixpedia administrator so that was beyond helpful. It’s amazing how much knowledge of web crafting is required for the modern-day cartoonist.

Uphill Both Ways
In my old man voice, back in the day all you needed was a pen and a piece of paper. When I was a cartoonist at my high school paper, then my college paper and then syndicated, the editors carried the load of getting my comic strips published. They scanned my strip, cut n’ pasted the strip on the comics page, pre-flighted the final page layout, press checked and delivered my comics to the masses. But the technological requirements of today’s webcomics is so monumentally time consuming it may as well be a full–time job. The cartoonist is now the editor, publisher, graphic artist and PR guy.

Webcomic Basics
Below is a list of some of the web basics a comic strip would need to make it today as a successful cartoonist. [Ed. Note: If you have a comic strip and it isn’t already online as a webcomic, something is really wrong.]

1. A webhosting service that can handle the bandwidth of your growing number of strips and audience members.
2. A website in order to deliver your comic strips.
3. A forum for you and your fans to interact.
4. An advertising system to generate revenue from all your traffic.
5. An advertising system to generate traffic from other sites.
6. Keeping up with other cartoonists and readers by visiting and posting on other online forums.
7. Have a subscription service in place on your site so readers can stay in the loop.
8. Set up web profiles on web community databases like OnlineComics and The Webcomics List.

This is just a small sample of the laborious task of keeping a modern-day comic strip popular and relevant. And I didn’t even mention the creative ability to write and draw a regular comics feature! Or maybe you don’t need artistic ability. Last time I checked, there were 10,256 webcomics listed in The Webcomic List community. Ten thousand! At the peak of newspaper publications with maximum comic strip coverage; there were probably 200 syndicated cartoonists in 5,000+ newspapers. Imagine today if there was only enough space online for 200 comic strips. But it is still amazing what opportunities and demands the web has unleashed on today’s budding cartoonist. Just be sure to have not only a pen and paper, but a writing tablet, a scanner, a computer, a webhosting service, web design skills, and plenty of time.

-Boomer Cardinale

www.tubularman.com

We know there are a lot of FAQ out there regarding the history of The Mighty Tubularman. Since you can’t wait for the A&E Biography, here’s some nuggets of truth for you.

Q: When did Tubularman begin?
A: The first Tubularman comic strip was first published on April 30, 1990 at Texas A&M University in The Battalion daily newspaper. Yeah, yeah, we realize some of you weren’t even born yet. You also never heard of cassette tapes, rotary dial, typewriters or UHF. Blah, blah, blah.

Q: Why is he named Tubularman?
A: There is an origin story that was printed way back in the early 90’s that will appear on this site one fine day. It is also in The Legend of Tubularman, 1st Edition (1994) and the 2nd Edition (1995). But from a creative standpoint, I was literally sitting in my dorm room thinking of all the superhero words that have already been used (super, bat, spider, etc.) for superheroes names ending in ‘Man’. The 1980’s had just come to a close and the Valley Girl-isms were still fresh in my head. So I rattled off some of the phrases like “that is like totally radical!” (Radical Man….nah), “Awesome Dude!” (Awesome Dude/Awesome Man…nah) and “you are like totally tubular, man!” (Tubular Man…not too shabby). My initial comic strip submission was titled “Tubular-Man” and eventually morphed into “Tubularman” once I was hired by The Battalion.

Q: What are Tubularman’s strengths as a superhero?
A: That has yet to be fully revealed. He’s no Man of Steel, but we do know Tubes can fly, lift a lot of heavy objects, survive minor explosions, cheat death, and outdrink the entire Justice League of America.

Q: What is considered Tubularman’s kryptonite?
A: Only Dr. Van Brewski knows for sure since he has done significant research on the subject. We do know flat beer in his system gives him temporary paralysis. And in the late 90’s, the evil Dr. Van Brewski played music by Backstreet Boys & N’Sync repeatedly on a jukebox and nearly killed Ol’ Tubes. Luckily, Wade Poole saved our hero by quickly playing Metallica on the ol’ jukebox.

Q: Who is Wade Poole?
A: Wade is Tubularman’s (aka Ross Wainright) longtime roommate and loyal associate. Wade has moved on in the eight years since Tubes was considered dead. Wade rose through the ranks at his energy consulting operation until the firm was found out to be an illegal tax shelter for the now-defunct Enron Corp. Wade now makes ends meet as a Nerd Herd Manager at the local Microsoft Store.

Q: Is Dr. Van Brewski the arch-enemy of Tubes?
A: Indeed. The evil doctor first appeared in the Tubularman comic strips in 1991. The Nobel-nominated scientist is a fixture in the Space City medical community despite his unethical approach toward reanimation, physics and gynecology.

Q: If Tubularman was ever made into a live-action film, who would play Tubes and who would direct?
A: A younger Jason Lee, circa-Mallrats, would be ideal. Maybe the folks at Skywalker Ranch could CGI a 21-year old Lee on their computers. Or if the movie was ever animated then Lee would be the voice of Tubes. Directed by Jon Favreau.

When discussing comic strips and the antiquated newspaper/syndicate business model, I sound like a broken record. Finally, I have some quotable sources to back up my theory on the evolution of comic strips into internet comics, or webcomics. The national newspapers and the syndicate system that sell to them have been re-adjusting as more and more information seekers go online. With the newspapers hungry for online entertainment content, the biggest untapped resource is not the latest pet antics on YouTube or some Shakira wannabe on MySpace. It’s the unregulated, unedited and widespread universe of online comics.

A Handful of Diamonds in a Mountain of Ice
The good news for the cartoonists young and old in 2008 is that the syndicate services role will be that of a talent scout. Without leaving their desk, a syndicate’s scout can simply mine the internet for the latest webcomic jewels. No longer will the aspiring cartoonist have to endure the archaic tradition of sending out countless copies of your strips in hopes of reaching one syndicate who gets your jokes. In other words, now the syndicate will come to you. But now the bad news: Unfortunately, there are too many creators clamoring for the online reader’s short attention span. Even worse, a webcomic rated in the top ten of a webcomic list doesn’t necessarily mean that the webcomic is intended for a general audience that a syndicate could make successful. For example, Michael & Stefan Strasser’s long-running Chicken Wings webcomic is usually top-ranked in a handful of comic listings. Though successful in the aviation industry, the Strasser’s strip wouldn’t do so well in a Chicago Tribune online comics section. In the end, a market research report will tell the syndicate what webcomics to keep an eye out for. And if you are one of the few that ever go under contract by the syndicate, your webcomic will never be in the newspaper pages. It’s OK, you don’t want it to be. According to Joanne Kaufman’s WSJ article entitled, No Laughing Matter, the syndicate services have finally admitted what I have been saying for years, “there’s no new money and no expanding space.” [Wall Street Journal, 11/21/2007]

Keep Your Cartoons Digital
Apart from the occasional book compilation, a new cartoonist should keep their comic strips online. Don’t hope and pray that you will some day be in the newspaper alongside legacy strips like Blondie and Beetle Bailey. One day, (if its not here already) Blondie and Private Bailey will be hoping and praying for the online popularity seen in today’s top self-published webcomics. As the country’s old fogey demographic gets older, it will be even tougher for newspaper editors to ditch Mary Worth and Apartment 3-G for your monkey-ninja manga comic. With the exception of a few new entries, most comic strips in the papers are becoming these legacy strips. This simply means that a long-running comic strip is continued even after the creator dies (i.e. Blondie, Peanuts, Wizard of Id). So forget it; keep your focus on being a webcomic icon and not a syndicated newspaper cartoonist. In the words of blogger, Matt Gill, “any good cartoonist frustrated with the business aspect of the whole comic strip business can create his or her own alternate distribution system. It’s not the syndicates’ job to make sure you get exposure. That is yours.” [The Silent Penultimate Panel Watch, 4/15/2007]

Welcome to The Golden Age of Comic Strips
Shortly after Kaufman’s article appeared, the President of Creators Syndicate, Rick Newcombe wrote to the Journal and revealed that online comic revenue is “….not generating the revenues that traditional newspaper sales provide, but many of us believe they will eventually.” Newcombe also mentioned newspaper editors experimenting more with comics on their paper’s website. And finally, pay attention, Newcombe closed by writing that since 1978, he has “never seen comic strips’ readership at such a high level if you include both newspaper and Internet readership.” Do you know what the Journal titled Newcombe’s letter? Comics Enter Golden Age. There you have it. With over 10,000 webcomics spread all over the place, only a few hundred will be plucked and used in a new online business model. Sure there will always be a Penny Arcade and a Chicken Wings to carve their own niche to great success; but for the rest of us, a new online distribution system may be the way to go. And don’t call them, they’ll call you.

-Boomer Cardinale
www.tubularman.com