The cartoonist behind the syndicated strip "Non Sequitur" has been using his strip to take shots at another cartoonist who ditched the syndicates in favor of a give-it-away model that is intended to drive traffic to his website. In repsonse to the Non Sequitur guy's bullying, one of the creators of the web-comic Penny Arcade has written this stirring manifesto:
This guy has been giving Scott Kurtz a lot of shit over Scott's syndication deal. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, any newspaper that wants to run PVP can do so for free. It's just free advertising for Scott. The more people he can drive back to his site, the more eyeballs on his ads and the more money he makes.
I sort of feel bad for Wiley, I mean it's not his fault he's old and doesn't understand technology. He's like a doddering old man sitting in his horse and buggy, shaking his liver spot covered fist at passing automobiles. He thinks that web publishing is for kids and lacks the integrity of good old fashioned paper. Let me tell you about web publishing Mr. Wiley.
Six years ago my friend and I started publishing our comic strips on the internet. Now Penny Arcade is translated into five different languages and read by 3.5 million fans in countries all over the world. When we have a convention to play video games and talk about Penny Arcade, over 3000 people show up. When we ask our fans to donate to charity they give $310,000 to the Children's Hospital. Newspapers like the New York Times write long articles about how fucking awesome we are. Huge companies pay us to create web comics based on popular license like Tom Clancy and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. All of this came from publishing our silly little comics on the internet.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, fuck you and fuck your stupid newspapers. We don't need you.
(via Waxy)
