Art Licensing: The Real Money In Cartooning

In my ten years of cartooning, people often want to talk about the money. They say things like, "You must be rich with all those newspapers you are in." In the first place, I'm not in that many newspapers and not even syndicated. Even if I was in syndication, that is not where the money is in cartooning. Speaking of syndication, the lottery has better odds.

Cartoon money is made with hard goods such as mousepads and coasters and aprson, not newspapers. Sure there are a few bucks in newspapers but not a lot. It is noted that the late great Charles Schulz of Peanuts fame made about 80 million dollars in art licensing to every million he made in newspaper syndication. This is about the average. A lunch box deal is worth a lot more than the L.A. Times in the crazy business of cartooning.

Licensing works like any other business. It is basically a trade for money. The artist approaches a manufacturer with a piece of art that he or she thinks would help enhance a product and the manufacturer and firm makes a decision. If it is positive, a licensing deal is made. Businesses also license to each other. Like a beer company logo to Nascar (or vice versa).

LIMA is the industry association. One does not have to be a member to be in the art licensing game but it doesn't hurt. Such associations are a great way to make contacts.

A lot of times the artist is a cartoonist. This is a hard sell for licensing but occasionally works and is done in reverse. Let's say Disney or Hanna-Barbara has an image like Mickey Mouse or Barney Rubble. A tote bag maker wants the exclusive rights to manufacture and market those images on their totes. In this case, they pay Disney or HB a royalty of sales.

I started out a very unknown. Even in my own region so trying t conquer the world was out of the question. I decided to contact some regional peroidicals that were in dire need of quality comics with their articles and sold them for what I could. I slowly built a portfolio and finally was able to take it to a manufacturer/drop-shipper who was willing to take a chance and make the products with a royalty split. I did not have a licensing agent so my attorney handled the contract for me. It is always a good idea, if your strength is in art and not numbers to have a professional in another area (like an attorney or agent) do that part of the job.

Within a few years, I found other manufacturers who made different products than the once I was currently licensing, and was able to negotiate with them using a similar contract.

Though my cartoons have now been published numerous times in newspapers and magazines worldwide, I am yet to be syndicated, yet the traditional old way (before the Internet) was to become syndicated first, then manufactured for licensing. The days of old are over.

I highly recommend for any artist, writer or cartoonist to explore the Internet for options beyond newspaper syndication. There are so many opportunties, one can almost pick and choose. Will fortune and fame happen overnight? It could, but I sort of doubt it. In most cases, mine, at least, it took ten years just to really get started.

Ten years ago I was working and living in a metal warehouse and had less than a hundred cartoons up on a free domain (I couldn't afford a www domain). Now I have eight domains, seven stores with almost 80,000 products in about 100 different categories , and the most visited offbeat cartoon site on the Internet, Londons Times Cartoons with over 8500 original images and almost 9 million visitors. That's not so bad for ten year's work, at least not for me.

Did I pay a price? Sure. Anyone does who sets his or her goal high. Was it worth it? I wouldn't trade it for the world.

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Cartoonist Rick London and his illustrative team has created over Over Eight Thousand Cartoons original offbeat cartoon, Londons Times Cartoons Cartooning: Where Is The Money?

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