Is the Alt-Weekly Market for Comics and Illustration Drying Up?
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Source The Comics Reporter: “If you stop and think about it, it’s hard to think of anyone who’s broken out of that once-vital corner of the comics world in a dozen years,” writes the Comics Reporter. Reacting to the news that Washington City Paper will stop using freelancer Robert Ullman to illustrate the Savage Love column, the Reporter wonders if the alt-weekly market for illustrators, cartoonists, and comic artists has “begun its final decline” as papers have to focus more on bottom-line pressures. “I think that’s the way it’s trending, definitely, but I’m not ready to pull a sheet over the corpse quite yet,” Ullman says. “I don’t know, I would think that with all the conglomeration that’s going on with alt-weeklies these days, that there’d be more money for things like illustration, not less.”
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I don’t want to say too much on the topic but the consensus from most illustrators that I know is that it’s happening all over and it isn’t just Alt-Weekly’s. A lot of magazines are taking advantage of the booming stock-art market on the internet. Cheaper, faster, royalty free. Illustrators can only blame themselves for selling out to the lowest bidder then crying poor. The result has been that a lot of magazines have reduced their illustration and photography fees knowing that the market is desperate and readily available. Original art will always have value. You do get what you pay for.
It seems publications get thinner in bad economic times as well. After Sept. 11/01, the shelves were full of pamphlets for well over a year. South of the border it appears to be happening again – slowly perhaps, but I think it’s going to get worse as your average American puts mindless consumerism a little further down on their list of priorities.