Newspaper Cartoons: Why They Exist

Ever wonder why newspapers devote an entire non-revenue producing page, every day to a "silly group of pictures" called "cartoons"?

It may not be direct money, but savvy publishers have a better reason for running comics than for money alone.

Even though ad sales is the bread and butter of nearly all periodicals, most publishers understand that building loyalty and building it when the reader is young is mandatory.

Cartoons in many ways are news. They are what could be called extreme editing. They often reflect current news events and do so in a very ingenius way, with a graphic and a few words.

We are all creatures of habit. If we start reading a local daily paper at age six, due to the comics, we probably wll still be reading the same paper at age 56.

A reader also knows, whether subconsciously or not that if laughter happens early in the day, it can affect the whole mood of the day. And if it is a really good cartoon, it is one that others may have seen and can be talked about at the water cooler or Starbuck's before work.

A savvy newspaper wants a majority of cartoons to be "family-friendly" but also wants a mix of "somewhat controversial" or "different", though certainly reader-friendly to offset and appeal to college and post-grad level readers who may only have time to skim the paper, but will always go straight to their favorite cartoon, often before reading the news.

Peanuts Creator Charles "Sparky" Shulz put comics on the map. He was not a great artist, but he knew what we wanted.

Charlie Brown was the "proverbial loser" who, no matter how successful an adult becomes, still generally always works with that issue of "younger days" when even the dog knew answers more than him/or her.

Gary Larson understood clearly that college students and baby boomers liked comics too. And they didn't always like mainstream rated "G" comics. It was an experiment to create one that dealt with the intellect and it worked.

It is not well-known, but most cartoonists do not make the bulk of their money from newspaper publishing. It is from licensed products such as greeting cards, books, t-shirts, calendars and the like.

Cartoons exist because the public wants them to exist. If the public didn't want them, the editor would cut the page in a minute. It is a costly page and no advertising is sold on it. It is only there to build loyalty as I mentioned. To the editor, the fact that it makes us smile is simply icing on the cake; as long as we keep buying the paper.

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