Dealing with the syndicate:
A few years ago, I suggested changes in the News Tribune’s comic lineup. We didn’t end up making any, but for entirely different reasons there will be one this week. On Wednesday, “Blondie” will no longer appear. A new strip, “Pearls Before Swine,” will take its place.
Before I get to why, let me state that I like Blondie. She’s a sensible, devoted mother and wife who’s aged well (the clock stopped when she hit 40 or so) and if the punch line relies on the same old antics, they’ve more or less kept pace with the times (today’s strip is about streaming the Super Bowl on electronic devices). An exception is Mr. Dithers’ roll-top desk and overstuffed swivel chair, but you try getting him out of it.
There aren’t a lot of readers who remember, but when Blondie made her debut in 1930, she was portrayed as a gold digger. It turned out to be a bum rap, and she and Dagwood married for love. His father disinherited him, however, and Dagwood’s been a working stiff ever since.
So it’s not surprising to find Blondie again at the center of a financial dispute, if through no fault of her own. The DNT is one player and the other is King Features Syndicate, which licenses and distributes “Blondie” and many other comics to newspapers and other media.
Syndication is a perfectly fine business. What’s not fine is that the DNT is charged roughly twice as much for “Blondie” as for any other strip, and more than five times higher than some. The Sunday “Blondie” is billed at $62.01 per week. By contrast, “Hi and Lois” costs $32.22, and “Beetle Bailey” only $11.67. Both of those are also distributed by King.
It may sound like I’m penny-pinching, but automatic, recurring charges add up; think of your cable bill. Yearly, the Sunday “Blondie” alone comes out to $3,224.52, which could easily be allocated to.......
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