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Art Licensing: The Real Money In Cartooning

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There was a time when a cartoonist had to be newspaper syndicated to "be somebody" (with apologies to Steve Martin in "The Jerk"). But even then, as now, the real money was not in newspapers. Besides, the chances of becoming a part of a major newspaper syndication are close to a million to one. One should just buy lottery tickets.

So how does the cartoonist make his or her money? The most lucrative part of cartooning is a little-known but huge business called "image licensing". Image licensing has been around a long time. It is known to be about an 80 billion dollar a year business, yet so few people know about it. That could be because, though the end user is the general retail buying public, this demographic of our population rarely sees or cares to see what goes on behind the scenes.

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).

Like many businesses, even art licensing has their own association called LIMA.

But what if the artist is not traditional. Maybe he/she is a cartoonist. Sometimes deals are done the opposite way in this situation. A manufacturer of, say collectible clocks or lunch boxes will approach Disney and ask for the exclusive licensing deal on that product for a certain image or series of images.

I startes as an unknown cartoonist thinking I would be syndicated within the first months or so because "my concepts were so good and different". I was fortunate to learn that was my ego talking. So I approached a several trade journals in need of theme cartoons 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.

As time went by, I found more manufacturers who made different products than my first ones and was able to make deals with them, using the same contract template.

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.

The Internet has opened all kinds of doors for the new and even veteran cartoonist who wants to be published with Ezines, blogs, and thousands of commercial websites that want a humor section on their site to attract customers. It takes a lot of legwork and it doesn't happen overnight. But it is worth the trouble.

In 1997, I began my cartoon venture metal warehouse in rural Mississippi. I could not even afford a website and didn't even know how to work the Internet, much less a computer. I bought some of those "For Dummies" books and learned as I worked. 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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Art Director Rick London and his illustrative team has created over 8000 original offbeat cartoon, Londons Times Cartoons Cartooning: Where Is The Money?



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