This is huge news for webcomics – once of the biggest, Diesel Sweeties, is going to be syndicated by United Features Syndicate. Actually, that’s not 100% true. DS will continue as-is online, and R. Stevens will be producing a second, syndication friendly (aka: no sex with robots, I’m guessing) version for UFS. The sweetest thing is that it looks like Stevens is keeping at least part of his licensing rights to himself, which is an amazing feat if true.
Starting on January 8, 2007 Diesel Sweeties is going to be running in newspapers through United Feature Syndicate. These syndicated strips will also be showing up on comics.com, A.K.A. the best URL ever. Web-only and archived strips will still be here, same as always. We signed the papers a couple weeks ago and I’m still kind of shell-shocked. I’m working hard to finish the sample strips. The newspaper comics are going to be all-new strips with the same characters, seven days a week.
It’s a pretty cool deal: I get to do newspaper comics, while still maintaining my own copyright, website and t-shirts. The best part for me is that there will still continue to be new comics here on the DS site! A big part of how I maintain my “sanity” is by staying up late writing comics and posting them the moment they’re done. Continuing to have that flexibility in addition to working weeks in advance for syndication is really important to me and I’m extremely glad to still have it.
I’m psyched to get to do the one job I really wanted as a kid, while still maintaining my identity as web cartoonist. Throw in a pony and I’ll have burned through all three wishes in one go.
