Cox and Forkum Call It Quits

One of the most popular editorial cartooning teams on the Internet by any measure I can find, John Cox and Allen Forkum, have given up regular editorial cartooning for financial and emotional reasons. Chris Muir gives them an insidery salute.

Scroll down Daryl Cagle's blog for an interview (no permalinks, sorry). Tom Spurgeon has pretty good commentary:

1) they were considered a conservative cartooning team, which is supposedly one of those thing the marketplace desires, 2) they were never able to generate much of an income despite having a not-inconsiderable on-line presence, 3) their cartoons were visually accomplished, something many people believe the market desires, and 4) it's harder to make a marginal cartooning enterprise work when any potential revenue is shared by two people.

Naturally, point #2 interests me the most. I'm not sure that they got as much revenue out of their site as they could, but then again, I can see how they might resist going beyond a few Google Ads-- they could sell advertising space, or go with a banner ad, but what if the resulting ad conflicted with their own politics? Penny Arcade has run ads for games that the strip has scorned, with little apparent controversy, but I don't know if the audience for political cartoons would be as understanding... after all, video games don't really determine the future of the free world.

I don't share their political leanings, but Cox and Forkum often reached across ideological lines to make me think a little, and Cox is a gifted caricaturist. I'll miss the team.