No Trees Were Harmed
in the Making of this Picture

United Features Syndicate is perfecting its game plan to market comic strips in a world where newspapers are of declining importance:

Today, Comics.com serves more as a marketing tool than a significant source of revenue. Ms. Wilson says the site does bring in money from advertisers, which include cellphone companies and Netflix. But its primary function is to build a fan base — and to provide links to sites where fans can buy books, calendars and other items featuring characters from the comics. No one expects Comics.com to fully compensate for what Ms. Wilson calls “declines on the print side.” The site, she says, is “a platform for what comes next.”

[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the link.]