This will be about Peanuts' harm on newsprint:

One thing you guys need to understand before going into this is what a syndicate is:

A syndicate, basically, takes your comic and sends out people to talk to newspapers into paying for the rights to publish it in their paper. 1/? https://twitter.com/lucy_fuchs1/status/1318380287605186560

Readers pay a monthly or yearly subscription to read newspapers, and a bit of that income goes towards paying syndicates to publish comic strips in their paper.

When newspapers aren't making enough money, they usually cut comic strips out their paper first to save costs. 2/?

The reason I bring this up is because being syndicated is a cut throat business. It's incredibly difficult to get your comic syndicated, especially these days when the industry is on the decline. Cartoonists work for YEARS to get the chance to be syndicated.

Few get lucky. 3/?

What does this have to do with Peanuts? Well..

One thing that isn't talked about is that there's many cartoonists who want the work, but there's only so many newspapers. Which is why syndication is so cut throat.

When a new comic gets put into a newspaper, one has to go. 4/?

Think of the comics page as "slots". There's only so many slots a newspaper has for comics, and when one comes in, one gets replaced.

Ever seen a comic you like one day and then the next day see it get replaced by another comic you've never seen before? That's what happens. 5/?

Another thing that's important to know about newspaper syndication is that it's never about being in just one newspaper. Newspapers don't pay a lot for comics. Maybe $1-$5 per comic a week if THAT.

The goal is getting in as many newspapers as possible. 6/?

To make a proper living at making newspaper comics, according to my other newspaper cartoonist friends, is roughly 100-200 newspapers.

By the time of Sparky's death in 2000, Peanuts ran in over 2,600 newspapers.

That's a lot of papers (and income) 7/?

When Sparky retired Peanuts, it was decided by his family that no new comic strips would be made for newspapers.

I don't know who made this decision, but it was instead decided that they would rerun his old comics.

Which was a tremendous mistake. 8/?

Why was it a mistake? A few reasons, but there's one big reason:

Remeber when I said there's only so many slots a newspaper has for comics, so when one comic comes in, one gets replaced?

Peanuts is now irreplaceable.

9/?

There's a term in the comic strip industry called "The Lockables".

Meaning, there's a few select strips that will not be removed from circulation because they're now considered "Legacy strips": Beetle Bailey, Blondie, Family Circus are a few of them. And so is Peanuts. 10/?

The issue with this, however, is that the three legacy strips I mentioned are still producing new and original print material (for better or for worse is up to you).

Peanuts hasn't had new and original print material since 2000. 11/?

Thus making 20 years of Peanuts, a comic strip that's still in newsprint circulation, and still making income with no one making new material or at the helm of it. 12/?

Now why has this caused harm for the industry?

Peanuts is still running in over 2,400+ newspapers. Remember when I said it takes roughly 100-200 newspapers for a cartoonist to make a living?

Imagine if peanuts retired in 2000 how many cartoonists could make a living today 13/?

If in 2000s Peanuts retired off the newspapers and syndicates gave more support towards creators, there'd be a lot more variety in comic strips out in circulation right now.

But peanuts started the trend of letting cartoonists rerun their strips 14/?

Another thing that isn't told: A contract for having your comic in syndication is usually 20 years MINIMUM. They want you in for the long haul and for good reason too. It's a lot of money to invest into a new feature and not many have the guts for it. 15/?

HOWEVER. A thing syndicates started doing after the 20 year contract is asking their cartoonists if they either wanted to end the feature, continue it, or retire and just print reruns.

More have started taking the retire and print reruns route. 16/?

You see how this is a problem now, right? The more that print reruns, the more the industry stagnates and let's a hard to access industry be even more hard to access because now new material are fighting against old material. But it gets even better! 17/?

Instead of ripping the band-aid off with Peanuts by retiring it out of circulation in 2000 and giving new chances to creators, Peanuts is now a zombie franchise that won't go away, and if/when it goes down, it's taking others with it. 18/?

There's a cycle when it comes to readers, newspapers, syndicates, and cartoonists.

-Readers pay for newspapers
-Newspapers pay syndicates for comics
-Syndicates pay cartoonists for comics
-cartoonists make comics for Syndicate, Newspapers, and Readers
19/?

What happens if readers stop paying for newspapers?

Well, newspapers wont be able to afford comics, so they'll stop paying for them. Making syndicates unable to pay their cartoonists, making the cartoonists unable to make a living. 20/?

"Sounds like thats just part of the digital era and the decline of print media."

Partially true. But newspaper readers will always be around, and they are an incredibly fickle bunch. One false move and things could sour, and newspaper comics have it the worst. 21/?

"What does this have to do with Peanuts?"

Peanuts is one of few 20th century comic strips still in the pop culture mainstream, next to Garfield. You already see the reactions to the news about the peanuts holiday specials not airing on cable this year and going streaming. 22/?

Now imagine if the strip now decides to rip the band-aid off and goes out of print circulation, 20 years after Sparky died instead of doing it from the get go.

Newspaper readers speak with their wallets and will stop subscribing to newspapers at the slightest inconvenience. 23/?

There's nothing more inconvenient than seeing your favorite 70-year-old comic strip no longer available to read in your sunday funnies.

And peanuts' legacy will make this choice be a MAJOR deal, for both the newspaper industry and the comic strip industry. 24/?

Peanuts is one of the major reasons why readers are still subscribing to Newspapers.

Once that goes there's kinda no turning back. It'll be a really big issue inside and out.

There was going to be much more to this but I hope you get the point I'm trying to make here. 25/25

Also found out the streak to a Twitter thread is 25 posts.

Never thought I'd make it that far but this is a conversation that needs to be discussed.