The Bottom Line about Appearances

A very nice gentleman named Eric contacted me this morning. He is of the "Eric and Bill" duo that author the Bottomliners cartoon. Eric asked me quite politely via Email to contact him as soon as I was able and left a telephone number, and I called within 20 minutes of his Email arriving.

Very pleasantly, he asked whether the daily cartoon page I had here at iandouglas.com was something I’d paid to license. Upon asking for more clarification on both sides of the conversation, he basically informed me that even by my site linking to comics from other sites, it gives the appearance of "publication" of those cartoons, and some of those cartoons sign exclusive distribution rights.

Personally, it was just more convenient for me to have all of my most favorite cartoons in a single place to read than to click, and click, and click, and click, somewhat endlessly, to read my favorite cartoons. I don’t recall these other cartoon sites having a service where you can do such a thing.

However, since I don’t want to get into any legal trouble over the appearance of publication, I’ve removed my daily cartoon page, and do not apologize for any inconvenience it causes anyone else who visited my site just to read them. A

ll of you can go to comics.com and gocomics.com to read them just like me. A few extra mouse clicks per day versus legal hassle or paying money? Yeah, I think I’ll click my mouse a little more.

Thanks again, Eric, for being polite and cordial about it — please keep up the great work! If you can think of any good ideas about web development to work into a cartoon, I’d love to see them.