I've decided I have to be more careful on Tumblr--can't just automatically click "reblog" for something. From now on, I will check to make sure that the image/text links to the originating source...SOOOOOO frustrating when it doesn't, ESPECIALLY when the originating source is actually on Tumblr. I get that Tumblr is all about the likes/reblogs/PEOPLE LIKE ME! but ya gotta give proper attribution, especially to the artists. And it's not like it's difficult:  link the image to the original blog.

Given that I live with an artist who has a blog for which he does 'toons every weekend, I know how much it upsets him when he discovers that someone has posted his 'toon which any attribution whatsoever...or maybe there's a tiny link hidden away at the bottom, but once someone has read the entire 'toon on someone else's site, what motivation do they have to go to the Source? (His "Star Trek in Four Panels" was a HUGE hit on the internet...on every single blog that posted the entire 'toon. And that was a lot. We're still wondering how big it would have been if more people had actually linked it to the source.)   One Industry site used to post Ty's entire 'toons every weekend (under a big advertising banner, natch); he asked nicely if they would please just post a link, or one or two panels. With the former situation, he'd get 100 clickthroughs a day for a week...with the latter, it was 1000. 

Some might think, "Well, who cares, it's just a blog..." but the artists behind all this work use the hits as a monitor for how interested people are in their work, as motivation for continuing to post freebie art/toons. Some are keeping track to try and figure out how much of an audience there is for print/digital collections of their work. Other artists actually have ads on their site, and they'd appreciate the opportunity for some level of income, however little. It might not seem like much to you, but when the comics industry is in such dire straits, there are a lot of artists who count on that income, who count on the ability to show a publisher that people care about their art.