COMICS KINGDOM

King Features Syndicate unveiled its latest scheme to weld comics to newspapers irretrievably: a digital platform that newspapers can embed in their websites, Comics Kingdom will eventually display at least 60 strips next to local and national advertising. The newspapers will make the local ad sales; King, the national. T.R. “Rocky” Shepard, King’s President, said Comics Kingdom can break even in about a year by splitting the ad revenue with its newspaper partners — after which, I assume King will divvy up the take even further by distributing it among the cartoonists whose strips are in Comics Kingdom, although the story in USA Today by David Lieberman said nothing about that. Lieberman did note, however, that newspapers that have tested the new feature say they experience increased traffic. "It's becoming the second-highest feature within our entertainment section, even beyond stories," says Shane Peterson of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Web unit. "It's definitely something that people are interested in."