Matt Groening on self-syndicating and Acme Syndicate

GROTH: Was your strip was running during all this time?
GROENING: In 1980 James Vowell gave me a spot in the back of the paper. I arbitrarily picked a square format and started Life in Hell, the comic strip. I got $25 a week for it.
I met my wife, Deborah Caplan, at the Reader in 1981. We knew each other as co-employees for several years. At the time, in my disorganized way, I was trying to self-syndicate my comic strip. I think I was in about 20 papers. Checks would come in erratically, and I wouldn't really keep track of them. I'd bury a check underneath a pile of papers and forget to cash it, that kind of thing. At the same time, Lynda Barry was also self-syndicating her stuff. Independently of each other, we both decided to do the same thing, and we became very good long-distance friends as a result of the shared miseries.
Anyway, I met Deborah and she took over the syndication of my stuff. I encouraged her to quit the job that was making her crazy, selling ads, and represent me. And she did. It was a good turn of fortune for both of us.
She turned this little weekly strip into a business called the Life in Hell company. After a while it was too much trouble. Now we're licensing some of the T-shirts and other stuff. Of course, The Simpsons makes the Life in Hell company seem like a drop in the bucket.
GROTH: You started your own syndicate. I think it was called Acme.
GROENING: Lynda Barry named it. It was started in 1985.
GROTH: That was a good five years after you started the strip. You at least syndicated yourself, Lynda Barry, and John Callahan. Did you syndicate anyone else?
GROENING: No. We were unwilling to do what a syndicate needs to do in order to make it work, which was take a huge percentage of the money. It just cost so much to keep the thing running, a pain in the ass, that it just didn't work with other people.
GROTH: I see. Do you still syndicate Lynda and John?
GROENING: Lynda decided she could do it herself. That's good because when it's your own thing you can work as hard or as not-hard as you want.
GROTH: And how about John Callahan?
GROENING: One of the employees of the Life in Hell company left and took Callahan with her and had great success. That was fine because it was the same thing, it's just... Well, you know. You publish marginal stuff and it's a thankless task.
GROTH: I can attest to that.
GROENING: People are suspicious that you're ripping them off. In order to make sure you're not ripping them off, you bend over backwards and then you don't make any money. It's no fun for anybody.
GROTH: So Acme now just distributes you.
GROENING: Just me.