Are these things just franchises or brands now, to be carried on regardless [...]?
Unless the artist is good as gold and stupid as mud, yes. Breathed and Watterson metaphorically left a considerable pile of money on the table for their decisions to end their strips. Disney *could* have transitioned to a different corporate logo/identity decades ago, but continues to fight tooth and nail to keep Mickey Mouse out of the public domain, and continues to rake in cash they otherwise would have let go because of it. Scott Adams for example has unabashedly gone for whatever makes the most money of his creation.
Now, that said, I'm all for art for art's sake. In fact, I vastly prefer ephemeral expressions of art since those can only be exploited as directly experienced when they happened. It also always irritates me when an artist gets more focus than their art; they are a messenger for a muse, and I really don't care about the messenger, I just want the message.
In an ideal world, art would be free and artists would get by on their day jobs. However, we're soaking in a capitalist nightmare, not an ideal world.
sorry, couldn't help riffing on the Beautiful South reference...
Unless the artist is good as gold and stupid as mud, yes. Breathed and Watterson metaphorically left a considerable pile of money on the table for their decisions to end their strips. Disney *could* have transitioned to a different corporate logo/identity decades ago, but continues to fight tooth and nail to keep Mickey Mouse out of the public domain, and continues to rake in cash they otherwise would have let go because of it. Scott Adams for example has unabashedly gone for whatever makes the most money of his creation.
Now, that said, I'm all for art for art's sake. In fact, I vastly prefer ephemeral expressions of art since those can only be exploited as directly experienced when they happened. It also always irritates me when an artist gets more focus than their art; they are a messenger for a muse, and I really don't care about the messenger, I just want the message.
In an ideal world, art would be free and artists would get by on their day jobs. However, we're soaking in a capitalist nightmare, not an ideal world.