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iComics? Marvel Announces Online Comics Service
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No point really, except as a hacker "let's see if I can do this" kind of thing. If you want the comics illegitmately, they're already out.
For me, the biggest thing is paying for something and not being able to keep it. Maybe it is a kind of rental service like Blockbuster...but when it comes to comics, I'm not interested in renting them.
Again... hard to believe I know but some people actually prefer to pay for things than steal them O_o That doesn't mean you can't have a preference about how you use said content.
Edit: Especially since in this case, it's not just a question of the viewing format you're reading them in, but that they do not want you having any offline copies.
If they acknowledge that the internet is where people talk about comics, how are people going to talk about comics when they have to wait 6 months to join in?
Secondly, I reckon this subscription service will probably be at least 50% `guys too old to buy comics' with families or wives or similar. The nerd equivalent of online pornography. So maybe it doesn't really need to match hard copy release times.
While that may be technically accurate, and I'm really not advocating it, there is a huge gap between paying a subscription, having full access to content and then managing to access it offline when you aren't supposed to just downloading everything from a torrent site and paying nothing. It would only become an issue in my mind if you then cancel the subscription and managed to keep the content that you are no longer paying for... then you're no different to a pirate. It's moot anyway since it's probably not possible without Marvel's consent, which you won't get.
You're making it clear that you feel that pirating is free and easy and therefore somehow justified. That's really not an OK attitude, but whatever. People who feel that way are never going to stop pirating until being caught and punished is as likely as committing other types of theft.
This is for everyone else, who might pirate stuff occasionally when they aren't given another option, but who when given the choice are quite happy to lay down a very small amount of money and get stuff legally.
To Hayasa: If they could get comics online the same day they hit stores without screwing themselves and their retailers, they would. But it's just a simple fact that they can't do this without cutting their own throats.
I totally agree about the second point, in fact I find myself turning into one of those poor bastards (first kid due next March, and I'm already kissing my life of disposable income goodbye). It's also perfect for everyone out there who would read EVERYTHING if they had the cash, and for deciding if you like a title enough to put it on your pull list, or catching up on what came before you started reading it in singles.
Edit: but then, I like the people in my LCS, so I'd feel bad about robbing them of the sales. I'd probably skip some of the drossy Marvel stuff to spend the monies on toys 'n' hardcovers instead though.
It's gotta be within a week or it's no good for me. I take a few days to get comics as it is, and it's already tough having to avoid certain threads half the time so I don't end up hitting spoilers. If I had to read threads a month later, I'd just be too far behind and talking about awesome issues is half the appeal.
Six months behind? Fucking forget it.
@Virral, I'm not trying to argue that piracy is awesome and everyone should do it, I'm just trying to state some facts. The fact is, the entire online comic 'marketplace' as it is right now is pretty much 99% run by pirates. The only officially released online comic I know of is the City of Heroes ones, and that series ended half a year ago (and was free anyways). And they've stated that competing with pirates is one of their primary motivations for this. So if they want to compete with that, they're going to have to do better than "you get a warm fuzzy feeling inside if you buy from us". And attracting the "pirates 3 or 4 issues a year that they can't find in stores anywhere" people isn't enough, it drops the pirate marketshare from 99% to maybe 97%.
If they want to seriously compete with the pirates they need to offer a product that is at least almost as good. You can just go ahead and assume no pirate would use a legal alternative, but Marvel's stated goal here is to get them to do just that. The problem is, it's just not a real alternative if the comics are so slow and so temporary.
I honestly hope this succeeds because, if it's done right, I can finally live my dream of being able to read all available Marvel comics every month (albeit 6 months behind, but still). Hell, if DC would do something like this, I'd subscribe to that one too.
And really, as others have said, 4.99 a month isnt that bad. God knows I've spent more money on worse things. While the 6 month waiting period for new comics isnt going to stop me procuring my comics in a different fashion, if they had a full archive I'd be sorely tempted to sign up...
Right now Im sorta on the fence, and until my PSP dies or FF:T/Disgea ends, I dont think I'll need a new distraction at the office for a while.
That is what the whole writers strike in Hollywood is about right now. Considering comics are just now starting to see any form of distribution outside of the original run and TPBs I'd be a bit surprised if writers/artists get royalties off of digital distribution.
So for those who have tried and hated this have you used the Smart Panels view mode? It isn't the default, even though it should be, because it makes the comics a million times more enjoyable to read on the PC than the alternative.
As for pirates, fuck anyone who pirates comics and doesn't later buy them. That is worse than pirating movies and music, at least movies have their theatrical release and musicians have tours. Comic books have a hard enough time staying alive as is and dicks are out there pirating instead of buying? What the hell kind of worthless "comic fan" pulls that?
I was really hoping this service would have more recent issues so I could participate in GV threads in a timely fashion but oh well. I hate buying singles, I don't have the room for them or the patients to bag and board. Much easier for me to pull a TPB off the book shelf when I want to re-read something. Hmmmm...maybe I'll get a subscription to some of my favorite singles and then donate them to a school or library when the TPBs come out.
Uh, yeah, you should stop right now and never repeat this phrase (or any permutation of it) on this forum. It's the same as talking about downloading games or music in G&T.
The Newsarama story had a Marvel spokesman stating that they were planning to offer royalties, but none of the talent interviewed had heard anything about such plans.
Needless to say, without a WGA equivalent, the talent has no recourse if they feel they've been wronged by this move and, ultimately, it would fall to the fans to simply not utilize this service until everyone is rightly compensated for the distribution of their work.
Brubaker makes it sound like standard practice.
I get the impression from the royalties answer by Quesada that they're not going to ignore the royalties. I'm hoping they work something out soon
I remember Mark Waid saying he got a small check every time Impulse appeared in a comic/merchandise since he was co-creator.
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On the other hand, it's probably better for them to hash out details with the creators instead of announcing tentative plans to the fans first.
Yes, and it helped, but it had the annoying habit of cutting off some word balloons and the like.
I'm on the cusp, but then I go and look at the previews and et turned off by the godawful quality.
The thing I could really use would be an option to single page and then rotate my monitor (my LCD swivels easily) for a more proper page fit. It gave me the sign-in when I tried to select single page, but maybe you folks have tried it and can tell my if you can do that.
Yes the old issues that are not in print or are to pricey to purchase are a good idea, but what about the brick and mortar stores. Don't you think they will suffer a loss in revenue? I mean they take a hit now as it is with all the pirating that goes on.
PREVIEW HERE: http://firstsalvo.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=160
I feel for you, I really do, but this is more or less a good thing if you're a consumer. Speaking for myself only, this is only going to take about $5 out of the $60-85 a month I'd normally spend at my LCS. I'd get a lot of value out of that $5 that I wouldn't get buying back issues at a store. Moreover, assuming that all of the archived comics that are accessible amount to lost sales sorta falls into the same fallacy that the RIAA and MPAA buy into. I honestly would not go spend lots of money to get the equivalent paper copies of most of those comics. Newer comics, sure, I can understand why that would be problematic, but I think they give enough lead time for new floppies to have gotten in the hands of consumers before they get on the DCU.
I'm just curious: do you feel the same way about Marvel Direct and DC's direct subscription service as you do about this? Again, speaking for myself only, 10 of the 40 or so comics I get each month are direct from Marvel, so that's $30 the LCS isn't seeing as well. Which one is actually doing more harm to your bottom line?
But uh, why would it be browser only? Isn't that one print-screen away from being saved?
You can hit up Marvel.com right now and try it.
Print screening a comic is a ton of work. No one is going to bother with that.
It fucking sucks.
1) Incredible low image quality. On many of the comics, mostly the older ones, its almost impossible to read the text. (im using 1280x1040 btw). Sure, you can zoom in on the text, but that leads us to:
2) The comic viewer is retarded. I've had it crash a couple times on Firefox and IE. It's bloody slow sometimes (taking up to 10 min to produce an entire comic book) and sometimes it just doesnt work. Added to that, zooming and changing pages can take a long time to load.
3) Awful comic selection. Not only is it 6months behind, its so incomplete its not even funny. For example, Ultimate Spiderman goes from jumps from issue 3, to issue 7, to issue 14. Its like they just rummaged around the archives and just chose to scan issues at random. On top of that, many issues are mislabeled, and some have rather arbitary classification (some series are broken up for unexplainable reason.... like mid arc)
IMO, its not even worth the 5 bucks a month, the service is complete and utter shit, and quite frankly the whole affair pisses me off. All I want to do is read comics, is that so hard to do Marvel?
2) I kind of agree on the viewer, it's not fantastic. I don't think it's awful, but that's me. Most of the problem comes from the fact you don't store local copies, it seems to stream them online (keep in mind those high resolution images would be pretty large if downloaded in a single hit). That's a whole different kettle of fish though.
3) 100% agreement, it is absurd. I just don't think they should bother releasing a series if it keeps jumping randomly. I noticed the same thing with Exiles (literally the first comic I thought of that I want to read from the beginning without having to buy all the issues/trades). Until they flesh out their back catalog I'm not that interested, so hopefully they are working on fleshing out those books and not just trying to keep up with the newer stuff.
All I know is that when I read comics using Marvels thing, it sucks and I have a hardtime reading the text. This is especially obvious when I compare it to other comics that I read on my computer... I dont have to zoom in or rotate my screen for those, they're just perfect.