Comments on: Poll: Marvel Digital Comics

By: Digital Strips: The Webcomics Podcast

Digital Strips: The Webcomics Podcast — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 11:55:53 +0000

[...] online-only titles based on their characters. Johanna Draper Carlson has some observations and a poll at Comics Worth [...]

By: Johanna

Johanna — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 00:22:58 +0000

That last bit is an excellent point, since right now, as far as I know, the creators don’t get any money for reprint of their work online. I’m assuming that’s different for those working on the online-only comics.

By: Glaurung

Glaurung — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 00:17:59 +0000

I voted for “I only buy if I can download” but I would also add that the Flash program they’re using makes the art look fuzzy — the lines are blurred, caption text is hard to read, and generally it looks like crap compared to an actual scan of the print version. Zooming in on the art didn’t help matters any, either.

I’m not a marvel fan, but considering that I can get a more complete collection off of Bittorrent, that I can read off-line, that has razor-sharp scans and includes the original ads and letterpages, they’ve got a long way to go
before they are going to be able to compete with pirated bittorrent comic downloading.

If they fixed their flash application so the art looked sharp, if they included the ENTIRE series of things like Fantastic 4 instead of just selected runs, and if they dropped the sleazy porn-site style recurring subscription model, they might have something going for them. Especially if they made it clear that part of your subscription fee got added to the royalty checks of the creators.

By: James Schee

James Schee — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 22:43:10 +0000

I put other. I’ve thought about subscribing at times, to check out some of the older Marvel titles. The current digital comics lineup dosn’t wow me, but that could change over time.

By: Timo Raittila

Timo Raittila — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 20:25:04 +0000

Thank you for the “I don’t live in US” option. Most polls forget us completely.

By: Johanna

Johanna — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 19:44:49 +0000

Glad you figured it out. This is new, so I’m still working out snags as well.

By: Joshua Macy

Joshua Macy — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 19:41:27 +0000

I did… but that made me think of something. I use No-Script, and I thought (incorrectly as it turns out) that since it didn’t prompt me that there were untrusted scripts on the page that there weren’t any; once I told it to allow polldaddy.com it registered my vote.

By: Johanna

Johanna — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 19:07:14 +0000

Me too, Matthew! I like print.

Joshua, stupid question, but did you select one of the radio buttons first?

By: matthew

matthew — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 18:48:48 +0000

I selected Other and wrote something like “I like analog comics.”

I spend too much time (~10 – 11 hours) each day on the computer as it is. I like taking my reading offline.

By: Joshua Macy

Joshua Macy — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 18:46:00 +0000

Hmm…. clicking on Vote doesn’t seem to do anything for me (using Firefox)

By: Melinda Beasi

Melinda Beasi — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 16:24:20 +0000

I chose “No, I don’t spend money for any online content” though I suppose something could come along that would make me change my mind. Truthfully, though, I don’t really enjoy reading comics on the computer, and much prefer reading actual books. I do read manga scanlations from time-to-time, but only when I’m already deeply invested in the series and I know I’m going to be able to buy the books eventually. I can’t imagine spending money for something I would only ever be able to read in a format I don’t enjoy.

Though now that I’ve said all this, I’m thinking, “Hmmm… well maybe for something like Young Avengers…”