T Campbell's Blog

As it was pointed out in the article, their back-log of material is their greatest untapped revenue source. The WWE realized something similar a while ago and all of they're released collections of things like old Ric Flair matches, or Wrestlemania on DVD and online broadcast, and from what I understand, they're making a good deal of coin from them.

And all they really need to do is get John Barber who whoever they got rotting away on staff to search the fan sites like Dave's Long Box or Scans Daily to see what materials the online folks would be interested in seeing.

Strikeforce Morituri comes to mind, or old Superboy comics now that he's just been punched to death.

There's NOTHING to stop Marvel or DC or the rest from releasing the original comics their movie properties are based off of online, hyping the shit out of it, and seeing if they can do online what V For Vendetta did in the bookstores.

Okay, V tapped into the impotent liberals market, but you know what I mean.

Imagine, "The basis for Superman Returns, now available for free online!" during the credits, or TV ads, or whatever. They can do it if they only dare to dream.
 

Hey T, your mailbox is full...
 

Empty now!
 

The Marvel Universe "atlas" is a pretty neat use of the site in itself. The Marvel jungle sounds intimidating to an outsider like me, so it's good to have a map and machete provided.
 

I have to disagree with your sentiment here, T. I consider what Marvel has done to be a bit of a failure, and said so in a recent tangent following up on the first commentary I did about Marvel.com's on-line selection.

They're using it as a means of advertising new comics. But there is no follow-up. We have first editions of a Kitty Pryde story and of a new X-Men arc and of She Hulk and so forth... each one starting a specific storyline... and then that's it. If we want to learn more about the story, we have to go out and buy the comicbooks.

Look at what the Foglios have done. They have an ongoing storyline for Girl Genius. People can read the entire present storyline (and are slowly catching up on the back story at the same time for the 101 class). Fans then have the option of purchasing trade paperbacks.

If Marvel did something like this, relying on the Internet to draw in fans and then printing trade paperbacks of the comics, then they'd undoubtedly have higher sales. Traditional comicbook fans would buy the trade paperback when it comes into a comicbook store. The trade paperback would likewise be available through bookstores and on-line, allowing fans who read the story on-line to pick up a copy to keep for when they're not on-line.

The interface is also clunky, slow, and extremely pixilated. It's ill-suited for comic books; Marvel should spend the time to just enlarge the text bubbles and block out a little more of the art while allowing the comics to be legible and professional-looking. On-line fans could then purchase the comicbook to see more of the artwork with smaller text bubbles.

What we currently have will likely collapse in a year or two, and then a year or so after that re-emerge from the ashes with yet another relaunch. And I doubt they'll have learned the lessons taught from their previous on-line venues.

Rob H.
 

William G says that the V for Vendetta movie has led to a vast increase in bookstore sales for its trade paperback. He suggests that other DC or Marvel movies could be used to promote free online comics.

I agree with that statement in theory. Marvel and DC could do that. But I don't understand why they would want to.

The V for Vendetta collections are selling for money. (So, for that matter, are WWE DVDs.) That's the point. That's *why* DC wants them promoted.

The goal of Marvel and DC is *not* to maximize readership, as is implicitly suggested in Tangent's linked article. It is to maximize profit.

When Tangent objects to being forced to go out and pay money for comic books to find out how the story ends, he is demonstrating that the system Marvel has in place works. It is not designed to convenience him by giving him everything he wants for free. In a very real sense, it is specifically designed to inconvenience him (by withholding the resolution of the story) until he pays them money, at which point he will no longer be inconvenienced.

Marvel's online comics are designed as a promotion. It is possible that it could be a *better* promotion. It could do so by, for example, having better quality scans, by giving more background information, or even by having a "pay site" where you could read the rest of the story online after paying without having to find a comic shop. But it would be a *worse* promotion if it gave the reader everything they wanted for free.

To say that Marvel (or DC) should have free sites and earn money through another mechanism such as advertising is an attempt to avoid the reality of the situation, that the interest of the reader in getting as much as possible without paying is *not* the same as the interest of Marvel in getting paid, and that Marvel should act in *its* interest.

It is theoretically possible that advertising revenue on the Marvel site would be enough to equal the revenue they make through selling printed comics. But to do so, the advertising revenue would have to earn significantly more than any webcomic currently in existence does through that method.

Tangents claims that it is "undoubtale" that if Marvel provided its comics for free on the Internet, in their complete state, then they would have higher sales of those very same comics to people who have already read them for free. I do indeed doubt this. That people who have received content for free are then willing to voluntarily pay for the same content is sometimes true, but it is one of the more oft repeated fallacies of the Internet that such a course of action is more common than simply enjoying the material for free and never paying.

Nicolas