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Post by Corey Blake on Nov 15, 2007 15:59:58 GMT -5
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Post by Ziska on Nov 15, 2007 16:10:56 GMT -5
Smart move on their part (note the membership fee) may tick off some comic shops though.
I'm thinking of this as kind of like napster going legal and itunes. Comics have been available for "free" online for some time. And getting a small fee is better than nothing. And since none of these companies make any money off of back issues, any income from this will be a plus.
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Post by Jeffrey on Nov 15, 2007 16:20:30 GMT -5
I like how the abbreviation is Marvel DCU. As in, DC Universe.
Besides that, I'm not really interested in older back issues myself, and anything modern-ish I've most likely read if I wanted to...so I certainly won't be paying for it. However, I can see that some people would enjoy it a lot, so I say why the heck not put the comics online?? I can't see it hurting sales in stores.
Oh yeah, one more thing. They said in interviews that this is sort of a way to bring in the 'internet-savvy' crowd of youngsters into comics...but I don't really see them just stumbling upon Marvel's website and saying 'hey, lets drop some money to see if we like these comic books!'.
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Post by Corey Blake on Nov 15, 2007 16:48:49 GMT -5
Yeah, I know what you mean, Jeffrey. Although, there is 250 free samples, so in theory they would see something that would reel them in to a subscription. Of course, that doesn't explain how they get to Marvel.com in the first place. I guess a PR push (like the article in USA Today) might get some people's attention. But what's weird is that they don't even have full story arcs. I assume the idea is to get people to then go to their local comic book store and buy the trade for the full story. But if it's supposed to be connecting to the internet savvy hip youngsters that maybe don't want to go look for the trade, they might get turned off by the incomplete stories.
Having said that, I just read the first issue of Captain America by Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting and really liked it. I'd been considering checking out the title in trade and am now more convinced to do so. So, I guess on some level it's probably doing its job.
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Post by Corey Blake on Nov 15, 2007 16:50:13 GMT -5
Oh yeah, and the fee, Ziska. Yeah, it's a bit prohibitive for me. I'm glad for the free samples.
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Post by Jeffrey on Nov 15, 2007 18:54:17 GMT -5
I hadn't checked out the actual site yet, so I didn't notice the free issues. I'll do that now.
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Post by Ziska on Nov 15, 2007 19:02:28 GMT -5
I'm not sure if this is necessarily with the intent of getting anyone to buy the back issues. Marvel and the others make no money off that. And I doubt it's just for those surfing the net stumbling into it.
I'm more inclined to think that this is for those that are looking already, just don't want to buy a whole trade without knowing what it is. We all had stories when the first few good Comic book movies came out in the last few years how some nut walked into a comic shop and wanted to know how much it would cost to buy everything and they were laughed at. This is meant for those people. Cheap enough to not lose a college fund, efficient enough so they don't have to dig though back issues, and it doesn't take up so much room on the book shelf.
Marvel especially recently did a series of cd roms with 40 years of whatever comic book for sale, so obviously there is a demand out there.
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Post by Jeffrey on Nov 15, 2007 19:08:59 GMT -5
Ok, I just looked through the free issues, and there's nothing in there that I'm dying to check out. I did try out the viewer for the comics, though, and I'm not too keen on how to navigate the issues. ALSO, I HATE how they have like the first three issues of a storyline, and then they have the fifth issue. Why do that? It's just mean.
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Post by Corey Blake on Nov 15, 2007 20:13:47 GMT -5
I'm not sure if this is necessarily with the intent of getting anyone to buy the back issues. Marvel and the others make no money off that. And I doubt it's just for those surfing the net stumbling into it. I'm more inclined to think that this is for those that are looking already, just don't want to buy a whole trade without knowing what it is. We all had stories when the first few good Comic book movies came out in the last few years how some nut walked into a comic shop and wanted to know how much it would cost to buy everything and they were laughed at. This is meant for those people. Cheap enough to not lose a college fund, efficient enough so they don't have to dig though back issues, and it doesn't take up so much room on the book shelf. Marvel especially recently did a series of cd roms with 40 years of whatever comic book for sale, so obviously there is a demand out there. Except that as Jeffrey is finding out, this doesn't have everything. This has 3/4 of a story. Or they have the first 100 issues of Fantastic Four and Amazing Spider-Man, and then sporadic milestone issues. I don't think they are trying to drive anyone to buy back-issues. The back-issue market is kind of dead at this point. They're looking at trade sales, which they do make money from. Consider that there are links to find local comic book stores and links to what trade paperback collection any given issue is from, I'm sure it's to drive people to buy the trades in addition to already paying the subscription fee. Plus the ad revenue from Marvel.com. It will be interesting to see if Marvel's next quarterly report talks about how successful this is for them.
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Post by Ziska on Nov 15, 2007 20:36:21 GMT -5
Not sure how much of a dent it will really make. Like said most of these are available online of someone is willing to look for them (and the comic industry presently doesn't come out with the big guns like the music or movie industry for illegal copies)
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Post by Jeffrey on Nov 16, 2007 16:28:33 GMT -5
Now Corey, there were gaps missing in the free samples, but I assumed the actual subscription would have more complete runs. Is there a list of what is actually included as of right now on the site? And they are adding more each week, so I'm sure eventually it will become something like a complete catalogue of Marvel Comics, but it will take a while.
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Post by Corey Blake on Nov 16, 2007 20:01:07 GMT -5
You might be right Jeffrey, I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure that David Buckley or someone with Marvel said that was going to be their model, though. But again, I could be mistaken.
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