Ok, here's the question:
Would you pay $59.88 to read over 5000+ Marvel Comics online, including the first 100 issues of Amazing Spider-Man & Fantastic Four, plus new Web-exclusive content?
This isn't an ad for them, I'm just curious if Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited is a model that would work. Especially for backlist.
Another question: would you pay a comparable price for a similar program on DC's end?
I would like the freedom of browsing backlist at my leisure without spending a lot of money or having piles of dusty comics in my house. For me, this largely becomes an issue of space to keep stuff. I don't have the space or the inclination to "archive." If there is one place where I can just read this stuff, that's great.
And as a writer, this arrangement helps me do research.
That said, I understand the appeal of the trade paperback/archive collection. But me personally, I really crave digitized comic book backlist. And I vote for more obscure stuff that might not be cost-effective for Marvel to put out in trade. In other words: more Devil Dinosaur and Rocket Raccoon.
I have no disposable income to speak of but if I did...
ReplyDeleteAs a fan I doubt I would get my money's worth. I would probably get bored with it and never look at more than a few issues. Plus I can pretty much walk into my basement and read almost as many comics for free. (Well, I already paid for them.)
As a creator, having that much reference material is appealing but, like I said, I feel like I'm pretty stocked up already. If money were not an issue it would be tempting though. I would be neat to have all those pages a mouse click away. I would probably be more interested in the Marvel stuff than the DC.
p.s. $60 a year seems a little lame because in the first year you get like 5000 comics but in the next year how many would you add and would they be any good. I'm afraid the value vs. cost justification would dramatically decrease each year. Maybe more a membership model would be better where you can sign up for one year or multiple years and pay accordingly.
ReplyDeleteI think if it was indexed by story arc, I would certainly be more enticed. I bought a Spider-Man DVD for my dad that had every Spider-Man up until 2005 and the biggest problem he had with it was that there was no way to find specific story arcs. A proper archive search by year, artist, writer, story arc, that would be friggin' brilliant and totally worth that price tag.
ReplyDeleteMy thoughts, given the dynamic of the internet and the geometrical price drop of both online storage and print-on-demand, is that Marvel and DC's archives should be free to browse online.
ReplyDeleteLow cost trades (Essential/Showcase format)would be the next step up from that, followed by color coffee table versions.
If you have people browsing your content online, presumably reading material they have seen in years, then you have multiple opportunities to make ad impressions which will more than pay for the online venture.
How many Pay-sites have you been on that have really been worth it?
For what they are offering now? no thanks. But i would pay say $30-40 a month to get all access to all new marvel titles digitally every wedneday.
ReplyDeleteVal,
ReplyDeleteI'm a Marvel Digital Comics subscriber and I absolutely would do the same with DC. Hell, I'd pay up to 400 a year (total, including the various Image and indie books I read) if I could get new releases, day of release, emailed to me. I'm sick and tired of the clutter. I'm not a collector, I'm a reader.
Of course, I asked Joe Q at the NYCC this year if there were plans to go with a simoultanous (sp) digital/physical release and I was roundly booed by everyone at the panel, so I don't ever see it happening.
I wouldn't pay $60 a year for Marvel DCU access even if the site contained every issue of every comic Marvel, Atlas, and Timely ever published. But my complaint is of format: the pictures look terrible on my computer - full of jagged lines, blurry colors, etc. Marvel DCU looks just like the Marvel Dot Comics I enjoyed reading for free in high school eight (seven? six?) years ago. While this picture quality is fine for something free, I wouldn't be willing to pay for it.
ReplyDelete(I'm also loathe to pay for non-permanent subscription-based access.)
If they got rid of the DRM, let you read offline (if the comics worked as an epaper format, that would probably get me to buy a Kindle type device, too), and had the titles I wanted, yes. Absolutely.
ReplyDeleteAs compelling as this deal seems to be it brings me back to the concept of continuity.
ReplyDeleteFor me its not the issue of Reed used to be a WWII vet and now is a Desert Storm vet (or other time shifted nonsense), but the truly ret-conned BS.
Case in point is most of the Spider-Man foolishness with Gwen Stacy, Clones, mysticism, and other needless concepts. It would take a massive level of compartmentalization in order not to be sarcastically scoffing everytime something major happens that I know will be later drastically changed and thus made moot.
I give it a thumbs up on its merits as a research tool, a catch up device, a money saver (over collecting), and a space saver.
How's that for non-committal?
In.
ReplyDeleteI'd only pay it if it included virtually every Marvel Universe comic ever published, and if we were able to save the comics to our hard drive.
ReplyDeleteI would if I didn't have to use that hopelessly crappy flash comic reader. PDF or flash paper would be fine.
ReplyDeleteI've never been into paying for entertainment on a monthly or yearly basis (one of the reasons why I don't play any MMORPGs) because it's unpredictable how much use whatever I'm paying for will get during a given time period.
ReplyDeleteTo that end, I prefer whatever I buy to be in one of two formats: one-time use (eating out, playing an arcade game, riding on the bumper cars, etc.) or use-it-till-it-wears-out/depletes (DVDs, shampoo, basically anything else).
If I find a bunch of comics that fall under that first category, that are interesting to read once but aren't appealing enough for me to ever want to read them again, then OK, I'm down with this... as long as I don't feel like I'm forcing myself to use the service when I'd rather be doing other things, just to get my money's worth.
I'd be happier with paying X amount of money either to download Y amount of comics to my computer, or for unlimited online viewing rights to the Y amount of comics I select.
Regardless, it's a great idea, and (as I'm really looking for a broad exposure to comics more than anything else) I'd pay a comparable price for a DC subscription, if only for just a year of it.
However, I think I'd sooner wait for Marvel and DC to produce a compilation book containing the first few issues of several old, forgotten comics.
That would serve the same purpose as how I'd most likely use the Marvel subscription, and they might be able to incite enough interest in a few of those comics to warrant publishing collections.
Maybe they've done that already. I don't know. But I'm rambling now and I'll stop.
I actually had the service for its first two months of existence. I dumped it because every time I tried reading a series - at least the relatively recent "decompressed" books - they were always missing issues in the middle of story arcs. I'm going to take another look at the service before the end of the year, but if that aspect hasn't improved greatly (making available full story arcs) I won't stick with it.
ReplyDeleteAs for the price? It's a ridiculously great bargain. Even if you only care about 1,250 out of the 5,000 comics and take 2 years to read them, that's less than 10 cents per comic. Anyone (who has a PC and an Internet connection) should easily be able to afford it.
As a research tool for writing, probably. But as expressed by others already, it all depends on what's offered and what will continue to be offered within that year. I already have 15,000+ comics, and a lot of the older stuff has been reprinted several hundred times (BTW, they did a Devil Dinosaur Essential trade a couple years ago). So, honestly, for me, they'd need to offer the ungettable gets that NOBODY'S seen unless they were born at the time, and offer one hell of a search function.
ReplyDeleteAgreed on wanting it to be downloadable to my harddrive. Paying for the content should mean that it's now mine to do with as I please, just like a standard floppy. Piracy will always be an issue, but as long as the piracy is more appealing than the paid solution, people will continue to do it.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'd be happier with an installment plan than just giving $60 once a year. Plus ensure their prices are lower than their original costs.
The sheer ammount of refernce material you'd have at your disposal makes this tempting. Still, I know that I would probably never sit down and actually spend anytime reading, so it's a pass for me.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I think it's a great deal for all of the items you mentioned. I mean, I don't find myself digging into back issues too often (unless you count TPB sales), so I don't know how much value I'd get from looking through the catalog of 20 or 30 years ago, but...still...you can't beat the pricing or packaging.
ReplyDeleteOnly issue I have is that I'm not purchasing anything, really. Instead, it's just sort of an access model, isn't it? I would at least like the option to d/l...even if it's at an additional cost (sort of following the iTunes or Kindle model).
Anyway, I wish DC had that. Don't know what's holding them up. Is it rights management?
I tried the dcu model for two months and my biggest issue was i really wanted to have the comics available offline and not in flash format which just does a nightwing 149 on the original artwork.
ReplyDeleteNo, because I don't think they offer enough right now. Like mel, paying a monthly fee to gain access to all recent titles every Wednesday would make me reconsider. This goes the same for DC.
ReplyDeleteIf Marvel DCU had as close to every title ever published, I would probably pay the $60/year once - I could read all the titles from the archives I wanted in a year, so no need to resubscribe. As a business plan, it doesn't make much sense.
What makes more sense is to set up a micropayments situation: pay $60 to get credits (call them "NoPrizes") that can be spent on individual titles. Straight cash-for-download would also work, but both methods need to have the titles able to be downloaded rather than simply accessed. Formatting these downloaded titles for various media (PDF, e-readers, Kindle) would make this an instant sale for me.
I signed up for the year-long plan around January or February, and I'm very happy with it.
ReplyDeleteThis may sound odd, but it allows me to check out books I'd been marginally interested in, but not sure if I wanted to spend the money on.
For example, I've been reading New X-Men and Cable & Deadpool on there. I probably would have never gotten around to buying the trades for either title, but I'm enjoying them knowing I'm reading them for much cheaper than I would have if I got them in physical form.
This also allows me to have more money to spend on indie comics that aren't going to be distributed online. I can read Warren Ellis's Iron Man arc, and use that money on Scott Pilgrim instead.
With comics being at least $3 each, all you need to read is 20 comics to get your value, and I did that in my first week with the service. Some weeks go by where I don't use read anything, but I still add to my reading list every day. I'm never even going to ever get through it, so I think it's a great value.
One big complaint is that a lot of the bigger titles on there don't have complete arcs, so sometimes it feels like they're using the Digital Comics Unlimited service as an advertisement for trade paperbacks. But, there's more than enough material on there that I'm interested in that is collected in full.
The reader kind of sucks, but I think they'd be crazy to allow you to download the comics to your hard drive. That would just increase file-sharing.
I really would recommend it to others, and if DC offered the same, I'd probably subscribe. I'm not a DC reader at all, but for $60 a year, I'd definitely find enough stuff to read to make it worth my while.
I know someone who passed on it because of the "lack of product ownership" argument, but I think of a Marvel DCU subscription in the same way as if I'd get HBO or Cinemax or Showtime -- I'm just watching like normal until I decide to buy the DVD collection at Target.
ReplyDeletePlus at $60 a year, that's about the cost of 20 comics (or 15 Marvel comics) so it's actually a good deal.
But you know what? I betcha Marvel is planning on having online-only comics soon. They'll start with maybe a Spider-Man or X-Men mini-series. Maybe even something featuring work by fan-favorites like Brian Bendis to help drum up greater interest and to test the waters of marketplace acceptance.
I should also add that despite reading comics for 18 years, I don't have a huge back issue collection, so this is very useful for me.
ReplyDeleteAnd if Marvel's Digital Comics Unlimited turned into an iTunes-style pay-per-issue system, I would not use it. If I'm going to buy them and own them, I may as well buy the print versions. But 60 bucks for unlimited access? That's a deal.
People should also be aware that Marvel IS doing several online-exclusive series: Secret Invasion - Home Invasion, Iron Man: Fast Friends (set in movie continuity), and The Incredible Hulk: Fury Files (movie continuity, again). They're not great or anything, but the movie ones have been fun, and it's a step in a new direction.
It's the format that's keeping me from using it. If they were downloadable CBR files then I would be all over it.
ReplyDeleteBut, since it utilizes that truly horrid FLASH applet I'm having to pass.
The image quality is so bad that I couldn't read the issues I've tried.
I doubt it'd be worth $5 a year to do it via that Flash interface.
Looks like Marvel's really helping out.
ReplyDeleteWell, I dropped the $60 at the beginning of the summer so I could read them at work, and I have to say I'm pretty happy with it. It's kind of annoying that they still don't have huge swathes of their back catalog up, but frankly, what they don't offer me legitimately, I'm going to find in other places. Also there is no excuse for them not to have all of Timely/Atlas's catalog up (and I even include "Young Love" and such, because that's of interest to any enthusiasts of comics history)
ReplyDeleteI would kill for a similar DC service.
Yes, I would. That way I can find new interesting things I wouldn't bother with otherwise!
ReplyDeleteCould just be the fact that with the dollar this low, everything feels like a bargain...
What I'm interested in reading is mostly recent comics (last 0-3 years) which I didn't read as single but have marginal interest in -- things I would buy from a 25 center or $1 bin. I don't care about stuff from the 60s and such, since most of those I already have in Essentials books that I haven't read yet.
ReplyDelete$5 a month for stuff up to a year ago, or a limited monthly volume (20 comics/500 page views -- 1 cent each!). $10 a month for stuff up to a month ago, or an unlimited volume. I'd pay those prices willingly.
My boyfriend is more the comic reader than I am, but he has been saying for years that if either publisher did an online subscription service that he would definitely pay.
ReplyDeleteHe prefers reading comics online - its easier for him, and when they're in the right format he can put them on his iphone and read them anywhere.
Specifics would be very important to me, but in all honesty, probably not. Were I Marvel, I'd use the Pre-Paid cell phone model. Sell a credit pool that would allow you to read anything you want for X points. That way it's a constant revenue source with minimal upfront cost to the consumer. Surely Marvel is profiting more than $5 a month per consumer on average. I've barely read Marvel for a great many years, but my trade paperback purchases have probably netted Marvel $5 a month over that entire time. When I had my shop, I had customers who bought $60 worth of Marvel a week. Marvel would be cutting the throat of their publishing division.
ReplyDeleteThis is almost absolutely perfect for me.
ReplyDeleteYou see, I'm part of US Naval SpecWar(SB2(SWCC/SW) for SEAL Vehicle Team 2 tbe), and we are constantly moving in and out of station. Stuck for months on end at foreign bases, Army FOBs, Warships, wherever and there is no way I can pack more than a couple absolutely essential tpbs.
But we always have internet access. Being online I can just hop on and read random comics and arcs and what have you.
It is way worth it. And honestly, if they added new releases, not even day 1-stagger them like a week and I will pay quadruple the admission price.
I can't wait to get a kindle - I'll get novels and books signed by authors when they come through on tour, and there is some out of stuff print that I want to keep, but I'm all for getting rid of the dead trees and going digital. I'm a big believer in the long tail as well, and I'd pay $60 a year for access to all the Rocket Racoon and Howard the Duck.
ReplyDeleteI'll second the comment made earlier that most of the time I'm a reader, and not a collector.
ReplyDeleteNah. I'd pay per issue for DRM-free downloads, though, even if it wound up costing more in the long run.
ReplyDeleteProbably not, but I'd pay to download entire runs, if that service were made available. I love my Fantastic Four omnibus, but that thing weighs like 50 pounds and I'm a weakling!
ReplyDeleteLet me download, Marvel.
I looked into this, but have not tried it other than looking at some free issues and trying to figure out what the scope is of the collection. 5000 is a big number, but I would prefer it to be more complete runs, even if that drove the number down.
ReplyDeleteA few things that would absolutely make it a no brainer that I would pay 60 bucks or more for.
1. Make it like an IMDB for Marvel comics. Index the hell out of it and put lots of value added info in it that is all searchable.
2. complete runs with no gaps. Even if it is just select titles, or older ones, at least give gap free runs.
3. More current runs. Even if there is a gap of 1-3 months, at least have a majority of major recent titles complete up to that point. Astonishing X-Men is on there up to issue #9.
4. A well explained system for adding new material. Allow users to fully know what is going to be added and when, and what the system is behind it.
Another nice feature would be (and it may already have this)to take a tip from Netflix and put in a queue that you can throw issues or runs into for later easy reference.
I also think that the program cdisplay gets it right as to what a viewer should be. The viewer should be simple and out of sight. I don't care if you lose some of the smart panel functionality, showing the comic clearly easily should be the priority.
Right now I'm happily paying $9 a month for Marvel's digital library. There's a lot of comics I want to read, but don't want to buy. (Right now it's a very convenient way to read Spider-Girl, which they are no longer reprinting.) I may switch to the $60 annual plan soon.
ReplyDeleteThere are some glitches, though. They need to fix the word balloon placement. Also, there doesn't seem to be a method for which comics get added to the library. Every day they add five random books, leaving many older storylines incomplete.
They also need to improve searchability. If issues are part of a crossover event, there needs to be some kind of tag. (And it would help if search results could order them in sequence.)
Other than minor details, I'm pretty happy with it. I'd also be happy if DC came up with something similar.
Not really, unless they stopped cycling what titles are present and keep full runs. Every time I looked at their selections, it was a subset of titles. Heck, they didn't even have full arcs.
ReplyDeleteFor me, a digital comics site should have full runs of series, and allow you to peruse the whole library. Not just a rotating selection.
If they did keep full runs, I might be interested if they'd keep it somewhat current. Like maybe a year or 2 gap behind current titles or something, although that would probably cut too much into the TPB market.
like many have said i would easily pay the $60 a year if they would present arcs.
ReplyDeletei have no desire to buy middling tpbs due to space issues, but i often want to read them. now it is the library for them or i just do not read them.
i also was not too impressed with the reader format when it was 1st introduced a year or so back and wound up bailing after the one month i bought.
I would if I had time to read comics beyond the ones that come out every week. I think Marvel's offering a very fair program, though maybe an even $50 a year would be cool. Also, if they put new comics on the site instead of waiting 6 months, that would be a better incentive.
ReplyDeleteMaybe. I keep thinking every once in a while that this is how I'd want to do it for both the big 2 - a virtual Silver Age (and more) collection. Pay a one-time fee and away I go, at my leisure. I could get my money's worth from the first 100 of Spider-Man and Fantastic Four alone.
ReplyDeleteProblem for me is what another poster raised - could the catalog expand to the point that I'd want to renew in the following years?
Count me among the already doing it, and enjoying it. Yes, there's room for improvement, but all in all it's worth it, and I'd gladly spend the same amount for a similar offering at DC.
ReplyDelete"Not really, unless they stopped cycling what titles are present and keep full runs. Every time I looked at their selections, it was a subset of titles. Heck, they didn't even have full arcs.
ReplyDeleteFor me, a digital comics site should have full runs of series, and allow you to peruse the whole library. Not just a rotating selection."
Huh? Maybe I misread this, but you make it sound like they're rotating comics in and out.
If that's what you're saying, that's untrue. Once a comic is added, it stays in there.
I'm also seeing a lot of complaints about the lack of full runs of titles. It's true for some titles, but they're full runs and arcs of a LOT of titles on there.
Services like this require the 'long tail' market. And while 5000 sounds like a lot, I did a spot-check:
ReplyDeleteOnly one issue of
+ Tomb of Dracula
+ Howard the Duck
+ Submariner (1968)
Nothing for Conan the Barbarian, Micronauts, or the Man-Thing.
You can see extensive listings for the major series, like Amazing Spider-Man, Uncanny X-Men, Fantastic Four.
I don't think it's much worth it for me at this point. A year from now with twice that library, it will be a good thing.
As for DC, it would be mostly worth it to me for Silver Age issues and for some series that I have missed like Starman.
I don't read Marvel comics, but if I did, $60 per year isn't a lot to pay for convenience, consistent quality, accurate labeling and indexing, and knowing that part of my money is going in royalties to the original creators (which are the things Marvel is selling, since all the comics on their site can be obtained quite easily off pirate sites). But it is too much when it's for a product that is inferior in almost every way to the pirated versions.
ReplyDeleteAs several people have mentioned, the Flash interface does something horrible to the artwork, making it look blurry and unfocused -- This makes the small print captions very hard to read. Also, the Flash interface takes up room (so I can't view the pages fullscreen), and it's clunky as hell - once I zoom in, I can't zoom out without starting over on page one, it seems. So, in brief, the pirated comics I can get off bittorrent are superior in resolution and in focus. This one is really stupid, since Marvel is scanning these off their original negatives, so they ought to be able to provide far superior reproductions compared to homemade scans of yellowing and tattered comics.
Also, 5,000 comics sounds like a lot but it's nowhere near every comic they've ever published. Sure, they have Fantastic 4 #1-100, but after that they only have some issues from the next 28 years of the series's run. On bittorrent, I can download complete series including every single issue ever published.
With pirated comics, I can read a multipart storyline seamlessly - when I get to the end of the first issue, a single keystroke takes me to the next issue's front cover. This doesn't appear to be possible with their interface, where I'd have to stop reading, go back, select the next issue, and resume.
Finally, many bittorrent collections include not just the comic story but also the original ads, letter columns, text pieces, and so on - often you get all 36 pages of the original comic, in order, which is great for following the evolution of fandom in the LCs, looking at old house ads to get a sense of what comics came out at the same time, or just for for looking at old ads for cardboard polaris submarines, bodybuilding lessons, or brine shrimp.
A word about ethics: I stopped buying new comics in the mid-90's, and refocused my collecting on getting old stuff from the Silver and Bronze ages of the characters and series that I wanted to read. When DC puts out a collection that reprints old stuff I'm interested in, I buy it. But the only way I'd read, say, the current run of Birds of Prey or Wonder Woman would be if I checked the trade out from the library. $4 CDN for a new comic is just too much to pay for 1/6 of a story. So it costs DC absolutely nothing when I download an old 70's series off bittorrent. If anything, it increases the likelihood that I'll buy one of their Showcase collections, because I like being able to read away from my computer.
If I was into new comics, OTOH, then I would feel an obligation to pay for comics and not just download them off bittorrent. I'd probably buy the trade versions of things I liked, and I'd probably buy digital comics from the publisher rather than just pirating them. But I'm not willing to pay a lot for intangibles - I can't put a digital comic on my bookshelf, so the price per comic would have to be low, and the quality and convenience factor would have to be high. Marvel's offering fails in this regard.
YESSSS, this would be awsome! and goes without saying that it is the wave of things today, and would be awsome. I am a Fan and My son is a Fan and with prices of the one's in print and Gas Prices and Stock Market and real life Foe's bringing the world to its knee's this is a REAL SuperHeros way to fight back for us.
ReplyDeleteGod knows we need a Superman to help us today, and bring back reading to the online generation of video action.
I guess I could go on but I am starting to sound like my son's fathers father, j/k my dad's awsome ;)