About Time

Marvel, DC and Dark Horse are putting their comics online.

Marvel is putting some of its older comics online Tuesday, hoping to reintroduce young people to the X-Men and Fantastic Four by showcasing the original issues in which such characters appeared.

It’s a tentative move onto the Internet: Comics can only be viewed in a Web browser, not downloaded, and new issues will only go online at least six months after they first appear in print.

Still, it represents perhaps the comics industry’s most aggressive Web push yet. Even as their creations—from Iron Man to Wonder Woman—become increasingly visible in pop culture through new movies and video games, old-school comics publishers rely primarily on specialized, out-of-the-way comic shops for distribution of their bread-and-butter product.

“You don’t have that spinner rack of comic books sitting in the local five-and-dime any more,” said Dan Buckley, president of Marvel Publishing. “We don’t have our product intersecting kids in their lifestyle space as much as we used to.”

Translate “kids’ lifestyle space” into plain English and you get “the Internet.” Marvel’s two most prominent competitors currently offer online teasers designed to drive the sales of comics or book collections.

Dark Horse Comics now puts its monthly anthologies “Dark Horse Presents” up for free viewing on its MySpace site. The images are vibrant and large.

DC Comics has also put issues up on MySpace, and recently launched the competition-based Zuda Comics, which encourages users to rank each other’s work, as a way to tap into the expanding Web comic scene. Company president Paul Levitz said he expects to put more original comics online in coming years.

“We look at anything that connects comics to people,” Levitz said. “The most interesting thing about the online world to me is the opportunity for new forms of creativity. ... It’s a question of what forms of storytelling work for the Web?”

This will make it possible for new readers to get into the medium. The price of comics have been prohibitive for many kids. The destination shop problem has also been a stumbling block. This gives people the chance to get into comics and catch up on the stories.

I’ve been saying for about 10 years that the publishers need to do this. I’m glad to see them finally getting around to it. 

That’s pretty fascinating, Hud!  I should check this out.

I think this will help the medium, despite the content nowadays (that and the art style, in most cases, warded me away from this stuff; I’m talking about DC and Marvel, mainly), but yeah, the younger crowd will no doubt take notice of this.

Somehow, I can’t help but wonder what it’ll do for, or to, the specialty stores . . . 

Posted by John Cassidy  on  11/13  at  09:11 PM

Hard to say. But I think it was inevitable that this happened. I am looking into putting some of my stuff online, as well.

Posted by  on  11/13  at  10:44 PM

Yeah,

I think Marvel should have done this a while ago, BUT…

A) I don’t like the plan that gives you viewing rights for so long without being able to download and own the content;

and
B) there’s no comment about whether or not the copies online are restored or scanned from original comics!
(I’m betting on the latter since Marvel is notoriously cheap.)

So far, the DVD and CD-ROM collections of comics have been a disappoint because they’re just scanned-in originals without any restoration whatsoever.

This plan might be good for casual viewers but not so great for collectors and hardcore fans.  The former group are basically stuck with B & W reprints (Essential, Showcase collections from Marvel & DC) or the ultraexpensive hardcover collections (Masterworks, Archives, Omnibus).

Comics just aren’t a cheap hobby anymore and quality is whatever Marvel or DC feel up to that particular month!

Posted by  on  11/14  at  06:08 AM

They want you to buy the comics, so they don’t want to make it too easy for freeloaders. I think the main goal here is to make it easy for people to get into comics, and learn about their characters.

But hey, its only the beginning. Let’s see where it goes.

Posted by  on  11/14  at  08:18 AM
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