Marvel Entertainment Corp., the media giant that produced such graphical successes as The Amazing Spiderman, and The Incredible Hulk, not to mention The X-Men, etc., has come up with a new way to make money: Putting their comic books online, and charging people to read them. Read the story.
I think the idea of putting the comics online is a great one. I think of the web as a huge repository for information that should tend toward containing ALL of the world's digital content (see the Google Mission Statement).
On the other hand, I think that Marvel's mistake is in charging for access to its web content. I think they're driving away a large potential audience with their greed. Instead of charging a monthly fee, I think they should sell advertising space (through Google AdSense, preferably) and make money the same way that other successful companies do.
There's a huge number of semi-fans of comic books (I should know; I'm one of them) who have never bought a comic book in their lives, but think they're cool enough to read if they don't have to pay for them. I often flip through them at bookstores for a couple seconds. But, the problem is that if I can't be convinced to buy one of them, Marvel doesn't make money (and neither does any other comic book publishing company). Marvel has never earned a cent from me in comic book sales (though I admit, I did go to see several films based on comic books).
On the other hand, I might quite possibly be convinced to read more comic books if it were more convenient (for instance, if they were online), but I would never pay for the privilege. If Marvel offered their merchandise on an ad-supported platform, they could finally make that buck off the cheapskates of the world.
Comic book buffs won't stop buying comic books just because they're available online, and those of us who're too cheap to buy the real thing aren't going to shell out our hard earned bucks for something even less tangible.
Sorry, Marvel. This one's not going to stick.
Sorry, Marvel. This one's not going to stick.
