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A sister site, called WebComicsNation (http://www.webcomicsnation.com/), allows any budding comic artists start their own webcomics for a fee. Take that MIT!

maybe cheap year-long (unlimited) subscriptions to networks of sites?

http://www.graphicsmash.com/
http://www.girlamatic.com/
http://www.moderntales.com/

Seems to be working for them. :)

(I'm subscribed to the first and the third at the moment.)

Short of Marvel's dotComics, which are usually 6 month old storylines set into flash. There are not alot of comic books online.

I disagree*

because already they are free and I think that's the ONLY way anybody would be willing to be subjected to that experience.

Not too sure what you mean there, but if you're claiming people won't pay for webcomics, I'm sure these guys disagree.

If we can dream for a moment that David Willis won't turn Shortpacked! into another infinite loop of "I can't have sex w/ you because I love you" like his other comics, then Blank Label might actually have a decent comic. 1 out of 10 ain't that bad...

Modern Tales has American Born Chinese, Ice, Narbonic, No Stereotypes, Odd Jobs, Paradigm Shift and Wahoo Moris. 7 out of 63.
Graphic Smash has Aces High, Ascent, Digger, Fans, Gun Street Girl, Johnny Saturn, Life's a Croc, Little White Knight, Magellan, Rip & Teri, The Jaded, The Replacements and Vigil. 13 out of 31.
Girlamatic has Jupiter, L'il Mell, Sevenplains and The Stiff. 4 out of 23.

YMMV.

Why pay when there are free comics?
Because content isn't interchangable. Little 12 year old Billy's Dragonball Z wannabe comic is not the same as Scott McCloud's 'Right Number'. Billy's drek being free doesn't make it more worthwhile than Scott's which is a quarter.

Comic creators can just ask for donations or sell merchandise or adspace - Megatokyo does.
So comics are just a vehicle for pushing merchandise? What if the type of story you're telling doesn't lend itself well to easily marketed chareacters or advertising tie-ins - like Keeping Two or Nowhere Girl? Should the artists adjust their tales so that can accomodate the merchandising? Maybe add some cute, wise-cracking animal sidekicks the way Disney does?

If I was getting something I could keep I might do it. But I don't pay for non-tangible items.

So you've never paid to go to a concert or the theatre. You've never paid admission at a gallery or exhibit. You don't go to the movies. You have no cable tv.

So long as prices are reasonable, I'm willing to pay for an experience. In this case it's the experience of reading a comic. And a quarter for a full-size comic is definitely worth it.

I don't want to pay for something that I don't know will be good

So don't pay. No one's forcing you to.
Unless the person had previous work as proof of their competency or offer some sort of a preview (as subscription site ModernTales does), then they won't be getting money from me unless I see some damn good reviews. If artists are smart, they'd offer the past several strips free and just charge for the archives - until their name is enough of a draw that they can justify charging cash upfront (as is the case with McCloud's comic).

Yar - pirates
If someone wants to rip off the artist - the artist can't really stop 'em. But as McCloud mentioned in his comic on the subject, it requires someone to use their resources and time. If the artists are charging a reasonable rate - I'm willing to assume that most people would ante up the quarter as opposed to hunting for a pirated copy or sharing a pirated copy themselves.

I'd rather be reading http://www.moderntales.com/ or http://www.serializer.net/ I'd take Fancy Froglin, Magic Whistle, Fetus-X, Pup, and Fred the Clown over crossgen anyday.

There kind of already is this for online comics. Modern Tales is an online comic site that requires you to pay to access their archives. The profits (after overhead) are then distributed amongst the artists using the site according to how often each one's works were viewed.

There also is the concept of "premium" specialized online comic hosting. Keenspace offers such a service, as well as the ability for viewers to pay not to see advertisements (User Friendly offers this as well).

Of course, not all online comic artists like to operate under such a scheme. Rocket Box Comics is a site created by a number of artists dedicated to keeping comics freely available online.

In any case, if you like your "local" online artists, support them! I personally have probably sent over $200 to at least 5-7 people in order to support their site, purchase their limited-print books, etc. The best thing you can do for any artist is to support them; some artists even have set threshold where they will just work on comics full-time if they make at least X amount of money per month online.

First, a quick disclaimer: I have no personal or financial interest in any of these. I own no stock in Adobe or Wacom. Consarnit, I can't even draw.

One of the best comics on Modern Tales are Patent Pending, a drama that is drawn by the same guy who does the comedy Goats (which is free). Two other awe-inspiring MT strips are Makeshift Miracle and American Born Chinese, the former for its art and the latter for its psychological insight.

Three free strips deserving of special mention are Wigu, Achewood, and Scary-Go-Round.

Note that none of these strips concern teenagers who play video games. Hope that's not too much of a disappointment for anyone.

First, a quick disclaimer: I have no personal or financial interest in any of these. I own no stock in Adobe or Wacom. Consarnit, I can't even draw.

One of the best comics on Modern Tales are Patent Pending, a drama that is drawn by the same guy who does the comedy Goats (which is free). Two other awe-inspiring MT strips are Makeshift Miracle and American Born Chinese, the former for its art and the latter for its psychological insight.

Three free strips deserving of special mention are Wigu, Achewood, and Scary-Go-Round.

Note that none of these strips concern teenagers who play video games. Hope that's not too much of a disappointment for anyone.

First, a quick disclaimer: I have no personal or financial interest in any of these. I own no stock in Adobe or Wacom. Consarnit, I can't even draw.

One of the best comics on Modern Tales are Patent Pending, a drama that is drawn by the same guy who does the comedy Goats (which is free). Two other awe-inspiring MT strips are Makeshift Miracle and American Born Chinese, the former for its art and the latter for its psychological insight.

Three free strips deserving of special mention are Wigu, Achewood, and Scary-Go-Round.

Note that none of these strips concern teenagers who play video games. Hope that's not too much of a disappointment for anyone.

One syndrome I dislike seeing in Slashdot is the tendency to sound the trumpets any time we see the word "free," without inquiring into the context.

The nice folks at Rocketbox say that they are committed to providing Web comics that you don't have to pay to access the archives of. That appears to be a slap at Modern Tales, which is using exactly that model so that its cartoonists can see a dime or two of compensation.

Well, okay. Never mind that sites like Modern Tales have only a minimal cost (a coupla greenbacks per month). Never mind that if you visit Modern Tales each time your favorite comic comes out new, you never have to surrender a nickel. Never mind that you can set up a damn cron job and grab each comic when it comes out, thus making sure you don't miss any.

This is worthy of the front page of Slashdot?

I'd be impressed and interested if the comics were free-as-in-speech. Okay, maybe I'd be more impressed if Rocketbox's Top 10 list wasn't empty.

How exactly does Rocketbox plan to pay for its bandwidth bills? Let alone help its cartoonists afford their next ramen noodles? They don't say, as far as I can see.

This is frivolous. And it should be noted that most of the best Web comics (on or off Modern Tales, or with any revenue model) have not even been mentioned so far. I will mention some in a separate post.

Funny you mention it, there was a cartoon mentioning just that event today. (Link may point to something different later -- but the archives are subscriber-only, so I can't really link there directly).

There is a model now, and it's Modern Tales. Regards, Tim Broderick http://oddjobs.keenspace.com http://www.moderntales.com