Slashdot Mirror
Webcomics As Business Model
oddjobs writes "It's not the most groundbreaking article, but the Chicago Tribune does a pretty good job of looking at the state of webcomics-as-business-model. They mention the usual suspects (Marvel, McCloud) but most hopeful is Unbound Comics, which is selling comics collected in Adobe's e-book format. Fans of the 80s book Dalgoda take note."
I think that most webcomic writers do what they do for the fun they have drawing/writing comics. I don't think its much of a business thing. Take PVP. Scott gets profit from writing actual comic books (although, I'm sure, he probably gets some good money from the site also).
And then there's Sluggy Freelance (a GREAT comic if you people havne't read it yet) where he puts collections together and sells them as books.
I don't think there is much profit in the webcomic business....
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
I'd pay a buck to read Spiderman #1 online.
But then I'd have to pay a buck to read Spiderman #2.
And then... how many Spiderman issues are there?
ender-iii
Quoth Piro from MegaTokyo:
:)
With our hosting change, our hosting expenses have also gone up dramatically. We don't really know where it will settle out at, but we are keeping our fingers crossed. Before people start asking, we will NOT be asking for donations or having a paypal donation button - MT will survive like any other good property, based on it's ability to sell a reasonable amount of merchandise. If you would like to support MT, please visit our store and buy some swag
Also note Scott Kurtz from PVP, who is selling original sketches for $300-$400 a pop on ebay.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Actually Penny-Arcade accepts donations from Pay Pal and From Amazon's Honor system.
When you make a donation you get stuff, wallpaper mostly, but it's cool stuff.
They also have mugs on Think-Geek and a book has recently been published.
Go PA!
I run an online web comic. But it's the sunday funnies type, not the comic book/novel type. My business model (once up and running, sigh) is to sell merchandise.
Thanks to Cafe Press this is really, really easy to do. They are legit to - I've made real money selling merch for my band. Of course with the cut they take, it had better be legit!
I can't spell or type, but that doesn't mean I'm unusually stupid.
I must say that Marvel's DotComics are great. There's no way I'd be paying out the monthly $$$ to buy Spiderman Unlimited, X-Men Unlimited and/or any other comics. I'd more likely just forget about following comics. But their DotComics lets me browse select comics for free. I have to put up with a few ads which (with the exception of one that has sound) aren't too annoying. I also get the comics a few months past their release date, but I really don't mind the delay. In return, they get another fan to their line of books and someone who's slightly more likely to buy the actual book. (In my case, probably not, but if I were the comic-buying type I'd definitely add books to my list based on the DotComics.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
paying per download for comic books or any other medium will never work because you'll always have the people who pay their $1 to download and then find some way to distribute the product freely to others (i.e. Kazaa, Morpheus, etc)...
i'd think that advertising (banner ads, those terrible pop-up ads) are still the way to go...that and having an on-line store selling merchandise, et al., related to the comic...
but, again, as long as their are ways to freely distribute the subscription material, paying for it will never work...the content wants to be free...and will always find a way to do so....
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
Comics is exactly the kind of thing I would use micropayments for. I would never consider a subscription. If they try to fool me into making a subscription, they will loose me. It's as simple as that.
I wouldn't be so sure about that either. I would gladly pay for good, accessible products, that doesn't infringe on my privacy, take away my fair use rights, doesn't try to abuse my trust in any way, and make available a convientent method for making payments.
Right now, that doesn't exist, and it seems the industry isn't going to make it happen. All the industry care about it making offers that sucks, infringe on my privacy, take away my fair use rights, and abuse my trust in every way. In addition, they all stand behind their little sand castles shouting at each other trying to make different ways of making payments that are not going to work. Instead, they should come together and agree on common, open standards.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
Penny Arcade had a comic on Scott McCloud's take on micropayment systems. Basically they said micropayments are a nice idea, but they don't work now, and that's when artists need them. Bandwidth isn't free, and most sites don't sell enough merchandise to make a profit. So now, it is confined mainly to people who have a passion about it or people for whom it is just a hobby.
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.
...the article didn't mention keenspot.com at all, esp since they host so many different comics.
Actually, Adobe are currently hard at work on the E-Comic format.
While it's probably a flagrant breach of the DMCA for me to talk about it, the format involves putting the panels in... now here's the cunning bit... reverse order. By using Rot-Pan, the technical name for ROTating PANels, Adobe intends to use the DMCA to prosecute anyone who simply reads them backwards.
When questioned about using the DMCA to protect such a ludicrously simple encryption technique rather than actually make it genuinely secure, the Bush administration was quoted as saying, "Well, pretzels look simple the surface too but look how complex they really are."
I would discuss this further but the Feds appear to be knocking at my door with a search warrant signed by yet another large corp.
Although it's over five years old, this Wired article has a nice summary of the challenges that faced and face the idea.
Ccott McCloud, a prominent comics artist, shares his thoughts in comic form. He humorously addresses these issues from the point of view of an on-line comic artist.
Another proud carrier of the $rtbl flag
7It's no secret that comic book publishers make zero profit on back-issue sales; that's entirely the realm of the collector. So why shouldn't Marvel, DC et.al. get into the business of providing their own back-issue archives in downloadable eBook format?
It's perfect, really. The publisher gets paid for books they otherwise wouldn't want to reprint. They could even include new advertisements between the pages, although I'd rather pay more for an ad-less eBook myself. Fans get the back issues they want to read at a fraction of the cost and hassle. Collectors will still get top dollar for the most collectible original, physical publication. Store owners don't have to worry as much about sealing their back issues in taped bags. And the entire industry gets a low-cost kick in the butt.
Of course, there are some losers. Store owners who earn money from non-collectible back issues will have more trouble selling those, even as the collectible back issues become more valuable to fans. Publishers may not make as much money from trade paperbacks collecting popular stories -- then again, there's really no substitute for the printed page, especially where several issues are concerned. But I think the potential increase is worth it. And, of course, the publishers themselves may have to buy back their own back issues in order to make them available online.
Still, it would be an excellent way for Marvel to cash in on the long-running popularity of the X-Men, or DC and Batman, or Dark Horse and Aliens. I can think of plenty of fans and even not-so-fans who'd happily pay $2 per back issue of a known hit when new paper issues of unknown ones are priced at $3 apiece.
I'd say start with comics that have been out for a long time.
Like all those #1's your grandpa used to read that are now worth a fortune.
Shit, I might subscribe if I could read the comics I own now. They sit there doing nothing but making me money, and I haven't read a one.
Ok, I read a few.
[I've got a friend that claims the comic _book_ industry is a huge rip off. He worked at shows and said they gave stuff away, like to each other. This shit was supposed to be real 'collectors items']
Get your Unix fortune now!
What about Keenspot?
You don't subscribe to a particular comic but to Keenspot premium, an ad-free version of all their comics and you get several gifts such as autographed comic books, original artwork, ...
You still can also donate to authors through paypal if you want to.
And they often seel original art through auctions
Guvf vf abg n EBG zrffntr
I don't really agree with you.
For those who visit my website, you would know that I am a big fan of the Ranma 1/2 anime and manga. Recently, I had the opportunity to obtain a complete, free, fan-translated run of the manga in GIF format. Each page was its own image, and had to be read with a web browser or image viewer like IrfanView (free) or ACDSee (not free).
Despite the fact that I already have it in a digital format, I continue to pay for the 'legitimate' release of Ranma 1/2 as it comes out, month by month, at $3.95 an issue.
When I want to re-read a story or figure out a particular reference for a fanstory, however, rather than reaching for the stack of manga... I pop in the CDR containing the digital versions. Not only is it easier for me to read than the text version, it's quicker, you don't have to hunt for issues, etc...
I've also recently obtained the 'Complete MAD Magazine,' which is a 7 CD set containing every issue of MAD magazine between the first issue in the 50's to around 1998 if I'm correct. True, some of them are dogs, especially the newer once. My old stack of MAD's hasn't been touched since, however.
If you have indexing of any kind, you can search on that. If not, you can search on filenames. While I think that the current e-book formats, all of which are burdened with copy-protection, are inherently flawed, they have a great deal on print books.
I especially like the PDB (Palm) format, which can be used with or without copy protection, and allows you to read books on your organizer. With the aid of a few utilities, said PDB files can be easily converted to HTML, Star, Word, or ASCII Text.
I don't think copy protected e-books will go over very well, but I *do* think that the e-book is only going to get more and more popular.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
The guy who does 8-Bit Theatre just started attempting to do the webcomic thing full-time. He's only around 20 years old, so no great risk if he fails, but I certainly expect his non-comic updates to get more amusing.
Of course, given the nature of the comic (8BT is a webcomic that uses Final Fantasy 1 sprites), I expect Square to sue him if he starts to do okay.
-Grant/JimTheta
My stupid web site
Not to mention that his "experiment" was rigged to fail. For example, he computed a ratio of users to payments based only on downloads. This ignored the fact that some downloaded the material and never read it, that some downloaded it in more than one format, and (horror or horrors), some didn't find it interesting after the first few lines.
Another proud carrier of the $rtbl flag
Micropayments are being touted as a replacement for ad revenue. And this SHOULD be the case. To pay a few cents to eliminate annoying ads would be worthwhile for some people, but for others who have grown very accustomed to the web being free will probably go on prefering intrusive ads.
It also differs on the artist's needs. If he's just trying to cover his bandwidth costs, he has more options than if he's trying to use the web as his only source of income. Even with a readership in the 10's of thousands, it can still be a challenge to do much more than break even.
Ultimately it would work best as a complimentary feature. It's less expensive from the publisher's point of view, and that should certainly be taken into account when considering the per-issue pricing scheme. But as other posters have mentioned, some value of the comic's is the collectable value as well as the content value.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
I've been doing an online comic now for just over two years. I have a regular following of readers, manage to get decent traffic and the feedback I receive has generally been good. However, I have not made one dime from this venture and I can't imagine that I ever will.
This is partly due to the fact that the online advertising model is dead and/or severely flawed. Last year I grossed (yes grossed) around $3 and my poor readers suffered a bevy of pop-ups, pop-unders and other flashing menaces. Likewise the model of pay-per-download just doesn't work -people won't pay to be mildly entertained when then they can get the same stuff for free.
Ultimately, this caused me to abandon the comic, ending my adventure in online comics just as quickly as it began. Then something unexpected happened. People actually emailed me wondering what happened to the comic. For some unknown reason, they actually cared that my tiny contribution to the world of online comics vanished. And for me, that was enough to try and bring it back. So this February it returns.
If there's a point to any of this, it's that not everything has to be about money. The internet can be more than a virtual marketplace, if only people are willing to work at it. Sure, I'd love to make money from this, but just knowing that people get some enjoyment out of something I do has its perks. And it's good enough for me.
DigiSquid Design.
Without going on too much of a tangent, people asked by pollsters say they go to church every week but actually they don't.
Likewise, of course if you ask somebody, "would you pay 3c a page for good content?" They say "well, of course, I support artists, I'd pay that even if I didn't have to bleah bleah fair use bleah bleah." It's practically a religious thing for people, like myself and, lets be frank, everyone else on Slashdot, who download gigs of Mp3s.
However, when you actually look at the numbers for this - Penny Arcade doesn't get a tenth of a cent in micropayments per pagehit. Now, maybe some people are making that up in buying coffee mugs, whatever, the point is, when you look at how people actually behave, they don't pay the three cents per page when you demand it, they go read something else.
Is this because PayPal is too bulky? I'm sure that that is part of it, and that if it were easier to make micropayments than half of the people who say they'd make them really would.
Just my 0.02$ per page.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
(Warning: This will look like a plug for a bunch of webcomics. It probably is, but I have a valid point. Mod me into oblivion of you wish.)
/. has Mega Tokyo banners!
:)
The big players in the print industry seem to be the only guys getting real attention when it comes to producing "comics" on the web.
What about the Keenspot or the Keenspace groups? They have a valid revenue model, even if they aren't making a ton of money(making money is a secondary concern to them). Heck, they're doing the opposite of the big boys: Moving from the 'net to print media. (Check for Roomies! and Superosity in your local comic store)
Another group is , which hosts, among other comics, Algernons Dilemma.
There are the big ones you've probably heard of, PvP and Sluggy Freelance who are actually making a living on their webcomic.
Heck,
Personally, I'd rather these, and others, than the majority of the junk the syndicates, et al, try to push onto the web. Nevermind X-Men, give me it's Walky!
Disclaimer: I run a webcomic, so this story pushed my buttons
J. T. MacLeod
-------------
UBERGEEK the Comic. Umlauts be danged.
http://ubergeekthecomic.com
It's neato!
-------------
Yeh.. Penny Arcade has a much better approach to it than most places.. they give you the comic for free.. and sell things you might want and if you do decide to give them some money they give you some free stuff as a thankyou.. that much better than the comic sites that start out free, get a bunch of halfway dedicated users and then try to screw them over by switching to a totally pay system thereby alienating the original fans.. I'd even go so far as to speculate that PA probably makes more money in the long run off donations than the sites that charge for everything.. people are often more likely to give more and or more often if its of their own will.. plus the PA book idea was hella cool.. even if their publisher isn't really equiped to get it done on time..
Maybe put the first few pages of each issue online for free (to hook the reader). Then when the reader wants more, charge them some small amount ($1 maybe). The costs to DC or Marvel would be minimal. You'd have the cost of transferring all the comics to a web-friendly format and server-related costs. But all in all it'd be cheaper than running off new reprint copies of those issues. And it wouldn't drop the price of the physical back-issues since no collector will be contented to just have a file on their hard drive. If anything, it might spark interest in some old issues and drive the price up a bit. Or even create some extra demand for the current issues. If I'm reading some two year old issues of Spiderman and I'm really getting into the storyline, I'm more likely to buy a new issue to see what's happening with the characters.
If their costs were low enough, they could offer free/low-cost subscriptions and track member usage to target print offers. Is the user reading the "Death of Superman" storyline? Why not offer them a special online-only deal on the printed book with the entire storyline? (Kind of like an Amazon system. "People who read this comic also liked these comics/books/merchandise.")
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
I wonder if any of these comics that are sold in pdf are indexable in anyway.. google has this cool search where they somehow highlight your search even if its a word printed in a scanned catalog image. This technology would be great for comics which are generally scanned artwork and not originally digital products.
Just take a look at www.sexylosers.com must be 18 or over. In my opinion the best webcomic ever made. Of course its not a marvel comic or anything like that. It is a comedy strip that comes out once a week.
"Moichandising! Moichandising! Where de REAL money from de movie is made!"
Hehe, we can learn a lot from Yogurt.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
I've been thinking about the online comic book business because one day I want to start one myself. Actually it's an online animated cartoon, but I think the model would be similar. I have issues with things like "what happens if people constantly distribute copies of the animations to each other and bypass my income generator?"
I think there are people scared of the idea of once they sell a few copies, they propogate virally and nobody pays for it. I know that has me a bit spooked, but I have a few ideas that might be useful.
- There needs to be new content regularly. The faster, the better. That keeps people checking with the site instead of checking Morpheus every so often.
- Sell things besides the content itself. You can transmit comics/animations/movies etc around the web, but you cannot transmit T-shirts, coffee mugs, and little figurines etc.
- Make distributed content worth something. I want to do an animated cartoon, right? One approach is the 'to be continued...' story that requires multiple parts to get the whole thing. If somebody gets only one or two episodes, the best way to get the rest is from my site. I think comics could work this way too, admittedly they'd propogate easier though given their smaller file size.
- Include a coupon with the content. "Mention this comic and you'll get $2 off a T-shirt, go to our site at www.comicbookname.com." With this approach, even pirated works are of value because it's possible some people will buy some of your merchandise. If the ads/coupons aren't too intrusive (don't put a 30 second commercial in it! >:I ) nobody'll edit them out.
- Consider a subscription model. Give away a few episodes, ideally so they have some type of cliffhanger that just keeps your eyes glued, and say 'for $x a year you can have unlimited access to downloads' or something like that. Even if that isn't too profitable, at least you have SOME people out there getting vids and getting them around the web.
- Use the content as a commercial for merchandise. Do you all remember the Transformers cartoon? That cartoon was seriously a 20 minute commerical for toys disguised as a cartoon. If the artwork of the comic/cartoon is interesting and unique enough, turning it into a marketing device for t-shirts/posters/coffee mugs etc really isn't that difficult. I'll give you an example, there was a Dilbert cartoon where Dilbert had a doll of his boss sitting on his monitor. The boss asked what that was about, Dilbert replied "It lifts my spirit to have a likeness of you near by." The boss left, feeling good about what Dilbert told him. As soon as he walked out, Dilbert backhanded the doll off his monitor and said "Stop barging in while I'm working!" From what Scott Adams said in one of his books, a bunch of people wrote in wanting one of those dolls.
I think one thing Hollywood and the Record Industry needs to learn is that they should care about the money they are getting instead of worrying about the money they aren't getting.
"Derp de derp."
Exploitation Now! is a great one hosted by keenspace.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
I feel inclined to mention that Stephen King made about half a million on his Plant experiment, after expenses, which is pretty good considering 1) it was entirely a "virtual" product, 2) he screwed up a lot of stuff.
The press (owned by big publishers mostly) said it was a failure, and King even send a letter to one newspaper (NYT perhaps it was), explaining that it wasn't really a failure, but of course they didn't publish it.
I think his experiment was a useful step in the right direction.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
For us that want it both free and adfree. Of course it takes some configuration, and some sites it doesn't work all that well with, but I'd say we're winning for now. Should all start to filter I suppose they'd come up with something new.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
What makes you think art is, or should be, special? It's just another human activity that can be done for pleasure, or for money, or on a dare, or for any number of reasons.
Being hungry or cold or generally impovished does not make you a better artist, just a hungry, cold, impovished one. If someone wants to produce art, and finds a way to get paid for it, great. Art is not here to make everyone happy.
Java is the blue pill
Choose the red pill
Art is much more pure without money anyway.
Actually this isn't true, and is more a 20th century myth than anything. Some of the greatest art in the world was made to order. Renaissance art, for instance, was subsidized by great patrons, such as the Medicis. Artists should get paid, they make objects that are worth something, and should be compensated for it. If someone can find a way to make a living from their art, I say good for them, because it's one of the hardest ways that I know of to make a living. That's why I do other stuff to make a living, and, basically do my art for myself--I certainly haven't made a living with it.
Damnit, Jim, I'm an anarchist, not a F@#$!^& doctor!
This is not going to work.
As anyone who's ever collected comics knows, it's the scarcity of comics that helps create their demand and popularity over time, not their wide distribution. How many of you have an X-Men #94? Amazing Fantasy #15? Detective Comics #27? But if you did, you'd cherish it like an heirloom, you'd pass it to your children when they got old enough to know the difference between acid-free backing boards and regular cardboard.
Sure, widespread distribution will help if all you want to do is read the comics, but that's not where their value comes from. The important thing is that I have an Avengers #3, and you have an Avengers #16, and if we're going to trade, yours better be in mint condition.
There's just something very visceral and male about holding a rare comic book. What am I gonna do, have a swapable harddrive of Marvel and DC. "Hey, check out KaZaa, they've got the latest Superman story." Bah! There are some things that technology simply cannot improve on.
The reason webcomics will never work is because of the very nature of the thing. While actual, physical comics have been accepted as something you have to pay for, this is not the norm for web comics, and in my opinion, will never be.
Take the following situation:
A) Good comic guy A starts charing
B) New comic guy B scans a few comics he drew in school and puts them up on his site.
C) New comic guy B's comics become famous.
D) Increased visiting.
And that'll be on a loop.
Of course, I could be wrong.
Anyway, we of course have been trying to deal with this making money thing for 6 years at WebComics. We've had competitors come and go (like toonscape.com and mycomics.com) which all thought they could make lots of money I guess. As with most messed up web companies, the problem is very simple, they just spend too much money. The web lets you do things so efficiently and a company has to take advantage of that.
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
Why wasn't Penny Arcade featured in that article? The guys that make that comic are actually making so much money through donations that they both quit their jobs and each have a $1500-$2000 monthly salary.
Another excellent web comic that uses a university to avoid bandwidth expenses is Jorge Cham's PhD.
Because of course, we know that books NEVER go out of print...
I guess the person doesn't realize that once the comic market became a *collectible* market (oh, say 20-30 years ago?), fans would never stand for continual reprint after reprint of old/rare issues. The odd trade paperback collection, or reprints of very old and unique issues perhaps. Also, the demand just isn't there for every comic to be in print continuously.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
I've been collecting comics for over 20 years now. I also drew comics years ago when they were 75c for the book instead of the $5+ that you see now. Never mind that.
The existance of web comics (i.e. comics in some downloadable medium, say PDF) cannot co-exist with real comics without having diverse effects. If I can download a PDF of X-Men 118 for $1.50 then why is the original $25? Sure it's a collectable, but there's the rub. Let's say a few years/months off in the future Marvel decides to digitize it's entire line. Paper costs are too high and print runs are abolished. All comics are put online for you to download for a minimum fee. Of course now Marvel has a problem that they're not about to recoup any costs from comic shops for the printing since there is none. Sure it's cheap to distribute but now there are also 10,000 copies of it floating around on Morpheus and peoples websites. Where's the collectable value in that?
Personally I'd like to have my collection in digital form and maybe that's the alternative. Just scan the whole lot of them and stash the originals away until they're worth $10,000 on eBay. The collecting of comics is what is the focus. Sure the content is important to a certain extent, but look at the rush (and increase in value) when a John Byrne, Neal Adams or Michael Turner book goes up on the block. The book has some value and that value is meant to increase because of various things. Resale value, content, character, artist/writer, scarcity, etc. Now imagine again if all books (or even some of them) were in PDF format. There's no real sense in obtaining it except for just reading and admiring the artwork. Anyone can own a copy just by downloading it and wheres the fun in that? Then what happens at conventions when your favorite writer/artist is scheduled? You print off a copy at Kinkos and bring it in to be signed?
One thing is possible here. The expandibility of the comic book to an electronic medium. Remember when everyone bought VHS movies just to own them? Now everyone is buying DVD to get the extra content. Imagine if you could download your own PDF comic of X-Men and view it in pencil, ink, color or production mode? Maybe even have the pre-production sketches that went into the making of the comic. Now THAT would be something to own. Let's see the media extended rather than transferred.
Anyways, whatever business model a comic company thinks they can fit into cannot measure up to the collectable value of a true comic book. The online guys that are selling content are doing so because they don't live in the same universe Marvel, DC and others do and don't distribute millions of copies each week.
Just my 2c
liB
Exploitation Now isn't hosted by Keenspace. It was when it started out, but it got accepted into Keenspot (spot, not space) a while back and has been on the Keenspot servers ever since.
Oper on the Nightstar
Comics collecting started when some people realized that comics readers would get nostalgic for old issues they once read, and would be willing to pay decent (or, in the case of really ancient comics like Action Comics #1, indecent) sums of money to read them again. Then it became a game of speculation, where one collector (thinking that the price has plateaued) would sell to another (betting that the price will rise). At some point, it ceased to be about betting that some comics lover will want to reread a back issue, and became about betting that some other guy will want to resell it. It became just a big pyramid scheme.
Meanwhile, the major studios catered to the speculators (who would actually buy ten copies of a single issue if they all had different covers) and stopped writing and drawing stories that were fun to read. Hell, at the height of the collecting bubble, Marvel and DC could have printed comics filled with blank pages (after all, once somebody has picked it up without sterile gloves and opened it, it isn't "mint condition" anymore), and idiot "collectors" would have snatched them up as long as there was a woman with breasts the size of Volkswagon beetles in spandex holding an AK-47 on the cover. Fortunately, they still had enough self-respect left to actually print stuff on the inside pages, although it was rarely readable. Then, when some collectors realized that all they were doing was selling these things to each other in circles, the market collapsed, and the studios are now stuck trying to appeal to comic readers, a group they nearly destroyed through neglect.
In short, collectors do nothing but damage to the comics industry, subsidizing talentless hacks like Rob Liefeld, driving off readers, and generally making life miserable for the rest of us.
Oper on the Nightstar
For those of you who aren't comic geeks here is a translation of the big time books mentioned above:
X-Men #94 - Introduction of the new team including Wolverine, Collosus, Storm, NightCrawler, etc...
Amazing Fantasy #15 - here for more - First appearance of Spider Man.
Detective Comics #27 - pic First appearance of Batman