MIT on Comics and Micropayments

Snotty Pippen writes "Henry Jenkins, Chair of MIT's Comparative Media Department, has posted 'Comics and Micropayments: An Interview with Todd Allen.' Todd Allen is a professor/consultant with a book on the business of comics. The two discuss a number of online business models and web comics, ranging from the print-to-web migrants like Girl Genius and Finder to the print-to-web download of Flying Friar; the long tail as a driving source for reprints & back-issues; and PayPal's effect on micropayments. All-in-all, a fairly comprehensive round-up of the industry."

Comments

DC and Marvel

[Silver Sloth]

DC offers little more than a few pages of previews. One occasionally hears rumblings, but DC seems to be a little on the web-phobic side, to look at their actions.

Marvel continues to waffle. They stepped back from their web comics, then returned to them with a strategy geared more towards promotion of upcoming collected editions. Their initiative of late have been establishing a wiki and instituting some editorial blogs. On the other hand, Marvel also issued a survey about attitudes towards digital downloads, including questions on how much the consumer would be willing to pay for one. So with Marvel, they're definitely thinking about it, if not jumping to action.

So, it looks like, as with the music industry, the established players are scared/hesitating over using these new web tube things, whilst the smaller independants are stealing a march on them. Apart from the one's mentioned, UF must be every geek's favourite example of how to make a living from offering a web comic.

Re:DC and Marvel

[Danathar]

What's stupid is I have money that'd I'd GLADLY give them to be able to get subscriptions of comic books that I enjoyed way back when I was younger. Comic fans understand (I think..but I could be wrong) that he continuation of their favorite series is based on SALES. Yes, you can download scanned comics off of bittorrent, but I'd gladly PAY to read those comics if I knew it influenced in some way the future publication of comics I want to read.

I'm out of the collector "phase", I don't need/want boxes of comics in my basement.

Song of Songs the Comic Book

[Anonymous Coward]

You guys forgot "web to print". Song of Songs is made by an independant Toronto artist. He has been making the comic and posting the pages online for people to download for quite a long time. Now that the pages are all done it has been printed up and it's selling in stores around Toronto.

It's completely independant, so it will be interesting to see how successful it is outside Toronto and internationally.

http://songofsongsthecomicbook.com/

(I'm not affiliated with the kid in any way. Just posting AC because I don't have an account.)

The problem with micropayments

[XorNand]

As mentioned in the article, BitPass requires you to put a minimum of $3 into your account when you open it. Obviously this seems stupid if you only want to spend a nickel. I understand BitPass's plight--it probably costs them a minimum $0.30-0.40 in fees to process a credit card. However, If you remember the early days of Paypal, they burned through some serious VC funds by basically throwing millions at people to get them to signup. It worked and paid off in spades big time. If BitPass wants to ever be a contender, they're going to have accept the fact that they'll need to bleed money for a year or two.

Another comics download service

[Kelson]

Just yesterday I read an announcement about a new service called Drive Thru Comics. Like the interview, they're describing it in terms of iTMS.

Not surprisingly, it's mostly small-press, but there are at least some names I recognize.