A light, the only illumination in his office, glowed from the computer monitor. In the near dark, he gently clicked his mouse. As the pages turned, he watched the saga unfold.
Then, like an angry serpent baring its fangs, a horrific vision leapt out at him from the screen. More irritated than frightened, he clicked again. The intrusion vanished, leaving no trace behind.
“Stupid pop-up ads,” our hero muttered before leafing through another tale of wonder and disbelief.
With a few technical twists, flipping through an online comic book is not much different than flipping through the colorful printed pages. The Web is a natural medium for comics, publishers contend, and many–including some new ventures–are moving their product online.
Marvel Comics, the publisher of best-selling titles X-Men and Spider-Man, boasts 1.3 million downloaded “dot-comics” per month, and the online comic strip “Astounding Space Thrills” is syndicated to more than 3,000 Web sites.
Yet the prospect of becoming profitable with Web comics–the downfall of many online enterprises–remains illusive.
“There’s no economic model,” said Len Strazewski, a Columbia College journalism professor who teaches a course in online publishing and wrote for major comic publishers in the 1980s and ’90s. “The key problem is there’s no way to charge the correct amount for the material. Right now, it’s for hobbyists.”
The most notable comic book luminary to go online, Marvel Comics’ famed writer Stan Lee, the creator of Spider-Man, failed in such spectacular fashion that the tale is ripe for a comic book treatment.
Peter Paul, the co-founder of bankrupt Stan Lee Media, was indicted in June in an alleged $25 million stock manipulation scheme, according to federal prosecutors. The company had ceased operations in December 2000.
Paul, another company executive, a stock promoter and a stock analyst were charged with securities fraud in an alleged attempt to inflate the company’s stock price.
The four men face up to 15 years in prison if convicted. Lee was not charged.
Despite that high-profile failure, comic book publishers continue to experiment with Web comics. Since the top cost in producing traditional comics is printing and distribution, the Web makes those costs almost incidental. But besides saving on production costs, opinions on how to create revenue vary widely.
Revenue can come from traditional banner ads and donations, such as Amazon.com’s Honor System, which allows viewers to donate from $1 to $50 to a Web site they enjoy.
Scott McCloud, best known for his books “Understanding Comics” and “Reinventing Comics,” uses both Amazon and Pay Pal donation programs on his Web site, www.scottmccloud.com.
But donations are infrequent and small, he said, and he dislikes intrusive banner ads–particularly pop-ups–because they aggravate cartoonists and readers.
Charging for downloads
A few new revenue models don’t rely on banner ads.
Unbound Comics (www.unboundcomics.com) is only a few months old. Operating from Lincoln Park, Unbound charges $1.50 for a downloaded comic, roughly half the price of an independently published comic book. Readers download the comic in Adobe’s Portable Document Format, originally created for e-books.
Aaron Thacker, Unbound’s founder, chose the format for ease of distribution and to break away from the print comic book’s magazine circulation model. Much as you can’t go to the newsstand to find a 2-year-old issue of Business Week magazine, comic books frequently fall out of print. Finding an older comic book, or back issue, is dependent on finding a specialty store that happens to have an old copy of a given comic on hand.
“Imagine if you went to a bookstore, asked for `Heart of Darkness’ and they said, `Sorry, it’s a back issue,'” Thacker said. He is planning on having entire runs of a series available, both original creations and e-book editions of previous published comics.
Unbound splits its selection of comic books, with half being new material and the rest reissues of out-of-print material. Currently, two comics are tied for the company’s best-selling title: a new comic adapting Shakespeare’s Hamlet and a reissue of “Dalgoda,” a critically praised science fiction series from the mid-’80s that has been difficult to find.
Thacker declined to release revenue figures for Unbound Comics, but said he was able to pay his creators two weeks after the site’s launch–and buy dinner. In recent months, Unbound’s site logged more than 72,000 page views and about 5,000 unique visitors.
Thacker said Unbound’s low overhead is critical. He pays creative talent royalties and employs only two people, himself included. He described his first round of funding as “a $15,000 loan and a lot of sweat equity.”
Aiming for circulation gains
While Unbound Comics charges for downloads, industry powerhouse Marvel Comics is giving away downloads of some of its comic books.
Bill Jemas, Marvel’s chief operating officer and president, said that if the number of downloads were counted as a separate company, Marvel.com would be the third-largest comic book publisher in terms of circulation.
Touting circulation figures is how Marvel intends to make money off Web comics.
Marvel’s animation-driven, Flash format comic downloads include full-page ads, just as the print editions do. Downloads from registered users are being audited and certified by the Business of Performing Audits International, a publishers auditing service. Soon, the Web editions will be added to print circulation totals on Marvel’s advertising rate card.
Jemas said he believes Marvel’s monthly circulation will increase by 500,000 after incorporating downloaded comics.
“There will be a point where it becomes easy for us to give you a subscription online,” Jemas said, mentioning plans to experiment with discounted subscriptions to electronic editions of a handful of Marvel titles in about six months.
The micropayments model
One business model that has taken a beating in other areas, but is still held out as a potential savior of Web comics, is micropayments.
Mircopayments are loosely defined as transactions under a dollar and, in practical terms, are sometimes as low as 20 cents.
The general idea is to charge readers a few cents for every page they view, or as McCloud put it, to charge “for initial travel through the gate,” with the ultimate goal being a subscription.
McCloud said lowering micropayments to a few pennies and reaching an extremely large circulation is the goal. Yet the amount of material currently available for free may hurt a micropayment strategy.
“Web users are not wanting to pay for what they’re already getting for free,” warned Strazewski.
Syndication hits the Web
“Astounding Space Thrills” (www.astoundingspacethrills.com) is profitable by using more traditional Internet methods. A satirical science fiction adventure that takes shots at Microsoft with the villainous “Covert Redmond, CEO of Macroshaft,” AST takes the format of a daily comic strip, just like those found in a newspaper. Through syndication, it appears on thousands of Web sites, in addition to its own site.
AST’s creator, Steve Conley, sells advertising and sponsorships, both as banners for his site and embedded in the comic strip. This accounts for about 80 percent of his revenue, he said. The remaining 20 percent comes from merchandising, including a print comic book, and a recent deal to develop AST as a TV series.
“If you’re in this to make money, then it’s a business, and cartoonists must treat it as such,” he said.
Wilmette-based comics painter Alex Ross has found another method to making money on the Web. Ross sells the original art to his comics from his AlexRossArt.com Web site. In addition to his comic work, Ross has painted the official commemorative poster for this year’s Academy Awards.
AlexRossArt.com has a sister site, ComicBookPros.com, which sells original art from other artists, including Chicago-based Jill “Scary Godmother” Thompson and Angel Medina, who illustrates the comic book adventures of the popular rock band KISS.
“We’ve been in the black for a year and a half,” said Sal Abbinanti, manager of the sites. The annual revenues from the sites “float around six figures,” and 60 percent of the sales come from overseas.
Online comic book sites
ScottMcCloud.com. Strips, comic theories and recommended links.
AstoundingSpaceThrills.com. An ongoing daily strip; readers can have a new strip sent every day via e-mail.
DCComics.com. Marvel’s main competitor recently released online versions of Batman and The Flash.
MarvelComics.com. Downloadable comic books, including Spider-Man and Captain America.
Sluggy.com. Sluggy Freelance is a popular satirical sci-fi serial.
UnboundComics.com. Downloadable comic books, including back issues of popular series.
WebComics.com. An extensive list of daily and weekly online comics.
Zark.com. The saga of Argon Zark, one of the Web’s first, and most popular, online comics.
Newspaper strips online
ComicsPage.com
Comics.com
King Features (http://kingfeatures.com/features/comics/comics.htm)
Creators Syndicate (http://creators.com/comics.html)
