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Marvel Launches their Online Initiative tomorrow

Started by drice6900,

56 posts in this topic

TupennyConan

TupennyConan

Posted
Posted
You're right though, they should have all ads, etc, included (but, does that raise legal issues....??). Probably very big ones.

 

Didn't the DVDROM have ads?

 

Jim

 

I meant CDROM.

 

Good question about the ads on it. Failure to recall. Anyone?

 

 

My Captain-America-Complete-Collection-55-million-issues-on-one-lousy-DVD of questionable origin has all the ads, letters pages and everything else.

 

It's :pullhair: to read even on a big screen monitor, though.

 

Happy to see you are still posting from over there in Germany!! Again, you've got the best name/user ID on the boards.

 

I can't even recall if they call those things DVD-ROM or CD-ROM or ROM Space Knight.

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TupennyConan

TupennyConan

Posted
Posted
Hmmm,

 

Well, one option for those who like to read paper versions.

 

Get some solid/glossy (heck even pulp for the older issues) paper stock, and print out the digital version onto a high quality color laser printer. FF #1 Mint, anyone? :)

 

Welcome to the boards!!

 

:golfclap:

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hesdeadjim

hesdeadjim

Posted
Posted
You're right though, they should have all ads, etc, included (but, does that raise legal issues....??). Probably very big ones.

 

Didn't the DVDROM have ads?

 

Jim

 

I meant CDROM.

 

Good question about the ads on it. Failure to recall. Anyone?

 

 

My Captain-America-Complete-Collection-55-million-issues-on-one-lousy-DVD of questionable origin has all the ads, letters pages and everything else.

 

It's :pullhair: to read even on a big screen monitor, though.

 

Happy to see you are still posting from over there in Germany!! Again, you've got the best name/user ID on the boards.

 

I can't even recall if they call those things DVD-ROM or CD-ROM or ROM Space Knight.

 

Thanks :blush: But remember: I'm a doctor, not a ... umm... never mind.

 

Any ROM books in the Marvel online archive, by the way???

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mschmidt

mschmidt

Posted
Posted
About 2 weeks ago one of those popular young rock bands (their name escapes me now) put their new album up on their website and let fans pay whatever they wanted for it. The event was lauded by digitally-minded magazines and talk shows, including NPR, saying it was a bold move into the future, the new method of distribution, etc. I listened to that story and snorted, "Yeah, well, it hasn't made them any money *yet*, so hold the praise until it does."

 

Well, last week I read somewhere that most fans were paying $0 for the album and the new venture wasn't quite the success everybody said it was going to be.

 

(ahem)... DUH!!!!!!!!

 

 

Radiohead

 

The band made the album available for download via their Web site last month, letting fans determine how much to pay. In a study released last week, consumer research firm comScore Inc. found that 62 percent of the people who downloaded "In Rainbows" in a four-week period opted not to pay a cent. The remaining 38 percent paid an average of $6, according to comScore.

 

The results of the study were drawn from data gathered from a few hundred people who are part of the firm's database of 2 million computer users worldwide. The firm, which has permission to monitor the computer users' online behavior, did not provide a margin of error on the study.

 

Mike

 

Which just shows that you shouldn't trust everything you read online - after comScore posted their "findings", Radiohead themselves issued a press release stating that as they were the only ones that had access to their servers, there was no way in hell comScore could know what people were paying. And that so far they had been extremely happy with the "experiment".

 

At which point comScore scurried back underneath the rock from whence they came.

 

Considering how little a band actually makes off each CD sold through regular venues, the Radiohead-model is completely solid - and also rather irrelevant to the discusson of Marvel's online initiative seeing as we're talking about two completely different forms of media here.

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jimm94

jimm94

Posted
Posted

I was able to log on to this tonight and check it out. It's kinda cool, but I don't know if it is $5.00 or $10 per month cool, considering I already own several of the DVD-ROM series and have a bookshelf full of Essentials, Masterworks, and Omnibus reprints. Not to mention all the "real" comics I own.

 

2,500 books really isn't that many, and 20 additional books per week is not as brisk of a pace as I think they need to go. I might be more tempted to go for the single payment that works out to $5.00 per month if they had significantly more books.

 

I also agree with JC that this presentation format does not make it as good of a reference archive due to no ads or letter columns. I really enjoy the various paper reprints, but I think the DVD-ROM's are the best and obviously most accurate reference material available short of the real thing.

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nwpassage

nwpassage

Posted
Posted

I'm predicting failure of a sort. For fans of GA, and SA I think the allure isn't there,the ads, the nostalgia. It's all to crisp and clean, and that browser is obtrusive, and not user friendly. Kind of like a pretty Adobe Acrobat. A quick test of print scr/paste into paint shows it to be downloadable, in the most labor intensive way. Images can certainly be captured and saved fo sho tho. In the long run, it's probably the future though, which kind of sucks, like everything in the future sucks for old guys.

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piper

piper

Posted
Posted

The images look to crisp. I'm probably in the minority, but I'd rather pick up a Marvel Masterworks or Essentials. Who knows, this venture may succeed.

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Anfield Fox

Anfield Fox

Posted
Posted

Oh i agree. Print all the way. I was just impressed at the viewer.

 

The breakthrough in similar initiatives will be in the not too distant future when you have a light, handheld LCD screen. One that you can physically manipulate as you would a book or magazine. Not in the sense of turning pages but rather being able to hold and fold.

 

Still, print will be around for a long time yet. Our lifetimes at the very least.

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Monkeyman

Monkeyman

Posted
Posted
About 2 weeks ago one of those popular young rock bands (their name escapes me now) put their new album up on their website and let fans pay whatever they wanted for it. The event was lauded by digitally-minded magazines and talk shows, including NPR, saying it was a bold move into the future, the new method of distribution, etc. I listened to that story and snorted, "Yeah, well, it hasn't made them any money *yet*, so hold the praise until it does."

 

Well, last week I read somewhere that most fans were paying $0 for the album and the new venture wasn't quite the success everybody said it was going to be.

 

(ahem)... DUH!!!!!!!!

 

 

Radiohead

 

The band made the album available for download via their Web site last month, letting fans determine how much to pay. In a study released last week, consumer research firm comScore Inc. found that 62 percent of the people who downloaded "In Rainbows" in a four-week period opted not to pay a cent. The remaining 38 percent paid an average of $6, according to comScore.

 

The results of the study were drawn from data gathered from a few hundred people who are part of the firm's database of 2 million computer users worldwide. The firm, which has permission to monitor the computer users' online behavior, did not provide a margin of error on the study.

 

Mike

 

Which just shows that you shouldn't trust everything you read online - after comScore posted their "findings", Radiohead themselves issued a press release stating that as they were the only ones that had access to their servers, there was no way in hell comScore could know what people were paying. And that so far they had been extremely happy with the "experiment".

 

At which point comScore scurried back underneath the rock from whence they came.

 

Considering how little a band actually makes off each CD sold through regular venues, the Radiohead-model is completely solid - and also rather irrelevant to the discusson of Marvel's online initiative seeing as we're talking about two completely different forms of media here.

 

 

According to an Internet survey conducted by Record of the Day of 3,000 people, about one-third of people who downloaded the album paid nothing, with the average price paid being £4.

 

 

NY Times article:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/opinion/14sun3.html?ex=1350014400&en=89730521e2c1a376&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink,

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drewincanada

drewincanada

Posted
Posted

When I was finally able to get through to the site, I was disappointed with the quality.

 

These are not scans of original, printed copies. They're digital recreations, more akin to the Marvel Masterworks books - with new inks.

 

I only looked at a few Silver Age books, but on those examples, the digital "ink" colours were far too saturated and garish.

 

Not only that, but the resolution isn't very good. It's fine if you're viewing a full page (or 2 page spread), but when you zoom in using the Smart Panel feature, the images are extremely pixelated, with ugly stair-steps on curved areas, etc.

 

And they're incomplete: no ads, letters, etc.

 

Those Marvel "complete series on one DVD" sets were FAR, FAR better:

 

(1) They were scans of the original books, so the inks were the way they were meant to be seen (off-white paper, flat colours, printing flaws and misregistration and all).

 

(2) All of the ads and letter and Bullpen pages were included on the DVD version.

 

(3) The scan resolution on the DVD was much higher. You could zoom right in on a single panel (or closer) and the detail was astonishing - every colour rosette (the pattern of the 4-colour ink dots on the paper) was crisp and clean, and the black ink lines were solid.

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