Distribution of comics doesn’t have to be through websites obviously but there is always a tension between readers and creators with these third party created distribution tools. Journalista! points us to The Comic Burrito which takes a look at Comictastic, a program that grabs webcomics automatically and as TCB notes, would easily allow one to build up a collection of a comic using the Modern Tales business model, like American Elf.
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Actually your opinion is Anonymous Gender Neutral Fan’s opinion since we don’t know who you are! 😀
Actually, it is pretty interesting that “American Elf” is given as an example.
This particular comic — and a few others, for that matter — already have free syndication. All you need to do is copy a line of code and paste it onto a page you are designing, with no strings attached.
Others are offering equally free RSS feed, again for anyone who bothers to copy and paste. Again, no strings attached beyond what anyone would expect from any other news feed.
I read the review itself, and if the advantage of this software (and other programs of its kind) is that it lets you view a comic without going to the site and getting reminded you could actually pay something to keep it going, then it is redundant. The only advantage it would likely have is to make bandwidth-draining deep-linking easier, and there are ways to circumvent that if it becomes a problem to the original site the comic is displayed on.
One more thought: if we follow the theory (fact?) that there isn't any way to stop people from producing this kind of software and others from using it, how long will it take before some enterprising comics site or collective finds a way to take advantage of this behavior by either offering it's own comic-harvesting software and offering it to subscribers, or accepting some already existing “harvester” and coding their site so it becomes the “official” default program that gets catered to (with special features that won't work on some other programs)?
My opinion is just my opinion, and I doubt this is the last word on the matter.