Somewhat like the Webcomic.com subscription story earlier this year, the move of the ComicPress webcomic website theme/tools to a subscription model is causing some ripples in webcomicland. Now available at ComicPressPremium, the new ComicPress 3.0 is available for $79.00. Frumph laid all this out in April so none of it is a surprise. My initial reaction to this is pretty straightforward — if Frumph wants to try charging, more power to him. If people see a value in the offer he's making (which seems to include support) than it'll work out. If not, not. (Pretty much my initial reaction to Brad Guigar's taking Webcomic.com behind a subscription wall). For some non-technically-inclined creators I think $79 might be a really good deal. But for others, maybe not. Like I said, you have to wait and see how things shake out.
I got an email from Mike Jensen of the webcomic Lonely Fetus – he's clearly not a fan of the move to a paid model. Jensen doesn't think there's enough differences apparent to the user in the new version versus the last free version and he also doesn't like the fact that you have to let one of the ComicPress developers install the new ComicPress for you. You can read Jensen's reaction and a heated twitter discussion with a head developer over at thewebcomiclist.com forums.
Recent Comments