Only A Webcomic, It Really Couldn't Help It

Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on November 19, 2007 - 10:46

BUSINESS

• Todd Allen has a good overview of recent digital online efforts: comparing Marvel's Digital Comics Unlimited to iTunes and Rhapsody, and then wondering why Zuda and Comic Mix are not maximizing their potential ad revenue.

INTERVIEWS

• Tom Spurgeon has an interesting interview with Rick Marshall, the recently fired former online editor of Wizard. Marshall takes a lot of credit for Wizard's recent online attention to independent webcomics which seems to be continuing through the efforts of staff writer Brian Warmoth.
• Comicgate has a good interview with Dirk Wood, the marketing director for Dark Horse. There's a bit in there about Dark Horse's webcomics on MySpace. Like Marvel's DCU, Wood seems to think that online readers want webcomics to "feel" like reading a comic book. This is, to say the least, wrong. At best, interfaces like this evoke a nostalgia or a "that's cool" feeling for a few days, but then quickly become annoying. If comics can learn anything from the foibles of the music industry, it's that consumers in the intertubes era want maximum flexibility with their content. And there's also this (sadly) accurate description of the direct market demographic (emphasis added): "Whether it's a ten-year-old girl going into a book store or a 40-year-old man going into a comic shop or toystore."

• Zuda