General Category > Comic Related Discussion
Archie goes digital with 'New Crusaders'
John C:
--- Quote from: Roygbiv666 on October 12, 2011, 04:03:35 PM ---The $2.99 is for the subscription service, not the Crusaders comic:
--- End quote ---
That was never in question, as far as I know. The question was what the subscription actually gets you. From the articles, it looks/looked a lot like it's just for the superhero material, which would be access to an archive of cleaned-up public domain material and the handful of pages of New Crusaders.
The website itself implies that the scope is wider. However, today's addition is an early issue of Blue Ribbon, and you can only browse the full list and see anything else with a subscription.
--- Quote from: Roygbiv666 on October 12, 2011, 04:03:35 PM ---Why don't publishers just release digital to an iTunes like platform, and let them absorb the server costs? Then it's comics for 99 cents! Yay!
--- End quote ---
That's basically what they're doing (iVerse is running the server, as I understand it), but subscriptions are a more appealing business model, since revenue is more predictable. They also don't need to sell you every issue, just avoid convincing you to cancel.
(It's also why big software companies like Microsoft and Google are so gung-ho on "the cloud." Taking your monthly payment is a lot easier for them than trying to sell you an upgrade.)
I'll give it a look later and report back if someone already hasn't.
Yoc:
If someone joins please compare Archie's Blue Ribbon 3 issue with our own scans here -
http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/index.php?dlid=42
I'm curious if they are the same or 'improved.'
John C:
Hm. I was ready to jump on, but I don't think they're quite ready for prime time.
They have free samples, so I figured I'd try out the interface. My installation of Firefox isn't loading it for some reason (might be a plug-in, but I'd rather not have to care), and it crashed my installation of Chrome after a while. So we're not off to a good start. Worse, I'm reading on a netbook, and they've made it difficult (impossible? confusing?) to see a whole page. I think you can zoom and pan, but panning didn't work for me.
The interface is...I don't know, kind of "adorable." There's nothing cute in the design, but it's all about the "feel" of an actual comic, suggesting that you physically turn the pages, and so forth, and trying to map your mouse movements to bending the paper. That, and the tutorial video's incessant references to "Archie Comics dot com" made me feel like I was in one of those old-timey PBS specials about computers. At least they didn't use the word "cyberspace" anywhere.
Second is the price. It's ten bucks a month, which is a little insane to test drive. Weirdly, it's only fifty annually. I guess it goes to show that the goal is to stabilize revenue, here, if they're willing to discount almost sixty percent for a year's commitment. Four dollars a month is probably going to be a good deal, if I can convince myself that random Archie books are worth reading.
However, third and probably biggest, we've got technology problems already. I realize nobody else checks the Terms of Service before checking the box, but I get curious...and since I help out around here, I wanted to make sure they don't have some weird anti-competition clause or something. However, they don't seem to have one linked, or at least they set up the page wrong.
On top of that, their SSL certificate (think of it as an automatic password, if that's meaningless to you) isn't set up properly, so Firefox tries to wave me away, as if it's likely that someone is only <b>pretending</b> to serve me up Archie digital comics. This may mean that they just put a file in the wrong place or need to update a timestamp somewhere. It might mean that they bought a certificate second-hand or from a cheap/unknown dealer. Or it may mean that they have serious security problems. There's no way to tell unless they investigate it and fix the problem.
So, I'm going to hold off for a bit and try to get some useful intelligence out of their web monkeys (no offense, Yoc) before subscribing.
However, all that said, it's got promise if they can pull themselves together. I don't like that even the index is crammed behind the pay-wall, since it's their best possible advertising, but what I see looks like it'll be worth the money when they don't look quite so much like they're running this operation out of the back of a van on the shoulder of the expressway.
Yoc:
Thanks for trying John. Let us know if you decide to take the plunge.
John C:
I sent a message running through my issues. We'll see if they're in a position to fix things.
Meantime, I do recommend at least checking out the free books to see if/how it works for you, even though it doesn't include the Blue Ribbon book. Those of you with experience scanning and editing might also have some insight as to whether the older books are existing scans, new, or re-edited.
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