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[Doc]

I don't know, where has an online comic strip subscription's model worked as the artist's primary income? I don't know of any examples.

There's a few subscription only sites. Modern tales is the only one I can think of off the top of my head. Typically with those it's the most recent comic that's free and then you need to subscribe to read the archives. I imagine most of those creators use a combination of subscriptions and merchandising to make up their total income but subscription models do work for some people.

It's also not true that the merchandising model always works, it just works better than most of the other models (and this is important) for the bigger comics. Size is an important factor, once you have a certain reader base you only need a small percentage to actually buy stuff to make it worth while. When your reader base is small I can see how a subscription model that ensures a larger percentage pays a smaller amount would be desirable. Of course you'll inevitably decimate your reader base going down that road but these are the choices people make.

Then again I can imagine subscribers being pissed about an Onstad update schedule.

[pmcd9]

The problem with comic strips is they have always been free.

To make online them more like the print model would be to make them available, but only for only a day.

[Arachno-capitalist]

The problem with comic strips is they have always been free.

To make online them more like the print model would be to make them available, but only for only a day.

I think a good model would be for the popular online artists to come together under one umbrella - sharing the technology costs, greater exposure and reader exchange, higher traffic and bigger demographic for advertisers, simplicity for the users who no longer have to go to 5 different websites in the morning.
If they aren't willing to do this themselves, I foresee someone forming an aggregate linky site to collect on those ad dollars - that is, if that doesn't already exist.

[lprkn]

yes

[Doc]

Dumbrella, Keenspot, Blank Label Comics, Girlamatic are a bit ahead of you I'm afraid.

Edit: Damn hadn't heard of webcomics list.

[Arachno-capitalist]

Dumbrella, Keenspot, Blank Label Comics, Girlamatic are a bit ahead of you I'm afraid.

Edit: Damn hadn't heard of webcomics list.

And i had never seen a messageboard before here.

Do the artists hook up to do this together like a described, or are these dudes aggregating things?

[Doc]

It varies. Generally they start out as a few artists banding together but when they get big (I'm thinking mainly of Keenspot here) they become more of a business to help comics advertise easily than a collection of creators. Modern Tales was started by a guy who's been doing webcomics for a while specifically to provide a subscription service for other comic creators, I think he has some of his own comics on there but I'm pretty sure it was a business thing first.

Blank Label and Dumbrella are more like the sort of artist hook up you describe, they're relatively smaller operations and have generally better quality (I think). More a group of established artists sharing costs by having a joint store and cross promoting each other with their site's advertising but (as far as I know) still retaining relatively independent income from merchandising and so on. Compare this with Keenspot that basically gives you a site and controls what ads you run and then pays you a cut from your click throughs. Which is great for people who are just starting out but maybe not as good if you already have a built in reader base.

[Doc]

Gothic/blackletter, surely? Also I would think tattoo lettering would be a script rather than a font. Also I am a picky bastard who has been putting too much time into my printing dissertation. Ahem.

I am rightly chastened.
I think this is the right forum for this kind of nit-picking.

[theinevitable]

is keenspot still like, a thing?

I just remember that it led me to a comic that had a lot of nudity and fuck*ng, and that that was exactly what I needed at that point in my life.

also, this one comic I read... Road Waffles. lots of violence that was so REALISTIC in that it was senseless and depressing.

[Bobby Isosceles]

An assbar link because I'm lazy and not on my standard machine.

I really shouldn't have to pick up the slack when 'off campus' for a while.

ALSO: Did beef get tattoos that basically work as shirt designs too?

We should take his sodium tattoos with a grain of salt.

[Bobby Isosceles]

Because the piecemeal way he is doing this is just frustrating and confusing?

Also, you know, because we want it to be free.

I will program a napster that is just a thing where you can see subscriber-only achewood.

You don't need to program a napster. Just subscribe to it, then you have your own copy and can redistribute it as you please.

That said, the subscription fee is pretty low so I can't see people bitching about it on cost terms, even in this foul economy. I felt pretty burned with Serializer, inasmuch as I subscribed for an equally LOW LOW FEE and then he maybe updated once in fourteen years and so basically I felt like I was funnelling a LOW LOW FEE to Serializer as some sort of escrow for a future that would never come. I figure with Onstad's crazy schedule he'll eventually lose interest in subscriber only strips, just like he's lost interest in Ray's Place, the Achewood radio station, or updating the story arcs in the drop-down box on the front page. At which point a LOW LOW FEE would be a one-time payment, to see the backlog of everything Onstad did before he found other, more entertaining or lucrative interests. Once I skim that backlog I'll cancel my subscription, to avoid another Serializer situation.

Obviously a situation that would obviate this is a (Lord, I can't believe I'm saying this) micropayment system (á la Scott McCloud). Basically, rather than a recurring LOW LOW SUBSCRIPTION FEE, everything in PREMIUM CONTENT (TM) would cost a token amount, say ten to twenty five cents an item. That way, if Onstad gets distracted by his child, his apparently incontinent dachshund, his rock star travel tour or what have you, I'll have paid a fair market value for what he's provided, and not pissed away any money just waiting.

[Bobby Isosceles]

Somewhere, a goose wasn't shitting gold out fast enough and found its throat slashed for the hope that it might bleed out fast and dirty fortunes.

But the blood was blood and the bird was dead and there was no more gold at all.

This somewhere was a place called Metaphor.

It is the ultimate fuck you, to make fuck you friday pay-only.

[wombat]

Basically, rather than a recurring LOW LOW SUBSCRIPTION FEE, everything in PREMIUM CONTENT (TM) would cost a token amount, say ten to twenty five cents an item.

Why not both? You can either subscribe to the newspaper, or buy it only on the days you want to read it, right?

Or... read it for free on the Internet. Hmm.

[Doc]

Yeah, say y cents an item or x a month. It works two ways in that it makes the monthly payment seem like good value because you can put a price on each item.

[Death Ray]

Here's my Beef tat: "Call me Wolfram. Tungsten is my slave name."