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I’m guessing there’s more than a few comic book nerds lurking amongst the many readers here, so I’m going to go out on a limb and admit to being a semi-regular frequenter of Marvel.com. That makes me sound like I’m not that big of a comic nerd, so while I’m in the mood for embarrassing admissions, I’ll also state for the record that I own every issue of every Batman-related titles released between 1988 and 1998. Presently, I also read anywhere between three and seven ongoing daily web-comics as well.

I could go on, but let’s summarize with “I love comics.”

I say all this because I’ve been looking to the old guard in the comic world (I hesitate to call it Old Media, but I suppose that’s what it is) to come around to discovering the web as more than a billboard for the printed comics. Over and over, by actions and direct quote, it is clear that through the offerings I’ve seen by any of the major comic publishers, they only look to their website as a way to boost print sales, instead of looking at the web as distribution platform in and of itself.

That said, though, like any good collector worth his salt, I will be sad the day that the last issue of Batman hits the comic book shelves. Still, as much as we’d like, we can’t ignore technology’s forward march. Marvel, today, is one step closer to recognizing this bittersweet fact, and they’ve decided to release more of their comics in an online version starting today. Those that regularly frequent Marvel.com will probably not be surprised by this. It has been a long slow march towards what looks like eventually releasing all their comics online.

Unfortunately, this announcement doesn’t yet herald the release of all new issues in a delayed Hulu-esque manner, yet still is still nothing to scoff at. Over 2,500 issues of various origin back-stories will be released tomorrow at the site, with 20 issues more being released each week subsequently. Much like Hulu, though, comics will only be viewable through the site’s web viewer, and cannot be downloaded to the reader’s machine for storage.

It baffles me that the major publishers can’t take a look at the growing success of online web-comic artists in their efforts to monetize themselves, and say “Hey, with our ginormous ad sales teams, we could probably make a decent living doing comics this way, too!” It is true, that many (if not most) web comic artists typify the term “starving artist,” yet some are doing quite well for themselves.  Imagine how much better they could be doing if they had a brand with ten to forty years worth of marketing behind it?  Such is the conundrum of the mainstream comic world.

While that that happy day of full transition has yet to come, you’ll be able to drown that sorrow in a sea of Marvel comics in the mean time. Happy reading!

[via Breitbart]

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