NPR: Marvel Puts Comics Online

Marvel Puts Comics Online

Spider-Man is getting a chance to use his skills on a completely different kind of web.

Marvel Comics has put 2,500 of its comics online. For $9.99 a month — or $4.99 a month if you sign up for a year — you'll get access to all of them (including the first 100 issues of The Amazing Spider-Man and The Fantastic Four). The company is also offering 250 comics for free for a limited time.

Twenty new comics will be added each week, but titles will have to be in print for at least six months before they go online.

Marvel is hoping to recapture the attention of the young people it may have "lost" to the Web, but some see pitfalls for online comics. Dennis Webb, owner of the Comics and Cards Collectorama in Alexandria, Va., told me that he thinks real collectors will want the issues in print and the Web offerings won't change their habits. He adds: "No one has mentioned it at all. There hasn't been any buzz."

4:51 PM ET | 11-14-2007 | permalink

Comments (Send a comment)

I get a kick out of Stan Lee appearing cameo, ala Alfred Hichcock, in the Marvel made movies.

You got to watch close cause Lee only appears for a few seconds, like when he stops on the street to say something casual to Superhero Spiderman Peter Parker in his in civilian clothes. Or when he wasn't allowed into the wedding party in the Silver Surfer and the Fantastic Four. Or when Daredevil stopped Stan from stepping off the curb in front of an oncoming automobile. Or when he was selling popcorn in the audience while Nicholas Cage motorcycle jumped the whirling helicopter blades in Ghost Rider.

Yeah, there's something about the smell of comic books you just can't get downloaded online. I still can't get accustomed to reading downloaded novels on the screen. I still need a hammock, a beer and a book mark when it comes to literature.

But there will surely come the day when book binding will be nothing but an antique and a memory.

And, like 1984, you're going to have to find a secret corner that Big Brother's cameras can't catch you reading an 'illegal book.'

fred call

Sent by fred call | 7:28 PM ET | 11-14-2007

Online might be interesting. When the comics have failed to live up to past standards of story telling and have devolved into gratuitous death and borderline soft porn maybe the online option will allow the customer a greater degree of freedom in choosing quality comics over less worthy choices.

Sent by Darrin Nobis | 10:02 AM ET | 11-15-2007

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