Marvel To Offer Older Comics Online

Well... it's a step in the right direction. Starting today, Marvel is offering some of their comics online through a subscription service. The catch? Comics won't hit the service for at least 6 months after their print release, and are only available via browser. No downloads.

I have mixed feelings on this. On one hand, it's a great thing that there's a cheap way to go through back issues, and not have to spend hundreds on eBay to do so. What I really want, however, is a way to read NEW comics online, at a reasonable price. The ability to see all of this weeks issues for a nominal fee, (or a slightly larger price-per-issue to be able to download them), would be extremely useful for me. Really, at some point, comic publishers are going to have to do this, to reach kids today.

"You don't have that spinner rack of comic books sitting in the local five-and-dime any more," said Dan Buckley, president of Marvel Publishing. "We don't have our product intersecting kids in their lifestyle space as much as we used to."

Exactly. So why not offer the new stuff? Maybe they're working up to it.

To start there will be about 2500 issues available, ranging from original Stan Lee titles to newer books like Young Avengers (Wiccan and Hulkling are so cute together). More books will be added each week. If you are interested in the service, it will cost you $9.99 a month, or $4.99 a month if you pay for a year at once.
Marvel, other comics go online [Yahoo]
[via: Kotaku]