Six bookmarks deleted...
Jul. 25th, 2005 07:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
redneckgaijinGoodbye to my online reading of Popeye, Tumbleweeds, Funky Winkerbean, Safe Havens, On the Fasttrack, and Mallard Fillmore.
King Features Syndicate have taken their web presence (except for small samples for newspaper editors to use) to a pay-per-view-only subscription service.
I've already got one subscription with a comic service (United, as in Dilbert, Peanuts, Alley Oop, Pibgorn & others) that won't let me unsubscribe; like hell I'm going with another, even if I could afford it.
The thing is, though, I can sympathize with them. WLP's web comics currently don't have a mechanism of bringing in money directly, and I can only hope that they're increasing mail orders... which makes me SERIOUSLY concerned about how few of THOSE there'd be without the comics... GROAN.
And since most of the comics are adults-only, the -only- micropayment services (besides YowCow, who are about to be completely excised from the WLP website) who'd work with WLP would only do it on a subscription basis- in other words, if I made WLP's online content pay-only.
And I've promised not to do that, because I HATE PAY SITES.
But there needs to be some means by which I can sustain the comics. None of them is popular enough to support specialty merchandise (the two Chichi shirts are slow movers, and the Chocolate Milkmaid shirt sold virtually nil), and web ad sales have been a grand total of $10 since its inception a year ago. I need to raise a lot of money for Bootleg #13 next month, and thus far, it isn't happening.
So, although it annoys me that KFS is going pay-only, I can understand their decision. They took the easy way out- the way that, more than any other, might push people to go to their local newspaper instead.
I -really- hope I don't have to break my word and follow suit.
King Features Syndicate have taken their web presence (except for small samples for newspaper editors to use) to a pay-per-view-only subscription service.
I've already got one subscription with a comic service (United, as in Dilbert, Peanuts, Alley Oop, Pibgorn & others) that won't let me unsubscribe; like hell I'm going with another, even if I could afford it.
The thing is, though, I can sympathize with them. WLP's web comics currently don't have a mechanism of bringing in money directly, and I can only hope that they're increasing mail orders... which makes me SERIOUSLY concerned about how few of THOSE there'd be without the comics... GROAN.
And since most of the comics are adults-only, the -only- micropayment services (besides YowCow, who are about to be completely excised from the WLP website) who'd work with WLP would only do it on a subscription basis- in other words, if I made WLP's online content pay-only.
And I've promised not to do that, because I HATE PAY SITES.
But there needs to be some means by which I can sustain the comics. None of them is popular enough to support specialty merchandise (the two Chichi shirts are slow movers, and the Chocolate Milkmaid shirt sold virtually nil), and web ad sales have been a grand total of $10 since its inception a year ago. I need to raise a lot of money for Bootleg #13 next month, and thus far, it isn't happening.
So, although it annoys me that KFS is going pay-only, I can understand their decision. They took the easy way out- the way that, more than any other, might push people to go to their local newspaper instead.
I -really- hope I don't have to break my word and follow suit.
