The SLG - ZCult FM mixup

Over the weekend, there seeems to have been quite a bit of mixup over whether Slave Labor Graphics would allow Zcult-FM to torrent their digital comics. (which I predicted earlier this week.)

From Serj, the Site Admin at Z-Cult:

Our statement and update in response to this news article:

UPDATED 25th Nov 2007 - 02:21)

In our first news post on this subject we posted the following statement from SLG Publishing:
Quote:

To the members of Z-Cult:

SLG publishing would like to thank the moderators and forumers of Z-Cult for the respect they have shown in regards to our ban request. Obviously, our preference is to have each comic legally paid for, and the efforts undertaken to honor this desire have clearly shown that Z-Cult is not a forum overrun by those expecting a free ride. In return, we have decided to lift the ban from our independently published titles being distributed on Z-Cult. Of course, this is not an entirely selfless act - we hope that exposure to our large library of titles will help encourage support of our legal download site, www.eyemelt.com.

It is our belief that there is a market for legally downloadable comic books, and we hope that we can prove this to the comics industry by showing success through our our digital distribution system.

Unfortunately we cannot lift the ban on any SLG/Disney titles, for reasons that should be obvious. These titles are limited to: The Haunted Mansion, Tron, Gargoyles and Wonderland. Our apologies for being unable to allow sharing on these particular titles.

For those of you who took the time and effort to report and remove our material, and particularly to those who undertook the process of re-uploading your torrents over and over without complaint, thank you.

SLG Publishing

(Serj has) just been in contact with Dan (Owner of SLG Publishing) who has said this statement DID NOT come from him and DID NOT come from this company.

(Serj has) been in contact with Dan and SLG Publishing over this issue and the following is the reason behind this mix up.

Many months ago someone on behalf of SLG Publishing contacted (Serj) requesting (Zcult) removed SLG books from our website. As standard procedure we asked the e-mailer to verify who they said they were and their position in the company. The user provided proof they were speaking on behalf on SLG Publishing and so (Zcult) removed the books. Dan has stated in his recent email to (Zcult) that the user WAS requesting the removal of their books on behalf of himself. So (Serj's) background research was 100% correct.

When this same user emailed (Serj) the other day from same account with this statement from SLG Publisher it was taken to be 100% official and the user stated it was from the company as a whole. This was taken as official by (Serj) due to our earlier contact with this user and email account. So much to (his) surprise tonight (Serj) was informed the owners did not issue this statement so (Zcult) removed this post until we could verify it.

(Serj) contacted Dan directly and informed him of everything (Serj) had gotten from the person claiming to be SLG publishing and this is the email issued in response by Dan from SLG Publishing.
Quote:

Hello Serj,

[I HAVE REMOVED NAME] is a freelance writer. He did, with my knowledge, contact you in regards to having you take down SLG content from your site when we started EYEMELT.COM.

However he is not in a position to make policies, especially in regard to something like this. We never asked him to make a statement about removing the ban. This being an American holiday I was unaware of any problems with your site and Marvel/DC since I was out of my office and not checking my email. I was not even aware of any statement on our behalf until I was contacted by a comics news site for additional comment.

[SERJ REMOVED NAME] obviously wrote the statement himself. I'm not certain why he felt he had the right to make a statement on our company's behalf without contacting me. I'm sorry if you came out looking bad on this as I do believe you were acting under the impression that [REMOVED NAME] was sending you something on our behalf. Again, why he thought he could issue a statement on my company's behalf without contacting me is beyond explanation. [REMOVED NAME] is very devoted to the notion of digital comics and he must have felt he was acting in everyones best interests.

I'll be issuing an amended statement on our blog and news site and I will be sure to mention that you posted the SLG statement under the honest assumption it was from us. As for the lifting of the ban, just so you can come away from this with something, you can go ahead and make our stuff available for download. I am not certain what our digital plans are going to be in the coming year, so I may come back and ask you to drop them again.
Dan Vado

So there we go. I followed up this email asking if they wanted banners as stated in the "offical" statement that turned out to be false and Dan said:

Quote:

As for the banners, go ahead and leave them up for now. Lets see if there is any jump in sales long term because of this.

Sooo SLG comics still good to go and banners remain..

I am sorry for any confusion this might have caused but seems a little mix up and confusion has taken place on both sides.

End of Serj's Post.

UPDATE: Here is more information from Blog@Newsarama...
http://blog.newsarama.com/2007/11/25/dan-vado-apologizes-to-z-cult-fm-and-well-everyone

My biggest take away from all this is I'm a little curious about Dan's comments about what his future digital plans might be. Also, I think it's really quite awesome of him to support Zcult-FM by allowing Zcult to torrent the SLG books.

Marvel and DC send Zcult FM a Cease and Desist Order

Well, here we have the second shoe dropping. This week Marvel and DC teamed up, but not to present a classic adventure with Spider-Man or Superman. Instead they got together and sent ZCult-FM a cease and desist letter. (For those of you just joining us, Zcult-FM is the longest lived and most famous torrent site for comics on the net)

It is reported that per the letter, Zcult has 3 days to remove all DC/Marvel content from their site before DC/Marvel takes any further action. (I'm told that Zcult is going to abide by the letter and only provide non DC/Marvel comic related torrents in the future.)

For more commentary on the matter check these links:

From Forevergeek...

...Obsessive comicbook fans who absolutely must read every single issue that comes out from their beloved titles, or completists that want to read every single issue that is included in massive yearly crossover events can either do two things — spend a majority of their income buying comicbooks or download digitally scanned copies of the comics. For a growing number of collectors, digital comics has been a salve to soothe acute wallet burnout. They can now scan favorite titles or look for issues that they have missed. This makes them buy comics with a bit of foreknowledge, allowing them to just get issues that they really love and skip those that do not pass their personal scrutiny...

From Shotgun Reviews...

This shut down of ZCult is a big blow to readers of downloaded comics, but it is far from the only site on the internet that hosts them. People will be able to find other places if this one is in fact shut down. What’s different about ZCult from most is the online community that has formed there. Some of the most active, and intelligently debated, forums on the comic ‘net can be found in their message board section. Add to that reviews, a podcast, and weekly previews, and you have a full on comic site being run by no one actively involved in the industry, except as fans. According to Serj, Marvel’s demands included the complete shut-down of the site, including these community features. This seems odd, and really, a little vindictive to many involved with the site.

From TorrentFreak...

Another high note, Z-Cult FM’s admin just announced some really good news. Seems that there are benefits to having your material available on BitTorrent after all. Serj explains:

A comic publisher we talked to while ago who wanted their books banned from our site for their own reasons have just PMed/Emailed me to revoke the ban and are happy for us to share their files here.

From ComicsCommentary.blogspot

The scanning and pirating of comics will continue in the near future (there are still many other sites in which these comics are available for free), but Marvel and DC taking joint action against the best-known sites surely will have some effect. My guess is that new sites will pop up to fill the void left by Z-Cult FM and the also recently-shut down Demonoid, but that some of these new sites may end up having more restricted memberships (an "only by invitation" system).

My Thoughts on the Cease and Desist:

1) It was only a matter of time. I'm surprised it took so long. (Then again, DC *did* just launch their first internet initiative, which is basically a Web Comics site.)

2) It's plain to see that Marvel has gotten DC to reverse their don't ask don't tell policy on comic downloads, as 2 years ago at HeroesCon, Dan Didio himself said DC thought that comic downloads HELPED comics. (His reasoning? Because people couldn't afford to follow every title in a huge company crossover...)

3)How many times has Pirate Bay been sent cease and desist orders? And as of yesterday, they seem to be operating just fine. So, this is really sort of Marvel/DC's way of treating the symptom and ignoring the desease.

4) The mystery publisher who is going to be allowing Zcult to torrent their titles? Don't be surprised if it turns out to be Slave Labor Graphic's Dan Vado. Dan has proven time and time again that he is a true *Out of the Box* thinker, so I don't doubt that he recognizes the value of Zcult's Viral influence on comics readers.

Stay tuned for more as this story develops...

GIT Loses Marvel Liscense, gains Archie

From Newsarama...GIT LOSES MARVEL LICENSE, GAINS ARCHIE

According to a letter to retailers posted on his company’s website by GIT Corp President Raymond K. Pelosi, GIT will no longer offer Marvel comic books on DVD-ROM. The question of how the collections would work in conjunction with Marvel’s new online comics initiative had been raised by many fans when the publisher’s plan was announced.

Over the years, GIT had released collections of Marvel titles from Fantastic Four to Amazing Spider-Man, the X-Men, Avengers, and more. Popular with many fans, the issues in the GIT collections were scanned in copies, presented in pdf format. Utilizing the technology, GIT would collect decades worth of issues on single DVDs.

A poster in the a.b.comics.dcp group (Santa Cthulhu) put it well by saying:

...removing the legitimate option for people who want to legally purchase a digital
version they can own and enjoy at their convenience instead of waiting for Marvel's site to get back up so they can read a rented copy from a spotty selection.

My opinion on this is that it's bad and shortsighted marketing to promote the product you want to sell by removing all other even vaguely related alternatives that could possibly take away sales from a non-competitive rival, especially when the previous product has decent sales *and* customer demand and the new one is still an unproven test with a noticeably flawed implementation.

And already on various message boards and such, a lot of people are expressing disappointment that the upcoming Thor and Daredevil or whatever collections they were looking forward to/saving up for will no longer be produced.

I was saving up for Avengers, X-Men, and maybe FF, myself. I think this kind of puts recent events into perspective, and I'm petty enough to hope that Marvel's subscription service tanks just because of all the DVD-buyers they're letting down so they can push their shiny new subscription model.

Guess I know what I'm not spending my holiday money on this year.

Best regards,

I agree with Santa Cthulhu, this strikes me as a bad move, unless Marvel is intending to offer such collections on their own. Regular readers of this blog know how I feel about PDF comics, but even I must admit the GIT Marvel collections were a great idea. I'll be sorry to see them go.

On the upside, it will be nice to have The Archie library available in this format.

Introducing: Kindle! Amazon's New WiFi Reader

Is this the new face of the digital reader revolution?


Uh...I certainly hope not, because it's sort of butt ugly. :P

Honestly, I would have been *Wowwed!* by this type of device back in 1992, but since then, the look and feel of hand-held devices has sort of moved on from the plastic Soviet Issue/Bad Radio Shack walkie talkie era hasn't it? I mean, did the design department at Amazon not learn anything from how the iPod's aesthetic superiority kicked the Zune's ass?

Seriously, it looks like a cross between a Texas Instruments calculator from 1982 and a Mattel Merlin..



But I know what you're saying..."Jim! How can you condemn such a neat device on just looks alone..."

Good point! Let's evaluate the price: $400.

Wow. For about the same price, I can get a cheap laptop that has wireless access, can read books and comics AND I can install games and programs on it as well.

And currently the votes by reviewers is running 74 5 Star reviews versus 146 1 Star reviews
Hm..maybe Amazon will have a better time winning me over as time goes by and new models of the Kindle come out. (Does anyone but me get an awkward *book burning* vibe from that name?)

In the meantime, I eagerly await Amazon's next awesome product - The Radio Hat!


On the Flipside:

Marvel corrected the double charge for my purchase of one month of the Digital Comics Unlimited. :)

Random Digital Comics Screenshots

Here are some random screenshots from my pc that tell a bigger story.

First up - me getting Double Charged by Marvel's new Digital Comics Online system. :P

Be sure to stick around while I get this little mess sorted out.

Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase Two In One, doesn't it?

Next up, a sampling of some of the messages being posted in the alt.binaries.comics.dcp newsgroup.



There is still a lot of hand wringing going on in the DCP group about the fate of the newsgroup...and yet, what do we have here? Why, it's a torrent with all of this week's comics scanned by DCP? Guess the group is alive and well after all.



Finally, I check on a daily basis to see if Marvel has added Marvel Premiere 31 to their list of downloadable comics. So far they haven't, but I'm still hoping I'll see this one day...



Notes Concerning this Post:

1) DO NOT e-mail me asking where you can download bootleg comics. It's something I acknowledge, but do not advocate. If you want to download comics, go to Wowio, EyeMelt, PullboxOnline or download one of mine.

2) Seems like Marvel removed the online ads they had on their Digital Comics website. Just as well, they seemed to be very buggy, in many cases hiding the other menus and such. Also, I think there is something just plain broken with that little Flash menu...



3) Someone took the time to scan Captain Carrot. Pretty dedicated, aye?

4) Chris Sims doesn't get WoodGod. Doesn't think he's funny in the slightest. Someone feel free to set him straight. On the flipside, Phil Looney not only *gets* WoodGod, but has found a way to make Kang the Conqueror hilarious!

Marvel's Digital Comics Unlimited - Where's WoodGod?

Well, Monday/Tuesday, Marvel announced their Digital Comics Unlimited - their first REAL venture into the world of Digital Comics (I don't really count the previous versions as anything but mere Flash advertising campaigns.)

Since this announcement, my fastmail inbox has been swamped with e-mails from various friends asking me for my opinion on Marvel's site.

I wanted to get an article out as quickly as possible, but as it turned out, the launch date of the site corresponded with my wife's Fencing Practice night, so I was in charge of watching our 2 year old daughter all night. (Which was actually a lot of fun, because we went and saw the Bee Movie, which we both enjoyed.)

ASIDE: The Bee Movie is quite awesome. Do yourself a big favor and go see it. :)

The launch of the site was preceded by a rather awkward bit of internet journalism as Newsarama broke the news from a Canadian news agency, only to have to retract it and post an update.

Regardless, the post on the news from Newsarama quickly blew up into a huge thread with most posters all wondering why Marvel wasn't going to let you download the comics. Site unseen, the Flash interface for reading these new comics was getting condemned, and to be honest, I must admit, I was one of the guys throwing stones at the press release.

Anyway, I hope I was able to tide all the loyal readers of this blog with links to the opinions from Phil Looney and Jason Wright.

As the week progresses, if other Flashback creators comment (see image <-- ) on the site, I'll be sure to post either their comments or links to their blogs here. :)

So, with all that aside, let us dissect this puppy...

Things that made WoodGod Happy...

Yeah, I'm gonna start with the good things about this new site, because I actually think there are quite a number of them. However there is also some *room for improvement* and *areas of opportunity* for the whole site, so bear with me.

1) The price seems fair - for $60 I can have access to a wide array of Marvel comics on my computer without taking up any hard disk space. That's really nice.


2) They seem to have a nice assortment of titles on the site. I saw comics ranging from the 60's to the Modern Day. Strangely, I even saw a few that seem to violate the 6 Month Publication date rule (Omega, The Unknown)


3) The scans are really top notch! I viewed a Bronze Age Captain America comic and was amazed at the clarity of both the colors and lettering. NOTE: I did have to fiddle with my browser size to get the page to appear sharp, but I suspect on a 17 inch monitor, no such tweaking would be necessary.

Things that made WoodGod go WTF..

Got this message while exploring the site and it pretty much killed the whole experience for me, as I was unable to access the site from then on.

Sigh...is it just me, or do you only ever see this message when sites are using MySql? Seriously - can anyone send me a similar message from a Microsoft SQL Server?

I'm sure in the right environment, MySQL has it's uses...

...it's just not for me.

Still, I think it really says something about the validity of such an idea (Digital Comics) that for the first two days the site has been running, the server's been too busy to accomodate all the requests to the site.

On the flipside, people don't like paying a monthly fee for a site they can't access!

Not to mention the CRUCIAL loss of good first impressions Marvel needed to make with this launch.

Things that made WoodGod Mad...

1) No downloadable comics - Wow, did you see that one coming? Seriously, has anyone at Marvel Corporate looked at the history of such sites as Spinner.com. People, especially us greedy Americans, really like to KEEP what we buy, and not being able to download and store your comics from the Marvel site seems like a huge oversite.

2) That interface is still pretty awkward. I've noticed quite a number of people saying the found the interface difficult to understand or clumsy. You don't hear prople say that about CDisplay.


3) This is NOT the iTunes of Comics we were hoping for. With all the media hype that this site is getting, I'm afraid the idea of Marvel delivering their comics in a nice downloadable cbr format are pretty much gone. I also suspect that DC will probably do something similar, so we end up having to read the complete I, Vampire or Black Orchid in some ghastly Zuda interface.


4) No Woodgod. - Nuff Said.

Summation...

As long as the keep posting things like this:

...I'll probably keep checking out the site, but I'll be wishing I could download the comics everytime. :D

Marvel's Digital Comics Unlimited (pre post 2)

Jason's Comic Shelf- I totally agree with him on the lack of a Downloadable option..