"We hoped that maybe 500 people would subscribe in the first six months," says Joey Manley of Modern Tales. "Almost 1000 people ... subscribed, in less than three weeks. With no marketing budget. And no advertising. And no huge famous names from mainstream comics on our roster." His achievement flies in the face of popular thought; "I think it's pretty clear that people will, in fact, pay for webcomics."

Aaron Thacker of Unbound Comics agrees. "In late 1999, when I started talking about Unbound Comics on the Comicon forum, a lot of people argued that nobody would ever pay for online content." The consensus at the time was that advertising revenue and merchandising were the only way to keep this kind of business afloat. Stan Lee Media's catastrophic breakdown proved that nothing was guaranteed.

"I would have to say that, in the online comics game, playing not to lose is the way to go right now," says Thacker. "Unbound Comics has been able to stay in the game because we've made staying in the game our priority. We built the business with a plan that didn't rely on huge numbers out of the gate, but that would instead let us build our brand name while the industry developed and that would keep us agile enough to adapt to the quick changes of the marketplace."

Manley goes a step further, "If our cartoonists are not making a living from online comics work within five years, we will have failed." He does not believe all this can be achieved from Modern Tales, but would like to think that his site will open the floodgates for a host of competitors. At the moment, the online publishing industry is looking a little worse for wear.

Comics One published manga using the popular PDF format, but has recently become a victim of its technological partner. Jambooks used a similar technology, but has been down for renovation for some time. Wow Comics uses it's own proprietary compression software to assist in downloading its work, but has failed to make a big impact outside of it's own particular niche. The biggest and most notorious failure of recent time has been Cool Beans World.

Prior to its recent disintegration, Dan Whitehead explained to Ninth Art how the company worked; "As well as making classic material re-available, we concentrated on developing our own stories and characters, which would be produced as traditional comics, animated strips and even full CGI movies." As well as the comics content, the site offered its extensive community of subscribers several unique features. "There are things we can do that the printed page will never manage - animations, sound effects, and the real-time community aspect."

"I don't think that the demise of Cool Beans World means all that much to the industry as a whole," states Unbound's Thacker. Agrees Manley; "The truth is, our audience hardly knew Cool Beans World existed. I've never fielded a single question about it." The site's downfall seems to be related to money problems behind the scenes, but Manley has a different take, suggesting that the site offered nothing you couldn't get elsewhere.

"If you didn't like mainstream print comics, you probably weren't going to like Cool Beans World," he claims. "Cool Beans World was all about print comics creators coming to the web, by and large." The site featured work from such sources as Chris Claremont, Simon Bisley and Ian Edgington. "As far as I remember, they didn't have a single popular webcartoonist on board. My feeling is that you have to have a mix of the two."

Thacker looks to the more practical problems; "It looked to me like Cool Beans World was burning a lot more cash than they could hope to make on sales this early in the game."

Whatever the reason for its demise, neither Manley nor Thacker attach too much significance to its departure. It does, however, serve to highlight one of the main differences between the sites. "My thesis was - and is - that it wasn't the concept of online entertainment that failed, it was the scale of these projects." As a former analyst and writer for StreamingMedia.com, Manley has seen his fair share of dot-com failures. Keeping Modern Tales a small organisation seems to have been the key to survival, and he believes it's a good lesson for other dot-coms. "In this regard, comics is ahead of other media, we're used to small outfits and low-budget businesses."

Thacker looks to the corporate behemoths of our industry to lead the way; "Crossgen's commitment, not just to webcomics, but to selling webcomics, may be a turning point in how the industry as a whole will look at webcomics." Thacker believes that the print readership can be converted into an online readership; "Marvel and Crossgen will tell us a lot about the acceptance of online comics, simply because they can drive the big audiences."

Meanwhile, the mainstream is less convinced by these upstarts. "Given the current on-line economics, the e-comics-only model doesn't really work," argues Bill Jemas, president of Marvel Comics. "In the short term, DotComics do boost circulation which, in turn, helps increase advertising revenues." However, Jemas believes that e-comics should exist only as an adjunct to print publication "We hope that those new on-line readers will begin to shop at comic stores."

For Marvel, the model of giving away print comics for free via the website seems to be working. The 1.4 million hits a month Marvel gets allows it to charge more for advertising rates and report increased readership. But Marvel's DotComics are essentially a loss-making PR exercise. While Marvel has begun research into payment methods for these comics, nothing has yet come of it.

Modern Tales' readership is as different from Marvel's as you could imagine; "While some of our subscribers read print comics, most do not. ... They either found us because of our amazingly popular webcartoonists or because of the attention we get in the Internet culture rags." Manley is making plays for the traditional comics audience, but is more than happy with the audience such creators as Scott Kurtz and Shaenon Garrity bring to Modern Tales. "I don't have any scientific research, but I can tell you with absolute confidence that the audience for popular webcomics is far, far, far larger than the audience for comic books."

Indeed, Modern Tales has only existed a short while, but is already expanding its line. The new AdventureStrips.com line focuses on the more traditional pulp adventure. Chris Mills - Manley's personal choice as editor - describes the sort of stories they hope to tell as, "Quality comics in various action-adventure genres currently ignored by mainstream comics." Mills further defines this as fantasy, sci-fi, contemporary and period adventure, crime, western, and war. He's very strict on one matter, "I'll only accept superheroes if they are truly unique and different."

Manley is also launching solo sites for creators whose work can sell itself. One of these is Lea Hernandez, a creator who is looking to the internet to escape some of the problems of the print world. Her Image Comics work, RUMBLE GIRLS, has had difficulty reaching it's intended audience. "I had problems that couldn't be fixed except by putting RUMBLE GIRLS into a system where the same audience that gobbles up manga aimed at girls featuring female main characters could find it. That system is online."

Hernandez is quick to quell any discontent among her print readership. "No, it's not a side project. I know it can bring me money, combined with other sources of revenue like royalties from graphic novels and trades." Hernandez has long been a believer in online comics, putting up samples of her work as early as 1995 and attending several lectures by Scott McCloud on the subject. But it was Manley's offer that finally led to her take up the online baton. "Joey has this really low-key persistence," she says. "He doesn't wear anyone down, he just keeps asking until he gets a yes."

Related Links:
Modern Tales
Unbound Comics
CrossGen
Marvel Thacker and Unbound Comics are not resting on their laurels either. "We're seeing some really positive developments at Adobe, which should make it easier to get our eBooks delivered." Unbound's choice to go with Adobe's new eBook PDF format has led to other advantages. "By partnering with Adobe, we get to offer comic book publishers access to infrastructure of the same scale and quality as that used by BarnesAndNoble.com or Amazon.com." The staff at Unbound has already doubled, and the company is expanding into new territories and working with new creators every week.

Cynics may still question the future of e-comics and claim that Modern Tales and Unbound Comics are simply anomalies, but for the time being, they certainly seem to be succeeding. Their success is down to their grass-roots approach to the work, and to the visions of two men committed to a regular output of quality work. Neither Manley nor Thacker shows any sign of stopping, despite received wisdom about the realities of selling online content.

John Fellows works in the television industry providing assistive services to the deaf community.

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