If we had to guess, we’d imagine that when actor-musician-model Tyrese Gibson wanted to join the infectiously lively world of graphic novels, he wasn’t aware that part of this world is nitpicking bloggers, commentators and message board fans who fact check every utterance. But in a long interview at CBR, he and collaborator Mike Le address some of the complaints over quotes and talk about the future of MAYHEM. Specifically, Gibson refutes previously quoted claims that MAYHEM was the first comic for iTunes, which, as we all know, isn’t so.

Tyrese: That’s a misquote. The reporter misunderstood what I said. What I said and what I meant was this is the first time in history that Apple has teamed up with a creator to develop a digital comic book for iTunes. I know there have been many digital comic books way before “Mayhem,” and I am aware of other digital comic books that have been sold on iTunes.

In another quote, Gibson shows he understands multichannel delivery:

Tyrese: Let me say this, I strongly hope the digital sales drive consumers to discover comic books, which then drives them to their local comic book stores to buy more comic books. Digital comic books do not have to mean the death of printed comic books. I believe they can co-exist and help each other thrive. In this recession, anything that can help bring more traffic to comic book stores is a blessing.

Over the summer watching the MAYHEM experiment was vastly entertaining, and it’s safe to say the program had some pluses, but also pissed off a lot of people with, to put it mildly, over-aggressive marketing tactics. The bottom line is that quality was not one of the big selling points of the project, unfortunately, and what really fuels repeat business is a good story. However, it’s good to see Tyrese & Co. addressing some of the issues they raised. And their teaming with Apple is part of the Jobs Crew’s greater recognition that comics are a major part of the future business model for digital downloads.

Somewhat related: for the first time book app downloads have surpassed game app downloads for the iPhone:

In October, one out of every five new apps launching in the iPhone has been a book. Book publishers from Your Mobile Apps to Softbank are adapting books for sale in the AppStore at record rates. Flurry believes that Apple is poised to take market share from the Amazon Kindle in eBooks, in spite of the iPhone’s smaller four-inch display compared to the Kindle’s six-inch display. If Apple is actually working on a larger tablet, as rumored, it could steal even more market share.

Hurry Tablet!!!

A stunned world woke up to the news that now you can read Marvel Comics on your iPhone, via the four platforms best known for their comics offerings: Comixology, iVerse, Panelfly and Scrollmotion. A story on Marvel.com talks to EVP, Marvel Digital Media Ira Rubenstien.

Marvel digital comics availability on the iPhone Apps system joins the recently announced venture offering individual classic Marvel comics for download on Sony’s PSP device and, of course, the pioneering Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited subscription service that launched nearly two years ago and features an ever-expanding selection of over 7,000 comics!

“As technology grows, the ways fans can consume our comics must expand as well,” Rubenstein said. “We’re very cognizant of that and will continue to explore avenues to offer the widest variety of fun ways for fans to read Marvel comics. Stay tuned for announcements coming soon regarding not only more iPhones apps, but ways to enjoy Marvel digital comics on other devices!”

Although what’s available on Scrollmotion wasn’t readily apparent, Bleeding Cool had a rundown of the comics available:

Comixology: (71 issues, $1.99 each)

Age of Apocalypse #1–6
Astonishing X-Men #1–24 (Full Whedon Cassaday run)
Captain America #1–30 (Brubaker, Epting)
Marvel Zombies #1–5
X-23 #1–6

iVerse: (37 issues, $1.99 each)

Age of Apocalypse #1–6
Amazing Spider-Man #519–524
Astonishing X-Men #1–12
Captain America #1–6 (Brubaker, Epting)
Invincible Iron Man #1–6
X-23 #1–6

Panelfly (84 issues, $0.99 each)

Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #1-25 (Lee, Ditko)
Amazing Spider-Man #519-524
Astonishing X-Men #1-24
Invincible Iron Man #1-16
X-23 #1-6
Age Of Apocalypse #1-6

Obviously there is some overlap, but also exclusives for each.

Most interesting, if the email we’ve gotten since the announcement is any indication, is the pricing: Comixology and iVerse have priced comics at $1.99, a dollar more than their usual offerings. Panelfly is sticking with 99 cents.

Kinda speaks for itself.The old order changeth,

Josh Cotter’s insane, experimental, fantastic Driven By Lemons was one of the hits of SPX — a sketchbook journal of art that somehow coheres into a narrative. As print as they come, right? But, believe it or don’t, Comixology has a free preview available for iPhone. CHECK IT OUT. Mind-boggling.

Marvel and AniBoom, the online social network for animation, is launching a motion comics contest with a first prize of $10,000.

Marvel is teaming up with Aniboom to give you the chance to transform some of their greatest stories into Motion Comics and propel the comic book experience into uncharted territory! Take the pages of fan-favorites Hulk vs. Wolverine and Nova and bring them to life, combining the images, audio, and scripts provided by Marvel plus your own imagination and artistic expertise. For the past 70 years, Marvel has been the hallmark for innovation and risk-taking in the comic book industry, providing some of the most famous characters in the history of comic book publishing. Now it’s time for you to join Marvel and Aniboom in changing the way we experience comics by bringing them to life!

Johanna Draper Calrson has a more cynical view:

There are also one or two wildcard finalists, picked by the judges, “who independently complete their original submission.” So even if you don’t win any money, you can still work for Marvel for free! Isn’t that great? In that way, it’s typical of these contests — the company gets a lot for not very much money (in their eyes), one or a handful of lucky fans get a token payment in exchange for losing all rights, and most of the entrants just gave away their work for nothing. But so long as you know what you’re getting into… I’m told digital sharecropping is the way things work online now. And really, what are most people going to do with a partially completed Marvel motion comic anyway?

Marvel launched its first all-original downloadable motion comic on iTunes yesterday, and according to the press release you are about to read, it was a hit, debuting at #1 on the Television-Animation chart and #2 on the Top Television Episodes chart. Created by Brian Bendis and Alex Maleev, the project certainly has the creative pedigree to be competitive. Could this be yet another venue for the Marvel empire to expand?

Official PR below:

Marvel is pleased to announce that the first episode of Spider-Woman Motion Comic has conquered iTunes, debuting as the #1 episode on the Television-Animation sales chart and as the #2 episode on the Top Television Episodes sales chart. The New York Times Best-Selling team of Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev (Halo Uprising) present Marvel’s first ever original motion comic as Spider-Woman embarks on a new mission that’ll change the Marvel Universe forever! With national coverage from MTV to the LA Times, everyone’s talking about the first episode of the Spider-Woman Motion Comic, available now on iTunes!

“To wake up this morning and see Spider-Woman ranked so high on the iTunes charts is crazy insane to me,” gushed Brian Michael Bendis. “Thanks to all the readers, and especially the motion comics first timers, who tried us out and than hit the subscribe button. To quote the Stan: you ain’t seen nothing yet!”

“I’m thrilled to see fans responding so enthusiastically to Marvel’s first motion comic,” said Alex Maleev. “Thanks to all the fans who’ve purchased Spider-Woman and I can’t wait till you see what’s next!”

John Dokes, Vice President, Sales and Marketing- Digital Media said, “Everyone at Marvel is proud of the Spider-Woman motion comic and this superb launch has exceeded all our expectations. Brian and Alex, have re-energized the geek in me—you have to see this for yourself!”

Fans can purchase the first episode of Spider-Woman on iTunes here now! For more information on motion comics please visit Marvel.com

at www.marvel.com/motioncomics

LongBox Digital - Pre-Beta Screencast from Rantz Hoseley on Vimeo.

The NY Times has a piece by Miki Tanikawa on manga’s shift to mobile phone distribution in Japan, and we expect that just about every word of this article will strike as a hammer blow to US publishers. Most of the move is in women’s comics, and the customers are women:

“It brought back memories,” she said, adding that she had once owned the whole series, which she kept in her room. “I sold all of them because they were crowding the space. But for just a few clicks on my mobile, I was able to read them all again.”

and

But perhaps the most crucial driver behind the cellphone comic boom is its attractiveness to women. You can tell just by looking at the best-selling titles on mobile comic sites — all involve romance. “It’s a bit hard commenting publicly on this, but the most popular comics on the mobile are adult-oriented ones for women,” including love stories with sexually explicit content, Mr. Nakabayashi said. Translation: Women who do not want to be seen reading these titles in public places like the train helped create the market for manga on the cellphone, which accords them privacy in ways that magazines and books do not.

AND

If the migration is slow, it is the publishers themselves standing in its way, critics say. Publishers of leading titles like Kodansha, Shueisha and Shogakukan — who are also leading book publishers — have in most cases released content for mobile use that had already been published in magazines and books.

and

So while the explosion in cellphone manga is not a simple story of migration from print to digital, most experts agree that the future of manga lies more on the mobile than on paper.

You need to read the whole thing, but those are the talking points. Now, this could be a evolutionary offshoot that isn’t applicable in the US — there aren’t many US comics for women, after all — but most trends from Japan eventually find some US expression.

Ignore this article at your peril.

Just in time for Comic-Con!

Today at Comic-Con International, Iconology Inc. announced the launch of its Comics by comiXology App on the App Store. The Comics by comiXology App is a digital comic store, library and reader for iPhone and iPod touch that is launching with over 100 titles available from twenty popular comic publishers and many independent comic writers.“The stunning display and innovative multi-touch user interface of iPhone and iPod touch have finally made comics appealing in a digital format,” said David Steinberger, CEO of Iconology, Inc. “By combining great comics with iPhone OS 3.0’s In-App Purchasing and location awareness features we are creating a revolution in the way comics are sold and read which could only happen with iPhone and iPod touch.”

(more…)

OKAY, one more…seems to be the topic of the day! Comics creator/journalist/digital guy Van Jensen has his own thoughts on Longbox. Jensen helped set up Top Shelf’s Kindle initiative so he knows the territory:
I’ve become quite involved with the digital distribution of comics in the past year, helping Top Shelf launch some of its books on the Amazon Kindle, sifting through the various iPhone third-party distributors and then moderating a panel on digital distribution at Heroes Con this past weekend.

This seems like a good point to look into the possible impacts on mainstream publishers of digital publishing, particularly as Rantz Hoseley’s Longbox project launches (read a very good summary of the project at iFanboy).

Ron Richards at iFanboy takes the most in-depth look yet at Longbox, new software that could become the iTunes for comics. Richards is enthusiastic overall but also points out potential pitfalls, such as getting content from the Big Four publishers. And of course, there is the brick and mortar element:

Now the emergence of a digital comics distribution system is surely to be seen as a threat to Diamond (the main distributor of comics) and local comic book stores. I don’t really have anything to say on that other than that they’re going to need to change or die. I don’t want to be in a world where the local comic store doesn’t exist, and I don’t think that will happen, but the direct market has been a problem (mainly due to Diamond) for years now and the future is inevitable. They’re going to have to evolve their business if they want to survive, it’s just that simple and could be a whole other article so I’ll stop for now.

See also the lengthy comments section, which seems to view the idea of downloadable comics quite positively.

This iPhone thing is really catching on. Today’s press release involves a free app for checking out the Eisner Award nominees. We totally just downloaded this app and it features excerpts from all the nominees…some of the art could be a little bigger but it’s a decent enough primer to learn about things you might not otherwise see. And did we mention it’s FREE?

Digital entertainment provider Uclick has announced the release of a new Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards app for iPhone and iPod Touch. The app celebrates the comics industry’s most prestigious awards by providing details on Will Eisner and the Eisner Awards, as well as the entire list of award categories in a tap-and-swipe menu, with information on each creator and title, and images from their nominated works.

“We are honored to work with the Eisner organization to bring the first ever Eisner app to the iPhone,” said Uclick CEO Douglas Edwards. “This app is an excellent way for fans and industry professionals to navigate the entire list of Eisner-nominated creators and works. It’s an interactive showcase that allows readers to familiarize themselves with the nominees for the industry’s most distinguished award.”

The Eisner Awards app is available now for free in the App Store and on iTunes.

The app will update with icons indicating the winners in each category shortly after the voting results are announced on Friday, July 24.

“There is a great deal of anticipation and excitement within the industry leading up to the announcement of the Eisner winners,” said Edwards, “and this app gives everyone the chance to be engaged and informed. The popularity of the iPhone allows us to bring even more attention to the comic industry and the awards that celebrate some of the very best work in comics.”

(more…)

Another highlight of the weekend was the public unveiling of Longbox at Heroes Con. What is Lngbox? The short version is iTunes for comic books. CBR has details.

Rantz Hoseley, the editor behind Image’s “Comic Book Tattoo” anthology of comics inspired by Tori Amos, introduced his latest endeavor at Heroes Con this weekend. Longbox, a digital comics platform similar to iTunes, is expected to launch later this year as a free download for Mac, PC, and Linux. Developed by Quicksilver Software, Longbox comics can be download for a suggested price point of $.99 per issue, with the potential for block and subscription pricing. The first two publishers confirmed for Longbox are Top Cow and BOOM! Studios. CBR News caught up with Hoseley to discuss the details of Longbox and its potential impact.

We also find this quote quite interesting:
Hoseley believes the very existence of digital comics from major publishers represents a sea change from the perception of online content that existed when Longbox was in its planning stage. “Three years ago, when we started doing development, publishers were very, very resistant to it. The majority of publishers wouldn’t even discuss the possibility of it: digital comics are the devil come to steal the milk from our children’s mouths,” he recalled. “The difference is that now, every publisher realizes, especially with the increasing cost of monthlies and the declining sales of monthlies, that there has to be a way to expand the market. With every other form of entertainment embracing digital distribution and sales medium, it is very foolhardy to not do likewise.”
Lots more on this later.

Apple has chosen IDW’s Transformers comic as a top app for the day. A check of the iTunes store’s book ranking shows that Transformers-related material is doing quite well.

This is not a fad.

A few quick notes on notables things:

§ BOOM! has announced that its line of kids comics will be carried at Disney’s Soda Fountain Studio Store on Hollywood Blvd. BOOM!’s kids line includes books based on the Muppets and Pixar properties. We can’t attest to what the intervening 10 years have meant, but back when we worked at Disney, getting into Disney Stores with comics was always a big deal, so this is a nice way to get comics in front of an audience that has children and some spending money.

§ Brandon Graham’s KING CITY is one of the Tokyopop original GNs that was left unfinished in the downsizing of their OEL/OGM/whatever you want to call it program. However, it is coming back:

The deal is set. Tokyopop and Image comics are putting out my KING CITY book
in twelve 32 page chunks starting on August 19th
It’s going to be printed wider than standard comics size. BIG!
Golden age size. Ivan Brandon’s Viking book just came out the same size I think.

So Image will put out a once manga sized book as a periodical comic and then collect the whole thing again? That’s pretty progressive. While the details of the workings of the deal aren’t known, internet hopes that Becky Cloonan’s EAST COAST RISING will also go this route are high.

§ This is kind of a catchall, but Robot 6 has an excellent list of links to all kinds of e-publishing news. One of them concerns comics selling well on iTunes, and we just happened to make this snapshot tonight of iTunes best selling “Book” apps which includes comics:

Of course we have no idea of what the actual sales numbers on these are, but Twilight and the Bible are very popular in general, so you can see comics are holding their own. STAR TREK: COUNTDOWN’s popularity has been previously noted, but the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are also in there. So…this thing is happening.

Is taller than it is wide a dead end?

The default shape of print is not taller than wide. It’s wider than tall just like all the rest, because the default shape of print is two pages side-by-side. And the reason is the same reason as the shape of TV and cinema and theater and surfing and all the rest: because we have two eyes next to each other, not one on top of the other.

I don’t even have a Kindle yet, so this isn’t meant as a specific critique of the device. And I’m sure its engineers had solid practical reasons to design the device the way they did. You can even turn it sideways when needed. It just reminded me when I went to Amazon this morning and saw images of the latest, how design principles in the wild can always be adjusted on the fly, but as soon as they’re embedded in hardware, they tend to stick around. For decades in some cases.

BUT…see furious rebuttals in comments.

Amazon ’s new expensive Kindle DX is coming:

Amazon introduced the third edition of its Kindle this morning, a version that, in addition to offering trade books, will now display textbooks, computer books and cookbooks on a 9.7 inch electronic display screen that includes 16 shades of grade—the same gray-scale as the Kindle 2. Magazines and newspapers, already available on the Kindle, will increase their presence on the new device. Price for Kindle DX is $489 and Amazon will start shipping the device in the summer.

This picture, from Amazon’s website, strongly implies that the Kindle might be more comics friendly — and that’s probably just how Amazon intended it.

Kelson Vibber has more on the Kindle/comics connection.

Three is a trend, right? First, there was yesterday’s story about Dark Horse going to iTunes.

Then, this morning, there was ICv2’s directory of comics published for mobile devices:

One of the fastest growing revenue-producing distribution channels for comics is mobile devices. Sold primarily as iPhone and iPod Touch apps, a wide range of comic issues are now available. This page is an attempt at a comprehensive list of comics available to mobile devices (not including free Webcomics readable on mobile browsers). Most of the titles listed below have multiple issues available; we’ve made no attempt to list individual issues.

And now we’ve joined the fray with this story for PWCW about IDW hiring Jeff Webber as director of e-publishing, and the success they’ve had selling a Star Trek tie-in comic on iTunes:

“We will sell as many iTunes apps [of Countdown] as we will of as the print version,” says Adams. “That’s a lot of apps.” The book—each issue is sold as an individual app—is regularly listed among the top 100 apps on iTunes and the first print issue of Star Trek: Countdown sold about 15,000 copies upon initial release, according to figures at the comics business site ICv2.com.

So…is this the day that “someday” for comics for mobile platforms turns into “today”?

We shall see.

Dark Horse has joined the stampede of publishers who are trying various ways to get their comics distributed onto iPhones and other mobile devices. To do it, they’re launching an app for TERMINATOR: DEATH VALLEY from 1998. You can read the full PR below the fold, but CBR has an interview with DH’s Mike Richardson on the initiative:

The publisher gave no hints as to what Dark Horse comics would follow “Terminator: Death Valley” onto the iPhone, but upcoming titles will be selected by Richardson in coordination with designers, editors, and series artists to determine suitability for the format. “We’re going to be very ambitious,” Richardson said. “We’ve always tried to be the best at everything we do, and this will be no different. It’s one of the reasons we’ve held back up to this point, because we’ve wanted to make sure we can do a great job in presenting the material, and we also wanted to make sure the delivery systems were able to deliver the material in the way that we wanted it ourselves.”

More below.

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Have you heard? People are reading things on mobile phones! But we may not be reading them quite as much as folks do in Japan, as this long, informative article in The Independent on the huge success of keitai — novels written for and read on mobile phones. In Japan, five of last year’s top ten best-selling novels started life as keitai novels.

And who do you think is driving this boom? WHO DO YOU THINK???

Keitai novels are mainly read by teenage girls, with 13- to 18-year-olds accounting for 70 per cent of downloads, and while Izumi gained a doctorate in Victorian literature from Cambridge University, he does not claim to be writing highbrow literature. “There is less scene-setting than in conventional novels, fewer adjectives, and more of a focus on conversation and emotions. The structure of the novels, with very simple sentences, makes them accessible,” he says.

Toru Kenjyu, CEO of Takarajima Wondernet, the biggest creator of mobile manga, says that 80 per cent of comic book downloads – for which subscribers pay a £3 monthly charge to keep up with – are by women.

And it’s not just novels:

Toru Kenjyu, CEO of Takarajima Wondernet, the biggest creator of mobile manga, says that 80 per cent of comic book downloads – for which subscribers pay a £3 monthly charge to keep up with – are by women.

The current best-seller is Catwalk Beat, the story of a boy with a troubled background, but excellent sartorial sense. When he starts a new school, his fashionable threads unite all the pupils. More than seven million people downloaded the mobile manga, and the fashions from Catwalk Beat have been produced for real and are available to buy online. And while this may eventually be published as a traditional comic book, it is more enjoyable on the mobile as the phone vibrates whenever there’s a tense moment.

It’s not just comic art that is popular on mobile phones in Tokyo; street artists also create designs specifically for mobiles. Mao Sakaguchi, web project leader of the Shibuya HP France Gallery, says he grew frustrated by the limited art market in Japan, so had the idea of using mobiles to introduce art to a wider audience. “I had friends who were street artists, and I used my fashion store as an art gallery, changing the work monthly,” he says. “We started by taking pictures of their work that could be downloaded onto mobile phones.”

Since Japan seems to be our trend leader in so many things, it does stand to reason that we’ll be doing the same thing in a few years; however, there are some differences in Japan’s (and the UK’s) mobile phone systems (not to mention society) that may require tweaking. Of course, it’s a given that Japan and Europe are way ahead of the US as far as bandwidth and phone capabilities are concerned, although the iPhone is helping Americans catch up.

Also, the Japanese have a much bigger audience for what they call “light novels” — genre-oriented YA novels which would seem to be a precursor to keitai. Genre-oriented light novels are pretty big in the US too — Twilight — so there could be some inroads there.

In our humble, and farseeing, really wacky out of right field, opinion, someday very, very soon, someone somewhere is going to create something original for the mobile phone in the US that some teen-age girl just won’t be able to live without. We predict it will involve romance and fashion. And that will happen very, very soon. And then everyone will say “We told you so!”

A. David Lewis has made SOME NEW KIND OF SLAUGHTER, a look at mythic floods by the writer and MP Mann, available to download for FREE at the above link. The move is to get more people to read it and nominate it for a Harvey Award, but it’s also just a good comic, so enjoy.

Uclick and Tokyopop are releasing Svetlana Chmakova’s DRAMACON #1 as a free app on the App store. The book was originally released as a trilogy of manga volumes by Tokyopop. The story of adventure and romantic entanglements among manga convention-goers has been one of Tpop’s best selling original manga since it was released.

“We’re making Dramacon 1.1 free because it gives us a chance to show off our panel-by-panel reading format with a very popular book from our lineup,” said Uclick CEO Douglas Edwards. “The Uclick comic apps offer the slickest and most intuitive comics reading experience on the iPhone and iPod Touch, and we offer the widest variety of titles and genres on the Apple devices.

“We want users to have the chance to try the reader for free and experience it for themselves, then check out our library of more than 100 titles and find more great comics.”

TOKYOPOP’s Senior Editor Lillian M. Diaz-Przybyl added, “As leaders in original manga and graphic novel creation, it’s been a real pleasure to work with Uclick, who are clear front-runners in mobile entertainment. Their understanding of the marketplace and of the structure of comics is second-to-none, ensuring that their mobile versions are perfectly constructed and paced, retaining the experience of reading the original graphic novel.”

The Dramacon Volume 1, Part 1 app is the first free application from Uclick and TOKYOPOP. Most of the Uclick comic apps are available for $0.99 (US) cents. Other popular comic app titles from Uclick include Bone, Ghostbusters, Pibgorn, GODLAND, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Garfield Minus Garfield.

At Gearlog, Brian Heater demonstrates the dangerous, growing threat of the Kindle, as he easily uses the “import .pdf” function to load WATCHMEN, X-MEN, and even Jimmy Corrigan into the device.

Something must be done…and fast!!!

But speaking of free sampling, Rick Veitch reports that a new edition of his seminal BRAT PACK is coming out very soon, and the first 32 pages are available for download right now:

Some good news: even though most comics are looking at a 20% price increase, KING HELL has held the line. This edition of BRAT PACK, even with the nice paper and top-notch printing I’ve lined up, will cost the same as the last edition: 176 pages for $19.95. Some other good news: you can get a FREE 7.2 MEG PDF DOWNLOAD of the first 32 page chapter right here. Pass the word to anyone you know who might enjoy my distinctive brand of superhero horror!

The download is available here, and we urge you to take a gander, or, to quote ourselves:

For those not familiar with it, BRAT PACK completes the troika of immortal works dissecting the superhero genre, with the other two being DARK KNIGHT and WATCHMEN. Indeed, for those brave readers looking for a follow-up to WATCHMEN, BRAT PACK could be just the thing. We were flipping through a copy the other day, and it’s just as disturbing and horrific as it ever was.

–a comment we stand by. Those who enjoy the dystopian superheroics of WATCHMEN should move right on to BRAT PACK.

Over the weekend, news broke that the popular LiveJournal community Scans–Daily has been closed down. The community started out as a repository for slash fiction, but has developed into a wide-ranging sampler of all kind of copyrighted comics material — some of it long unavailable, some fresh and new. Although moderators worked to prevent posting complete stories there, those opposed to “pirate posting” sites had a lot to dislike about Scans-Daily.

Brigid Alverson has the most thorough and level-headed round-up of links and so on, including the new home of the site. (Nothing goes away for too long on the Internet.) But there is much more. Writer Peter David had recently found out about the site and was suspected of having “ratted them out”; however, in a message thread that’s up to 500 posts and counting at his blog, he explained he was not responsible. (LJ had shut down the site after Photobucket reported TOS violations.)

We’re not going to get too much into all of this — we posted a few links to S_D here, always to things that were otherwise unavailable, and got shit for it. If you want to wade into the 500+ post thread, go right ahead. The most extreme ends of either side are “stealing is always bad” vs “free sampling is always good” with every shade of gray in-between. Kevin Melrose has more thoughts — as does just about everyone on the internet — while Lisa Fortuner examines the facet that Scans-Daily grew out of female fan interests and what that had to do with its end:

That said, I do think that if Scans_Daily were a male dominated community it would have not been suspended like this. Why? Because I don’t think it would have been on a site like Livejournal. In my experience, that’s where the male-female distinction seems to be. Female fans populate social network sites run by panicky male-dominated corporations who want to make money from selling advertising to women, but don’t really have the brass ovaries to deal with hosting female interaction on the internet. It’s like they expect feathered sugar with a hint of spice and are shocked to discover girls have locker room talk and smoke in the bathroom. Male fan communities seem to be owned and operated by like-minded males, the male-dominated comic company itself, the comic creator who gathers his own fans to his side, or the self-style Pirate King who set up the torrent site specifically for illegal activities and searched around for an ISP that wouldn’t check on him too closely.

Tom Spurgeon makes what seems to be a sensible point:

Creators should have the right to control their works even if the person who wants to usurp that right means no real harm, thinks they know better, actually knows better, supported that creator in the past, or whatever. If you want to support a creator, embrace with seriousness the actions they’ve taken or declined to take when it comes to on-line iterations of their work.

In other words, “Free sampling is for your own good!” isn’t a particularly grown-up response, although it is certainly one that is common in the Internet Era.

More soon, in all probability.