Newsweek has announced that they're going "all digital". Obviously i'm going to use this as an opportunity to talk about Marvel comics.

As i mentioned previously, i'm working my way through Marvel Comics: The Untold Story. More on that in a few days, but when i got to the part where Jim Shooter (with Chuck Rozanski and others) starts accelerating the trend from mass market to comic specialty shops it got me thinking about how the industry today could use a similar paradigm shift. Obviously the answer is "all digital" but the reason i put that in quotes above is because what Newsweek is doing is going with a true web-based approach, albeit with a paywall. Right now the strategy in comics seems to be about allowing the download of digital files.

I think that's a decidedly primitive approach that fails to take advantage of the interactivity and inter-connectivity that the web offers, which coincidentally complements the inter-connectivity of stories that is Marvel's most unique asset. It's kind of like finally converting your VHS tapes to DVDs (without creating menus or chapters) in 2012 where pretty soon you're going to want your movies stored on the cloud anyway. Digital downloads are also vulnerable to privacy. And once you download your file, your interaction with Marvel is done, and you're off to the CBR forums to complain about the issue.

It defies every collector's instinct in my soul, but i really think a better approach is a purely web-based solution (with, obviously, optimization for mobile devices). Spitballing a bit here: it could be a subscription service where you purchase a package that allows you to read X number of issues per month. Instead of buying a subscription to, say, Captain America, Avengers, Amazing Spider-Man, and X-Men, you buy a subscription that says you can read 4 stories a month, and then you can choose to read Cap or Hulk or whatever you want. Kind of like how the New York Times site works ("You have 5 of your remaining 10 articles left"). And for comics that you've read (or maybe it happens by default), you have the option of putting it in your "collection" where you can go back and read it as many times as you want. The subscription prices should be subsidized by ad sales, same as it is for comics today. There's also got to be a discounted option for unlimited access.

And that's the key, because for me the real value-add here is the ability to link to other comics. Every time there's a reference to an older event, link to the relevant comic. With every character that appears, have the ability to click on them and get their past appearances. When i first encountered Ai Apaec, i went to Google, which brought me to Wikipedia, and then a couple of fan sites. Wouldn't Marvel rather i click directly on the character and read Osborn #1?

And let readers sort their comics by chronological timeline (which could be crowd-sourced by subscribers), or publication timeline, or by creator, or character, or series. And every comic should have the ability for users to leave comments (with modern self-regulation features, so that readers can vote down spammers and assholes) and rate the issue.

There is such a passion out there for the Marvel Universe, and this approach would pull all those passionate readers from all the various sites and message boards and bring them all directly to Marvel, where the interactivity would generate so much activity (and page views) that i think the ad revenue would be HUGE, meaning that subscription costs could be very low, or even not necessary (they're on a much smaller scale, obviously, but most web comics are entirely ad & merch supported).

If the model i'm describing sounds somewhat familiar, that's not a coincidence, and clearly any solution i come up with is going to emphasize Marvel's continuity. Not only would it be more important - profitable! - to promote older stories and ensure that current stories gel with them, but the site also becomes a great resource for writers and editors to keep things accurate. But mainly i think it's really a great way for Marvel to recapitalize all of the older works they've generated over the years while shifting away from the dying print industry and drawing in both casual and hardcore fans. People don't read much anymore, and there's a million forms of entertainment competing for their time. But they're on the web all day long. So put your damn comics on the web, and design a site that keeps people clicking around.

And if Marvel needs a software Product Manager with something resembling experience with this sort of thing, i have someone to recommend.