Scribd Pulls Digital Comics From Its Subscription Reading Service (the-digital-reader.com) 32
Popular ebooks platform, Scribd has quietly removed digital comics from its subscription reading service. According to a report on The Digital Reader, the feature was added in February 2015, and may have been pulled as part of a cost-cutting measure. From the article: Scribd confirmed the news in a statement: "We launched comics in 2015, and while we were excited to bring new content to our readers, few actively took advantage of them. We will be focusing our efforts on enhancing the experience surrounding our other great content types including books, audiobooks, magazines, and documents. We alerted comic readers of the news via email in early December. We understand that this news is disappointing to comic readers. This was a difficult decision, and we hope that they'll explore the rest of what Scribd has to offer in the coming months." It's interesting that Scribd says that they informed subscribers, because that is not the impression I get from the complaints on Twitter. Many were surprised when they noticed, and based on the timestamps the comics were apparently pulled on or before 1 December.
I don't know scribd (Score:2)
I don't know scribd but any newspaper without comics is a shame...
This is really gay (Score:1)
Would someone care to post some real news? Some idiot sues Apple because a driver was using iFruit, and now this. Slashdot going the way of the Digg.
Re: (Score:2)
Hey, be happy it's at least tech news and not yet another politics story.
But just one story up we have some slashvertisment for a SoC nobody gives a shit about running an OS even fewer people give a shit about, maybe that's more up your alley.
Scribd will be defunct soon. (Score:1)
I looked at their offerings a while back and found the attitude of their website offensive.
They will never get any money from me, and I suspect I am not alone in this sentiment.
Obligitory "Beware of the Leopard" Joke (Score:2)
"...in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard."
"As a cost-cutting measure..." (Score:5, Insightful)
I heartily recommend avoiding subscription services like the plague.
Re: (Score:2)
I heartily recommend avoiding subscription services like the plague.
Some subscription services offer a sufficient net benefit that I can overlook issues such as disappearing content. I subscribe to Spotify and it's been enormously beneficial for my musical appreciation on various levels. Yes, every two or three months I notice something on my list is no longer there. Sometimes it re-appears again, sometimes not. If I really miss that content, I can always purchase it.
I agree that I wouldn't trust a service-based backup system. Neither do I make serious use of Google's se
Re: (Score:3)
This is the problem with subscription services; the provider can change their mind at a whim as to what they provide, leaving subscribers in the lurch.
This is only a problem if you pay for a long period (e.g. a year) at a time, and they refuse to refund your unused portion if they substantially reduce their relevant offerings.
another one (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
The problem here being that comics are still thought of as being targeted at kids. In came Japan with its Mangas and blew that idea out of the water. And we were sitting there and staring wide eyed as they took over the more profitable market segment of the adolescent and young adult market, a demographic that was able and very willing to spend WAY more money on it than any "serious" adult would spend on "serious" newspapers or magazines, including a long tail of add-on products like figurines. And we're no
Re: (Score:2)
I don't see a big difference. It should take a similar amount of time to draw a page as to write a page worth of words. It takes a few solid months to write a couple hundred page novel, even for pulp authors. A comic book artist should be able to outdo that, but since comic books are shorter even a page a day or less will have the comic book project finished before the novel.
I think what might be the issue is that artists/graphical designers have marketable skills, while authors do not. Their are loads of p
Re: (Score:2)
And this is not even taking into consideration that we live in the digital age, and most pages can have large sections just copied form previous pages. No reason to redraw the background for the same location, no reason to redraw Superhero guy, when you already have a library of him in 500 different poses.
Re: (Score:2)
No reason to redraw the background for the same location, no reason to redraw Superhero guy, when you already have a library of him in 500 different poses.
Up to a point; I guess if you're not careful you could end up with the print equivalent of 70s and 80s Saturday morning kids' cartoons that relied on stock animation that became just a little too visibly familiar.
Scribd (Score:1)
Is there a point to this site, other than commandeering .PDFs and placing them inside a tiny JS browser in the center of your screen (and making any sort of download very difficult or impossible to find)?
Re:Scribd (Score:4, Informative)
It does much more than that, like getting you to sign up for a free trial and then charging you for it.
No comics... (Score:2)
I had the Yuma Sun coming in dead wood only because of the comics. Their digital subscription doesn't include the Sunday Comics or the mass of inserts you normally see on the Sunday paper and I missed them. I recently dropped the digital version when they began charging an additional fee to get both the printed and the digital version. It seemed odd but economically it was cheaper and fit my needs better to just get the dead wood version. I can only surmise that there was an additional licensing fee for the
"Bang!" "Whudddd!" (Score:2)
Shocker! Comics stripped of their visual element are inane. These are not conversion to radio plays, which are often rich in description and dialog.