>>153634148
>So this means comic sales are going to go up right?
You're an idiot
>Now that there's no piracy option anymore
You're retarded

>>153634187
I assumed he was being sarcastic

The thing to realize about piracy is that the people who do it, will generally be content to just NOT HAVE something if they can't get it otherwise.

I've already downloaded all the comics worth reading and there are literally no modern comics worth anything other than wiping your ass with it in a pinch. So I'm good.

>>153634148
>Now that there's no piracy option anymore
you must be 18+ to post here

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YES YES
OH LET ME TASTE YOUR TEARS
MMMM YOUR TEARS ARE SO YUMMY AND SWEET
MMMM THE TEARS OF UNFATHOMABLE SADNESS MMMMM YUMMY YUMMY YOU GUYS
https://x.com/abysmaldogwater/status/2053882483263889616/quotes

>>153634260
Nobody's going to buy your company's shitty comics, intern.

>>153634269
I pirate lol

>>153634148
No piracy option for normies. Those who know the way...

>>153634284
They're already moving onto Batcave and the Russian RCO
inb4 but it doesn't have what the main RCO had
Skill issue

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FIGHT
FIGHT
FIGHT

>>153634291
>Batcave and the Russian RCO
More normie shit. I do think the Russian site will be more resilient. Chances are good its KGB funded. Gotta undermine foreign entertainment.

>>153634148
The site will probably be back up again before this thread 404s

>>153634299
>make a bad comic
>i thought people wanted this

>>153634148
There's a few alternative sites but they don't have as big a collection of comics as RCO.

>>153634306
It's been down for over a day and their Discord is kaput
Some report the site working for them though but it's very few

I have to much shit i need to read
like i wouldn't even be able to read half the shit on a tablet
and what you read on a tablet you don't own

>>153634234
How would you know that if you don’t read anything new?

>>153634327
Why don't you show me something good then?

>>153634148
>it's real

HOW THE FUCK DO I READ COMICS NOW? I ain't paying the jews

>>153634338
>Saying this
>On /co/ of all places
Skill issue

>>153634148
isn't it a DNS level block?

>>153634338
>I'M POOR AND A PHONEPOSTER

>>153634148
Damn that sucks. I've been using this site for a decade.

>>153634319
>like i wouldn't even be able to read half the shit on a tablet
why? just download the .cbz

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Alright alright let's do a census
>Are you an American
>How dependent were you on RCO to read comics
>What comics can honestly say you got into thanks to RCO specifically
>CAN you buy comics to begin with and DO you if possible
>Did RCO got you into comics as a hobby

>>153634148
That's a shame, it was really handy for looking up a single page without needing to find and download a whole comic.

The last thread had a pretty interesting conversation on the nature of comic piracy to gen z (who bother reading) and to second and third world countries.
Anyone want to continue off of that and post your observations?

>>153634210
He wasn't. Lot of retards like that on /co/.

reminder

RCO scrappers/clones:
readallcomics
readcomiconline dot ru
batcave dot biz

Filehost aggregators (fucking archaic):
Getcomic dot org
Win'O thread (search desuarchive)

Download sites:
Libgen
Bunch of dying torrents on public trackers

Collector communities:
DC++ hubs (schizo gatekeeping)
Soulseek (person-to-person trade)

Mostly incomplete porn archives:
sadpanda
lucious dot net

Sources Communities:
Whever 0day rips get sent to these days.
Bunch of obscure scanlator websites

>>153634364
>Are you an American
No I am an Indian sikh plz help me saar

>How dependent were you on RCO to read comics

Alot I was finishing The Marquis inferno

>What comics can honestly say you got into thanks to RCO specifically

Three comics
1. Lobo unbound
2. The marquis
3. Marvel's Alien legion 1984

>CAN you buy comics to begin with and DO you if possible

NO NIGGER I AM INDIAN

>Did RCO got you into comics as a hobby

YES

>>153634334
>Spoonfeed me!

No. Fuck you.

>>153634404
>I have none
That's what I thought, Count Fagula of Hershey Highway Castle.

Now I just feel silly for never getting around reading certain collections they had.

>>153634256
kys cumgarggling faggot
corporations takes down all free stuff

>>153634364
No, I'm not American.

It's the first place I go to check if I want to find a specific comic.

If it's not there, then I'll either go check on Desuarchive or the book piracy sites.

I don't read as much as I should, but when I do, I think I can thank them for helping me read some parts of "I Hate Fairyland" and "Luther Strode".

Essentially I can buy them, I have bought a few but they're far more expensive for me then the price of a latte, as most comic readers would describe. It's more like buying a proper book, then again they don't tend to sell floppies where I live.As for online if it wasn't for commissions I don't think I would buy any comics at all.

I will say no. I read comics, but it's not my main medium of enjoyment. I like listening to things while I draw, so I think I'm more into audiobooks and podcasts. I just read a comic or two every month, but I'm not a habitual reader.

>>153634364
>How dependent were you on RCO to read comics
It was what I mainly used but I know other sites

>>153634410
None for you specifically.

>>153634551
I'll shed one Navajo tear over not seeing your loli collection.

You know that episode of Ed, Eddie, n Eddy?
The one where they debuted the school episodes and how the kids sans Edd actually prepared for school so they proceed to raid his house for supplies?
See you guys on Wednesday

>>153634393
Bless this post. I knew of some of these but it helps to know more options. I didn't use rco that much but it was always good to have on hand for a quick look at something.

>>153634393
based

The comic book IP market is a small slice of direct market books that sell on cover speculation and collection, potential licensing deals and glorified spec scripts. The month to month sales are a rounding error for the big 2.

>IP

>>153634291
>some gay website that can be taken down at any moment
>not based p2p networks
ngmi. I do miss 32pages though.

>>153634148
Sometimes it works on phones. I doubt it's a legal crackdown. They've had these types of outages before, the longest lasting like a week or so iirc.

>>153634300
The KGB haven't existed since the 90s.

>>153634393
>Bunch of obscure scanlator websites
What are they, besides kaskus? thelongbox.net has a couple, but they are all on kaskus too.

>>153634364
Yes.
It was one of the easiest sites to use and consistently had most of what I had tried to find. Even if the search system sucked ass if a title has too many commonly used words in its title. There are other sites, but it was nice having options.
I picked up The Creature From The Black Lagoon's comic adaptation from there since I saw it recommended next to something else I was looking for on there. And along with those some of the other Universal Monsters stuff. Marquis Of Anon too to name a few.
Yeah I can buy comics. I've bought a couple and have visited some comic shops I never thought to visit before looking for stuff I had read on RCO.
Sort of. Half and half at least I think. What got me interested first was a monster slaying thread here that had some cool cover art. I used RCO to look up the comic and read it for myself and that got me to check out some more.

>>153634148
RIP

Also fearnopeer from torrents shut down. Is something going on, or just coincidence?

>>153634393
>batcave dot biz
Nice, this seems like a mirror site of rco.

>>153634364
>How dependent were you on RCO to read comics
Only when I had nothing to read and just clicked on Random Comic most times to get a rec. Some of the stuff I read and want to read aren't on RCO most of the time.

>>153634148
Wow, only 2 unique IPs in this thread.

>>153634225
This. Media isn't a necessity. People get over it quickly. Axing piracy only separates people from your product who might otherwise end up paying later.

Storytime threads are dogshit, I don't want to depend on them.

>>153635185
>Waaaaaaah one thread isn't Amazing Digital Cancer!

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>>153634364
>Are you an American
Yes
>How dependent were you on RCO to read comics
Like 4/10
>What comics can honestly say you got into thanks to RCO specifically
The criminal series, reckless
>CAN you buy comics to begin with and DO you if possible
Yes and yes, we got a local place where I really like the owner
>Did RCO got you into comics as a hobby
Yeah, decided to get into it after hearing about the Gambit solo series back in like fucking 19. Really liked the cartoon as a kid, thought I'd finally try the actual source. Even with its flaws, still a fun medium

do comicbros not have multiple pirating sites around like mangabros do?

>>153635254
comics aren't very popular

>>153634364
-Not american.
-Very dependant, 4-8 hours a week.
-A lot. Usually I click when there's a badass cover or a cover with a hot girl. Got into Danger Girls, Kamen America, Iris secretary/executrice, Supreme power, Black cat (2019), new 52, old Jla comics drawn by Ed Bendes etc.
It didn't get me into comics, no.

>>153634148
I stopped using this site years ago because the pop-ups annoyed me. There are plenty of much better sites if you want to sail the high seas.

>>153635254
Yes, there are several.

These are the ones I mostly use:
>https://readallcomics.com/
>https://batcave.biz/

>>153634364
>Are you an American
yep

>How dependent were you on RCO to read comics
Extremely

>What comics can honestly say you got into thanks to RCO specifically
Anything from the Big Two + gargantuan ongoing like Cerebus and Hellblazer. Would not have been able to read either of those had the site not existed.

>CAN you buy comics to begin with
Yes, but it requires visiting an LCS and I’m a tiny, very shy bitch without friends. I’ll do it anyways, but I’m easily spooked and would rather not leave the house.

>and DO you if possible
Nothing published past the year 2000 as a rule, almost never 90s comics. I have half a shortbox’s worth of older issues I really enjoy, but that took hours of skimming through back issues to compile.

>Did RCO got you into comics as a hobby
No, I wouldn’t say so. I’ve loved the medium since I was very small. It did let me get into the Big Two, though, so people actually know what the fuck im talking about when I say “I like comics” now. It also gave me an avenue to find comics that weren’t mostly indie/adaptations, too, which was greatly appreciated.

>>153634364
>Are you an American
Yes
>How dependent were you on RCO to read comics
Never used them, mainly relied on Comic Dump threads
>CAN you buy comics to begin with and DO you if possible
Yes, I go to my Local Comic shop to get my monthly pull list on the first Saturday of the month. Might try to hit them up on Wednesday now that the semester is over.

>>153634364
Yes
Very
Scarlet Spider and Energon universe Transformers
Only via online stores
Only for a couple of months until that book I liked got cancelled in its infancy then I never bought another comic again because I realized it's fucking stupid

>>153634364
>No
>It was my go to for quickly looking at an issue unless I knew I had it downloaded
>Comics in general. I got into comics by reading Dan Slott's 2015 ASM run on RCO
>I don't have an LCS but I sub to Marvel Unlimited for old comics
>Yes

>>153634364
>Are you an American
Yes. Hoosier represent.
>How dependent were you on RCO to read comics
It is/was my primary source.
>What comics can honestly say you got into thanks to RCO specifically
Oh man, long list, and it was because unlike most sites, they have a section for the genre and publisher! Top five from just exploring the through that:
5. Miss Don't Touch Me
4. The Spread
3. American Vampire
2. Harrow County
1. '68
>CAN you buy comics to begin with and DO you if possible
Would if I could. There is no LCS, B&N are mostly manga and capeslop omnibuses, and while I buy my novels there, I don't buy comics at Half-Price Books.
>Did RCO got you into comics as a hobby
No. That was my high school library, and /co/.

>>153635802
All of those are pretty popular and are mentioned a lot in different comic book forums and especially here on fucking /co/.

>>153635865
Guess where I don't browse, bitchcakes: Comic book forums, and I've never seen any of those mentioned on /co/, unless I was the one bringing them up.

>>153635865
>comic book forums
Are there any decent comics forums anymore? Everywhere I know only talks about capeshit, or is reddit or here.

>>153634364
>>Are you an American
No.
>>How dependent were you on RCO to read comics
I fact checked a lot of stuff from there, especially when updating databases. I read some new comics and obscure, never reprinted, comics or scanlations. So, somewhat a lot, I guess.
>>What comics can honestly say you got into thanks to RCO specifically
European stuff.
>>CAN you buy comics to begin with and DO you if possible
Yes.
>>Did RCO got you into comics as a hobby
No.

Huh, i thought it be back online by now. Rip

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>>153634364
>EU
>I use pirate sites to get images quickly because they're faster than the official sites. I use pirate sites to check out low priority comics. If I'm paying for capeshit (5 fucking bucks for this shit nowadays, seriously wtf) I'm not gonna pay for extra capeshit. I won't pay for static because I already pay for Batman. I will pay for non capeshit comics.
>The Walking Dead. Read the entire thing and then went out and bought all the compendiums. I did the same for Saga. Pirated Birds of Prey, bought the omni last year. Got into Batman through piracy. There's too much to read, let alone pay for so some of the non premium stuff I've pirated. This keeps me a fan and makes me buy the real good shit like Dark Patterns. Without piracy, I would've dropped Batman completely a long time ago.
>I can, I do. Physicals are better to read and I don't like floppies so I wait for trades or in some cases, omnis. I bought Ultimate Spider-Man and Ultimates but I read them as they came out because hype was part of the fun. Had I only waited, I probably would've dropped the books since I would've been behind everyone else and that's no fun.
>It did get me into the hobby. It was in fact crucial. Without a safe way to try out comics, I would've never ventured out and learned to read comics.
I think an easy, fast, free reading experience is invaluable if you want to sell an entire universe with almost a century of history behind it. There's no fucking way I'm paying to real all of X-Men and I'm sure as shit not paying for the spin offs. I might pay for the new books but in order to make me care, you gotta get me invested. The free shit makes me care and it is THE reason I would ever consider paying for any of these books.

>>153634364
>No
>Very, Mexico scaled back its releases massively on the last few years. Now we only get the rare compendium of highly-appraised series like Immortal Hulk or Ultimate Spider-Man, and Walmart and retail stopped stocking the comics just to replace them with manga
>Crossed, Invincible Universe, Beneath the Trees where Nobody Sees, many other works from Image and Dynamite
>I can only buy some compendiums, otherwise it's paying for random assholes in ebay
>No, I got into it back when comics were all the rage in Mexico, about 20 years ago. They started when Civil War was new and you could find Hulk, Daredevil, Iron Man floppies on retail stands. I still have a pretty big collection from back then.

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The virgin reading comics on RCO vs The chad reading comics on /co/

>>153634148
watching media giants go through another wave of "sales are down because of piracy" is so fucking retarded. just like with gaming piracy, 75% of people would have never bought it anyways, 25% will likely buy it or merch related to it in the long run if they like it. i would have never read series i came to like if not for this site in particular desu

>>153635019
nah they're out for blood. We also just lost motherless and animekai. I wonder if all these sites used similar databases because it's very much a coincidence that a bunch of these sites are all dropping like flies

>>153634314
this

8k views is pathetic kek

>>153634364
>Are you an American
No
>How dependent were you on RCO to read comics
Not dependent, but it was my preferred way of reading comics because I use a 12-year-old laptop as my primary device with limited HDD space, so constantly downloading CBZs/CBRs and deleting them is just a PITA.
>What comics can honestly say you got into thanks to RCO specifically
Superman.
>CAN you buy comics to begin with and DO you if possible
Yes and yes.I read online, then buy trades or variant covers.
>Did RCO got you into comics as a hobby
No. And I've been coming here on/off since 2007. I used to use Win-O threads regularly.

>>153636590
Maybe. There are probably fewer and fewer webhosts that host/store anything that could put them at risk of litigation these days. But I saw on social media that that motherless (didn't realise that you could mention the site these days after its reputation in the 00s and 10s) was shutdown following a CNN investigation into people discussing how to rape openly in the comments. Animekai has been a part of manwha crackdowns from my understanding.

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>>153634364
>Are you an American
Yes.
>How dependent were you on RCO to read comics
I guess a lot technically, but I barely read comics these days.
>What comics can honestly say you got into thanks to RCO specifically
None, pretty much all the comics I got into I got into because of /co/, and none of them are superhero comics.
>CAN you buy comics to begin with and DO you if possible
I am currently getting paid ~$36/hr to shitpost here as I work from home, so yes, I COULD buy comics, but again, I don't really buy many. I've been thinking of buying all the MM&O comics since I love that series and Hanselmann is great, but other than that, ehh.
>Did RCO got you into comics as a hobby
No.

>>153634364
>>Are you an American
Yes.
>>How dependent were you on RCO to read comics
I've read a ton of comics there since it's easier to get into and possibly drop a series by reading it on the web instead of downloading hundreds of megabytes for a complete collection I may not even like
>>What comics can honestly say you got into thanks to RCO specifically
Superman's Girl Friend Lois Lane, Bat Lash, Enemy Ace.
>>CAN you buy comics to begin with and DO you if possible
Yes, I've bought so many comics over the years that I no longer do so unless I absolutely like them enough to want to own.
>>Did RCO got you into comics as a hobby
No.

>>153634364
>Are you an American
No.
>How dependent were you on RCO to read comics
Very, I mainly read older, out of print stuff from dead publishers and for certain Big Two characters I've been trying to read from Vol. 1 #1, which would cost an insane amount of money otherwise.
>What comics can honestly say you got into thanks to RCO specifically
A bunch of 80s publisher output - stuff from First, Eclipse and Pacific, some of Malibu's B&W era stuff... just a lot of old 70s and 80s comics.
>CAN you buy comics to begin with and DO you if possible
If I like a particular book I try to collect it, and I have a weekly pull list, although it's pretty small. Pretty much everything that grabs my interest caps out at 6 issues, so the only consistent book on my pull list is 2000 AD.
>Did RCO got you into comics as a hobby
No, but it's definitely a huge help.

>>153636590
Yes, it is a coincidence, dumbass. Motherless is down because of all the stuff in the news about rape tips, Animekai is down because the datacentre hosting them burned down and the dev cba to continue. Not everything is a conspiracy.

>>153634364
>Are you an American
Commiefornian, to be precise
>How dependent were you on RCO to read comics
Not too much, I bounced between it and other sites
>What comics can honestly say you got into thanks to RCO specifically
I used it to read the old Spider-Man comics, and other big name events that anons liked, such as All Star Super-Man and Batman: Year One, famous indies, etc. As for non-RCO sites, I've really been getting into the old EU Star Wars comics.
>CAN you buy comics to begin with and DO you if possible
I have bought some, don't go out of my way to do so, but when I recognize a run/story that was well received in a comic book/nerd store I've been willing to pay for it.
>Did RCO got you into comics as a hobby
I guess it did, made it really convenient to actually sit down and read things from the beginning without paying through the nose.
>>153634393
Cheers mate

>>153634364
>Are you an American
yes
>How dependent were you on RCO to read comics
pretty much the only site i used to read comics in between whenever i burnt out on manga
>What comics can honestly say you got into thanks to RCO specifically
the entire punisher MAX series, The Strange Talent of Luther Strode, I Hate Fairyland, Bodybags, irredeemable, SPAWN, superior spiderman, the old swamp thing comic, and pre hal jordan specter off the top of my head.
>CAN you buy comics to begin with and DO you if possible
not really considering i have nowhere to really keep them
>Did RCO got you into comics as a hobby
id listen to youtube videos about comics but its almost the sole reason why i got into actually reading them myself on my way out of high school 8 years ago

>>153634364
>Are you an American
I mean yeah, south American
>How dependent were you on RCO to read comics
A lot, there's no comic shops where I live, only in the capital
>What comics can honestly say you got into thanks to RCO specifically
I started using RCO way back when I was in highschool to read ultimate Spider-Man, then I started reading stories from Batman and Conan the barbarian became my favorite comic character after I gave it a try, I read "el Eternauta" as well, Sonic IDW was also great (tho I left it unfinished)
>CAN you buy comics to begin with and DO you if possible
As I said there's no comic shops where I live only on the capital, I did bought a conan the barbarian collection volume that was in sale but they usually are super expensive plus shipping, and they usually sell manga stuff because that's what people are more interested in
>Did RCO got you into comics as a hobby
Yes, and it was a huge help for art references since I like to draw

I will say that it had quite a few rare comics on there that are now basically lost media
>>153634364
Nope
I dipped in every now and then, mostly to check if a specific issue had a character (basically >>153634369)
Nothing springs to mind
Nah, I'm poor af
Nope

>>153634393
Nope. Piracy is fucking dead...

>>153636970
For normies, perhaps

>>153636969
>now basically lost media
Skill issue

>>153634369
>>153636969
Yeah, it was very handy for finding individual pages and being able to scan multiple chapters for it.

>>153634148
Why are marvel comics so shit now?

>>153634364
>Yes
>I only read via /co/ or RCO
>00s Weapon X, X-Men Legacy (Legion), all The Black Order minis, OG Men In Black, all of Corben's stuff, Lone Star Press' Pantheon, 90s Chronos, 90s Manhunter, Morrison's X-Men, nu52 Voodoo
>Yes, no
>No

>Every retard goes online calling attention to the site
>It gets shut down
I miss when people knew how to keep their yap shut.

>>153634225
Not to mention that there's so much other media out there. The guy who never buys comics can go read manga for a while, or watching endless shit on netflix or tubi. They can even just go to a book store or the library and read comics for free for years and never run out of stuff.

>>153634299
>despite all my advocacy
>1.5k followers on xitter and youtube
Sounds like this faggot thinks he's more important than he actually is.

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This cope is delicious
This argument falls apart when you realize how little comics need to sell in order to be profitable/above cancellation
You either get it or you don't
Piracy doesn't change shit
A book like Absolute Batman would still be above cancellation with or without piracy

>>153637041
To be fair, weebs did the same thing to madokami or whatever. The funniest was thetrove tweeting about all their pirated RPG pdfs KWAB.

>>153634148
Zack's opinion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDOSLbNni0k

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>>153637041
>Every retard goes online calling attention to the site
Nigga, they literally called themselves READ COMICS ONLINE
It was always the top result when searching for free comics

>>153637145
Zack lost his goddamn mind and most of his videos these days are just him obsessing over Eric July

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>>153637164
Nigga, that's the point. You don't fucking google shit you want to stay private.

>>153637185
They wanted that ad money which is why they put that damn banner/watermark all over random pages.

>>153637171
Ed Piskor's death really broke him.

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>So this means comic sales are going to go up right?
Floppies are fucking SHIT
The pricing of singular issues (even digitally) are fucking SHIT
The pricing of trades are fucking SHIT
The pricing of omnibuses and other collections are fucking SHIT
Publishers need to be doing more cheaper compact releases, and for stuff that's not just capeshit

>>153637077
If not for piracy and word of mouth, Absolute Batman would not have taken off the way it did.

I hope this means co storytimes regularly like back in the day. Legit the best threads for discussion

>>153637250
Snyder and Batman always sells. Piracy wasn't making a difference either way.

>>153637273
Batman does not always sell as well as Absolute Bats continues to sell. It completely broke containment.

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>>153634364
>Yes.
>It was convenient, and even though I can still use other sites and download .cbz, there's a lot of obscure shit that'll probably be lost forever.
>Barbarella, Butterscotch and other Manara stuff, Danzig's Verotika, Eightball, Necron, Ranxerox, Tank Girl, The Crow, Zap Comix, plus a bunch of Big Two, Image, and Dark Horse shit I wouldn't have read otherwise.
>I don't have much money right now, and I have to drive at least 20 miles to find a place that sells comic books near me. I developed a huge ~900-issue collection throughout high school, plus I got a bunch of TPBs, but those are mostly in a different state and there's plenty of other shit I want to read that I can't buy anywhere.
>RCO definitely helped me a lot, yeah. Reading Mahvel and DC shit at bookstores makes you excited for secondary media, but diving into indie comics online makes you appreciate the medium and what it has to offer.
Thank you for reading my blog.

>>153634299
8k clicks globally is not a good measure.

>>153637250
>>153637287
It's fucking Batman
To be above a 15 to 20k cancellation line isn't hard to achieve for fucking Batman
The point isn't that Absolute Batman benefitted from piracy or not
The point is that if it NEEDED it

>>153634148
No the indians that are too stupid to learn how to pirate and relied on readcomiconline won't be making any purchases.

>>153637287
His New 52 run never went below triple digits. It's not like Absolute was some big secret, DC was heavily promoting it, showing off preview pages.

>>153634364
American.
Used it.
Read the IDW Sonic stuff to see it for myself. Bought physicals when otherwise I wouldn't.

>>153634364
>American
>Outside of storytimes, relatively dependent, especially if I hadn't caught up on a run or forgot the details of a previous story
>Wouldn't have read any of the Absolute line, or Mortal Thor without RCO
>I have a pull box at my LCS and already spend about $50+ a month on floppies, I also buy trades from time to time
>No, I already had the hobby growing up, but stuff like RCO kept me into it and encouraged me to finally open up my pull box to support creators and storylines I like

>>153634148
Yep, that was EXACTLY what the big publishers needed to do to make all their sales jump up 5x!

>>153634260
All the spanish is telling.

>>153637327
Marvel and DC are hands off with piracy sites (though that could just misinfo spread by pro-piracy people but we have confirmation interns at the very least have used the site for promos) so if it got taken down, it was either from someone else (Koreans if they started hosting that shit there) or from an entirely unrelated incident

>>153637353
The entire modern comic and cartoon "audience" seems to be mostly made up of gay latinxes.
They're the ones picking fights on twatter and bitching about their gay ship not being canon.
I'm sure even a lot of the Americans that still care about comics and cartoons are latinxes.

>>153634364
>Are you an American
yup
>How dependent were you on RCO to read comics
Not particularly since there are other options but it's one of the more accessible ones with the biggest library
>What comics can honestly say you got into thanks to RCO specifically
Can't think off the top of my head but there are a fair bit of titles I've enjoyed that I only read because they were featured on the front page or I checked out the author's other work on that site if I particularly enjoyed a book by them
>CAN you buy comics to begin with and DO you if possible
I can I suppose but I'm not exactly swimming in money and I only tend to buy completed volumes for the shelf, I would never buy a floppy.
>Did RCO got you into comics as a hobby
No but I have used it to read way more comics than I would have otherwise. Last time I checked I had long passed a thousand titles.

>>153637304
>>153637310
yes, and Absolute Bats is selling far better than average because people who don't normally buy or read comics heard about how ridiculous it was through social media word of mouth. I'm not saying Batman typically sells poorly.

>>153634364
That's not even the site I use for the new stuff each week.

That was the site I used to go look up every single old comic I was ever curious about from the 40s to 80s. Including harder to find shit like obscure characters or old disney stuff that never really came out in the US. It was a great, easy to use archive for old comics.

>>153637360
A number of the people who work for those companies may not care but some do. Way back in the late 00s "no one" at Marvel cared about the existence of the Scans Daily community until Peter David brought it up with someone who did https://peterdavid.net/2016/02/24/scans_daily-again/

>>153637227
Yeah, he just seems really pissed off in a way that goes beyond angry internet man.

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>>153637441
That's not the fucking point
Regardless if piracy was a thing or not that benefitted Absolute Batman, Absolute Batman would STILL be above cancellation line
Absolute Batman's longevity as a series isn't credible to people pirating it and spreading it through word of mouth because Absolute Batman never needed said word of mouth from pirates to keep going to begin with

>>153634393
getting a bad gateway from readallcomics and the search function of .ru is horrendous

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>>153637441
Think of it like this
Gaijin pirate a lot of manga
Gaijin buy a lot of manga
Gaijin have zero effect on a manga being cancelled or not
You think they gave a shit about our opinion?
There are manga westerners liked more than the Japanese that died immediately and there are manga that have lasted decades in Japan that Westerners have hardly discussed

>>153637441
Nah, the actual truth is that foreigners have 0 real impact on the market in a country.
No, a million Hispanics pirating something are not advertising to people who don't even speak their language.
Much like how Americans talking about pirated manga on English twatter or bitching about their preferred ships has 0 impact on how successful a manga is in Japan, Hispanics talking about pirated comics on Spanish twatter or bitching about their preferred ships has 0 impact on how successful a comic is in America.

I was reading JLI Annuals ;_;

>>153636970
comics are no doing too hot ye, notice how there's no real definite answer, its all a getcomics -> rco pipeline and getcomics requires a bunch of autismos rehosting shit 24/7

How would a storytime general do? Like just random anons taking turns to dump comics they grabbed off RCO as fancy struck them?

>>153637916
I would prefer people dump comics they got from the original source, and not RCO's extra-compressed watermarked shit.

>>153637916
Storytimers who rely on RCO are idiots or just ignorant

>>153637603
It's a case by case basis
Kim Possible got an additional season thanks to Germany
Big O season 2 from Americans
Neverhood got a spin off in Japan
Metroid is more popular in the West
It's when the product is STRICTLY for a domestic audience and is funded STRICTLY by them is when foreign opinion and money becomes worthless

>>153637931
>>153637937
so let's see you guys storytime some original uncompressed stuff then

>>153637959
All of those are instances of things being directly funded by those foreign markets except I think the Kim Possible one.
Big O S2 was directly funded by Adult Swim, the Neverhood spinoff was made by a Japanese company, and pretty much all of the modern Metroid games are made by western devs.

>>153634393
>DC++ hubs (schizo gatekeeping)
I remember being invited to a few of these from 2003, surprised that shit is still around

>>153637603
It really varies. Breaking into other major foreign markets can breathe new life into a series and get it to continue long after it would have been cancelled. Some stuff is made with only domestic audiences in mind and they tend not to care about any reach beyond that. Most companies in the entertainment industry don't care about developing economies that much because the people there just don't have the money to spend on buying things like multiple comic books. Plus comic books are quite heavy and expensive to ship in large quantities. Plus throw in import taxes and whatnot for being a foreign company and the costs end up just being high enough to make them not care as much. For example there was an economic study for India that showed out of it's population of over a billion, at least a billion of them earned so little that they couldn't be consumers of anything other than the basic necessities. However, piracy does generate word of mouth and helps start fan communities which is massive for promoting a series in ways that you could never do with advertising

>>153634364
In order:
>yes
>none
>n/a
>yes but only trade paperbacks
>no, I'm older than that

Piracy should be punishable with death by public torture.

>>153637484
No, THAT'S not the fucking point, you retard. It was never said that it would have been cancelled or failed otherwise. What is being said is that piracy created hype and led to increased sales. Absolute comics sold far better sales and needs for constant reprints and rushing to get the first trades out.

Without piracy, it does fine. With piracy, it shattered expectations.

>>153638153
>However, piracy does generate word of mouth and helps start fan communities
Fan communities are worthless if they're made up almost exclusively of third world pirates.
We're seeing this same issue now hit Korean webmanhwa where Naver and Kakao are starting to wind down all of their western expansion and English translation efforts because it turns out that most of the audience that was talking about their webtoons was not actually paying to read them.
Hell, we also saw that with the anime studios contracted to work on adaptations of those webtoons, A1 Pictures had a net loss of something like $2 million the year they put out the Solo Leveling anime, because they didn't actually make money on it.
At the end of the day, social media buzz from poor third worlders does not guarantee sales, and in the current era where everyone is poorer than they've been in decades, social media buzz is mostly just noise.

>>153637984
I don't do storytimes. If I had to buy shit so should everyone else.

>>153638224
These are the lies pirates tell themselves to justify their theft.

>>153637931
>>153637937
>being snobs about source images
And you fags wonder why there are less storytimes.

>>153638235
Faggot.

>>153638224
>What is being said is that piracy created hype and led to increased sales
That's not how this conversation began you idiot
The original claim from that Xitter moron was that comics as an industry NEEDED piracy

>>153638227
webtoons has never been profitable as a site. How they try to force every user into using the app and registering turns a surprising amount of people away, also mahwa tends to be pretty same-y. There's a huge thread on /a/ all about it. The goal shouldn't be to punish pirates, it should be to convert them into customers. There's a really cool interview about CD projekt Red going from some guys selling bootlegs behind the iron curtain into becoming a legit company. I think this is it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNZkTk5gLuo plus how many things that you are into now did you get into because someone recommended it to you and possibly lent you a copy to read or watch? That's in a ways a lot like piracy

>>153637931
>extra-compressed
>water-marked
It's not 2009, grampa.
>153637937
Anything for attention, huh?

>>153638265
I'd blame increasingly-worse reply-timers/captchas on the decrease in storytimes. And I'd say you have incredibly low standards if you believe re-compressed images with a site-advertising watermark/banner covering up the art are acceptable. RCO didn't scan or rip the comics, they downloaded those files from somewhere else, same as anyone else can. If you can't do the same, yeah, don't bother.

>>153638335
>plus how many things that you are into now did you get into because someone recommended it to you and possibly lent you a copy to read or watch? That's in a ways a lot like piracy
Right, but I'm not a third worlder.
You seem to think the issue is piracy or lending itself and not the audience.
Piracy among third worlders doesn't really matter one way or the other, because third worlders have no money, so everything they say or do regarding a property is just noise. All we end up with is third world retards on social media making idiots in legacy media think that the audience for stupid shit is way bigger than it actually is, then when the things that were "trying" to appeal to those third worlders fail, everyone is all shocked and surprised that the autistic enby 14 year old Colombian on twatter bitching at an author for not confirming their favorite yuri ship was not actually paying for anything, because they don't have any fucking money.

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>>153638153
>>153638227
The thing with fan communities spreading word of mouth is that it's only meaningful for a comic's (strictly direct market stuff) longevity is if it's for those who
>Are American
>Can buy comics (either through ordering online, digital subscriptions, or much preferably in the eyes of the industry have an LCS)
>Be willing to go to said LCS and set up a pull box
>Arrive every time to pick up the orders
>Not have their LCS shut down or have a back up one just in case
And let's look at Burgerland
>Illiteracy rates going up higher than ever
>We still haven't recovered from the crash
>Speculators infest the market
>Economy going down the toilet

>>153638442
And Amazon ruined digital comics by killing Comixology and forcing everything to be bought through Amazon’s shitty website that was never designed for comics

>>153638227
>We're seeing this same issue now hit Korean webmanhwa where Naver and Kakao are starting to wind down all of their western expansion and English translation efforts because it turns out that most of the audience that was talking about their webtoons was not actually paying to read them.
So Gabe was wrong?

>>153638360
Current comics are already storytimed every Wednesday. All the books they put their shitty stamp on years ago weren't re-uploaded.

>>153638504
Gabe was right, but part of the issue is that webcomics have kind of conditioned readers to expect them for free, while video games have been a premium paid product since the 60s.
No one wants to pay for a webcomic unless they REALLY like the comic and the creator, and when your money is going to [insert soulless corporation here], that makes the webcomic audience a lot less likely to pony up.

>>153634364
>no
>not at all
>none
>yes and yes
>no
Websites are clunky, just give me a zip file

>>153638507
>Current comics are already storytimed every Wednesday.

Just big two are.

>>153638558
I've seen Image books here and there. You're free to post anything you believe should have more attention, you might not get any though.

>>153638549
I would say webcomics and youtube and now we're getting silly amounts of merch from indie projects to try to compensate for it. The paradigm shift in expecting things for free I think complicates it all and we just don't know for sure how to handle it

>>153637916
We already do that
We storytime whatever we want, whenever we have time

>>153634187
FPBP

>>153638227
This is retarded cope
It didn't make money because they are retarded.
You are supposed to ADVERTISE and MERCHANDISE. Direct product sales in media both anime and manga and comics are a fucking nothingburger. IT was ALWAYS the merchandising what made the real money.

>>153638660
>IT was ALWAYS the merchandising what made the real money.
So where's the merchandise for new Image books?
The merchandise for Ultimate X-Men?
How much merchandise did Saga get?

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I hate to contribute to the Twitter-/co/ industrial complex, but I saw a post the other day from one of those boarders on a show I like get on their high horse like, "now you'll have to buy the comic and support the starving artists"
All the comics I read on readcomicsonline, the artists have been dead for 30-40 years. Bob McKimson is either in Heaven or burning in the lake of fire for all eternity, I can't do much for him
Oh well, there's always AnnasArchive

>>153638708
>, "now you'll have to buy the comic and support the starving artists"
lol I saw that

>>153638708
AA has been fucked on and off for like four years, anon.

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>>153638708
>Bob McKimson
Pardon, his brother Tom did the Dell comics
He is also dead, for the record

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>>153638660
Korean manhwa publishers DID advertise, they've paid for multiple adaptations of their stuff, the only one that was able to move the needle was Solo Leveling, because, again, most of the audience was third world (and Chinese) pirates.
Solo Leveling was ACTUALLY popular in first world countries (mainly America) even before it got an adaptation, and it doesn't make shit from merchandising because the characters are one-note and boring as fuck, pretty much all of its sales came from the manhwa itself.
Yes, when it comes to actual sales and survival of a property, having a million third world fans from the slums of Hyperabad is worth less than 5 fans from Boise, Idaho.

>>153638805
And it always comes back
There's only a few pirate sites that can say that

>>153638224
>Absolute comics sold far better sales and needs for constant reprints and rushing to get the first trades out.
RCO was around for over a decade
The benefits from piracy "hype" are rare and in the examples we see a comic have a plausible concrete benefit it's for comics that never needed that hype to begin with

>>153638813
This makes me wonder
Why DOES Japan get so anal about foreigners pirating manga?
Domestically I get it even if it makes them look like subservient pansies but who the fuck gives a shit if the white people are pirating manga?
Anime and tokusatsu I sort of get because most of us prefer sub and even then the latter had an untold but explicit "Don't talk too much" policy with the powers that be until official subs came out recently

>>153638707
>How much merchandise did Saga get?
Saga was never that big, it was a vanity publication meaning the writer had to merchandise and he clearly wasn't into it.

Homestuck, Ava'd Demon even Unsounded and ksbd, and a lot of other webcomics commercialized much better than Image

>The merchandise for Ultimate X-Men?
Why would an IP farm with guaranteed funding need merchandise?

>>153638919
Japs are assuming the people pirating their manga are all Americans, who have a higher standard of living than the Japs themselves do.
In reality, most of the people are aforementioned third worlders, especially the ones going on twatter to brag about their piracy.
First worlders pirate just as much as third worlders, we're just less retarded about bragging about it.
Except zoomers, who are spiritually third world or literally third world in many cases.
Personally, I hate western publishers and localizers, so I make sure to pirate almost everything Japan puts out until they get rid of those people.
Until then, they're not getting a dime from me unless it's something I'm buying directly from Japan, I'm not giving fucking shit to the likes of Crunchyroll.

>>153638813
>they've paid for multiple adaptations of their stuff, the only one that was able to move the needle was Solo Leveling
have you considered the possibility that "teenage romance variation N. 53412" is not exactly marketable and that's a big criticism for manwha

>>153638919
jealousy, because you get real years in jail through an unironic kangaroo court because big media companies have the govt bought out
remember: Nintendo fucking CHANGED THEIR PUBLISHED PATTERNS to get more leeway in a lawsuit. This is all kinds of illegal.

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>>153634314
This is why it puzzles me somewhat when floppies want /co/ to be split. Comics fucking suck right now and are increasingly becoming irrelevant not for any technical reason, but because nothing good is coming out. What are you going to talk about? There may be a couple decades worth of good comics to discuss, but how many of you discuss comics made before, say, 1990?
Granted, cartoons are pretty shit right now but I feel like comics in particular are in a considerably worse shape

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>>153634364
>Are you an American
yes
>How dependent were you on RCO to read comics
not really
>What comics can honestly say you got into thanks to RCO specifically
lady mechanicus
>CAN you buy comics to begin with and DO you if possible
sort of
>Did RCO got you into comics as a hobby
yes

>>153638966
>Why would an IP farm with guaranteed funding need merchandise?
Cause even with a Marvel/DC property that's already long established, sales still matter to keep an ongoing moving
Green Arrow's sales slipping below cancellation got it canned despite it being Condon's better cape work while in contrast Ultimate Wolverine kept being one of the better performing 6160 books despite how badly people hated it

>no piracy option
lol

>>153639010
>have you considered the possibility that "teenage romance variation N. 53412" is not exactly marketable
Doesn't seem to be a problem for manga.
Even in the west, teenage romance manga can still hit the top-seller lists.
But no, it's an audience issue, the issue is that the primary audience for manhwa is third worlders, the westerners who might have been into manhwa are already largely served by manga, but the big issue with manhwa is less the marketability and more how samey everything is. It's like if an entire market was made up of low-quality isekai and you had millions of annoying third worlders buzzing about insisting that "I GOT REINCARNATED AS THE SON OF THE COUNTRY'S RICHEST MAN AND USED MY DARK TRIAD PERSONALITY TO RAPE MY WAY TO THE TOP!" is the absolute peak of fiction.

>>153639010
>have you considered the possibility that "teenage romance variation N. 53412" is not exactly marketable and that's a big criticism for manwha
Not him but I think his point is that there IS an audience but said audience isn't a paying one.
Likewise with cape comics and by the amount of people packing over RCO's death, we can recognize there is a global readership but said readership doesn't buy for reasons ranging in justifiability.

>>153634225
There is other stuff I can spend my time on. I indulge in comics when I can get them for free. It's like that for a lot of media. I wouldn't ever pay to stream music or TV shows or anything, I only listen to music cause it's free, what TV I watch is what I can torrent.

Really looking forward to the day a series on LOCG can get like 30k "pulls" and be cancelled for low sales

>>153639022
>but because nothing good is coming out. What are you going to talk about?
There's a ton of great webcomics that co has never discussed and encouraging culture by NOT SPLITTING BUT ADDING specialized boards and having threads last longer would be a great idea

>>153639049
>sales still matter to keep an ongoing moving
Only to gauge interest.

>>153639074
>Doesn't seem to be a problem for manga.
Mangas are published print run through anthology magazines, and those companies definitely advertise. Jump even negotiates adaptations on the creators' behalf.

On top of that what I said applies to mangas too: There's a bazillion webmangas, specially romance tripe, that nobody reads because they suck or because they had the retarded idea of paywalling it in super obscure jap sites that are counter intuitive to use.

You are putting all publishing mechanisms in the same bag.

>>153639022
>nothing good is coming out.

There are plenty of good comics coming out

>>153638153
You just reminded me that one of the more prominent fan run DC news accounts (for their comics) that even Snyder retweets is located in South Asia

>>153634364
>Yes
>fairly dependent if I feel like impulsively reading something out of the blue, or just looking through various series for the art
>I used it to finish Invincible
>I can, have, and do if there's an omnibus or collection I'd like to physically own (recently bought Beta Ray Bill and New Frontier)
>Not really, I started getting comics from my library when I was a kid

>>153639134
>Mangas are published print run through anthology magazines, and those companies definitely advertise.
First of all, those only advertise in Japan, not in the west.
>On top of that what I said applies to mangas too: There's a bazillion webmangas, specially romance tripe, that nobody reads because they suck or because they had the retarded idea of paywalling it in super obscure jap sites that are counter intuitive to use.
Bro, most manga today is published digitally, they still get physically-published versions in America.
The issue with manhwa is 2-part.
Part 1, the vast majority of them, even the stuff people insist is "good," are fucking dogshit.
Part 2, the vast majority of the people talking about, shilling, or praising them are Chinese and third world pirates, who are reading them for free, and if they could not read them for free they would not only not praise them, they wouldn't talk about them at all.
The point being, foreign markets aren't worth shit, a million autistic teenaged LatAm buzzards doesn't spend as much on comics as even 500 comic readers in the US.

>>153638919
Most Japs are just xenophobic pricks - it's why so many of them are vehemently opposed to allowing official translations of their works in the first place, or permitting scanlations to exist unopposed. The DMCA against MangaDex last Summer purged ~660K individual translated issues, and over ~7K series were purged in their entirety - the majority of which had no official translations available.

I'm convinced they actually get off to denying access to their media to other countries.

>>153638919
>Why DOES Japan get so anal about foreigners pirating manga?
Piracy is punishable with prison in Japan. It's not that they're against foreigners pirating, it's that they're against piracy.
>>153639230
>Most Japs are just xenophobic pricks
Not xenophobic enough.

>>153634393
thank you

>>153634382
The Boys comic is getting a second wind of recognition of people acknowledging its strengths over the show though I'm not sure if piracy was crucial

It's funny how /co/'s the only place that's actually capable of having nuanced and brutally honest discussion on this lmao

>>153639206
>First of all, those only advertise in Japan, not in the west.
Really? Who the fuck am I buying these IVREA-translated tankobons from?

>>153639206
>Bro, most manga today is published digitally,
Webmanga != digitally published. X-Men is not a webcomic either.

>The point being, foreign markets aren't worth shit, a million autistic teenaged LatAm buzzards doesn't spend as much on comics as even 500 comic readers in the US.
Senpai you are speaking to one and weebs here fucking drown in merchandise.

They are so STARVED for it they literally make their own 3D printed manwha keychains and bag pins just to have anything getting published today.

It's 100% a lack of merchandising reach on the publisher's part, because who would have expected a website originally though to scam young web artists out of ad money wouldn't really have a whole merchandising plan thought out.

Well, I guess I'll have to go to Public Domain comic sites.
https://publicdomainsuperheroes.com/Comics.html

https://comicvine.gamespot.com/profile/turoksonofstone/lists/public-domain/18531/

https://comicbookplus.com/?cid=1507

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>>153639149
Such as

>>153639319
What did you see elsehwere?

>>153639351
Black and white discourse
Sugar coating or demonizing piracy as if it's that simple

>>153639324
>Webmanga != digitally published

Digital is like 60-70% of all manga sales now

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>>153634364
>American
Yes
>Dependent
Yes in the sense that I wouldn't pay someone to read their comics, though I used to download bigass CBR torrent files back in the early 00s.
>What comics you got into
The Power Fantasy, Wings of Fire
>Can/do
Can I? Of course. Do I? Sometimes. I did buy the Wings of Fire comics. I'll wait until Power Fantasy comes out with an omnibus. I also used to buy IDW MLP comics
>hobby
No, I actually am way less into comics now than I was back at the start of the 00s. Most comics are unreadable garbage now.

>>153639324
>Webmanga != digitally published. X-Men is not a webcomic either.
Anon, I'm talking about webmanga that are officially and physically published.
Hell, even a lot of LN are just officially published and edited versions of existing WNs, including some of the most popular ones.
>They are so STARVED for it they literally make their own 3D printed manwha keychains and bag pins just to have anything getting published today.
Making shitty 3D keychains doesn't mean anything, the only thing that matters is paying for the actual product with money that is used to continue the publishing of said product.
This merchandising cope only works for cartoon retards who don't want to admit that their shows fail because they're shit and all the merch in the world wouldn't have changed that.

>>153634364
Alright alright let's do a census
>>Are you an American
Yes
>>How dependent were you on RCO to read comics
Used it sparingly for the shit Batcave didn't have
>>What comics can honestly say you got into thanks to RCO specifically
Eh
>>CAN you buy comics to begin with and DO you if possible
Yes I can buy them
Do I? Sparingly for kindle
>>Did RCO got you into comics as a hobby
No. Got into it with 90's animated Spider-Man and Hulk

>>153639256
i'll stop pirating when they start translating. simple as.

Before RCO there were the /co/ Win-O-Threads
Before the Win-O-Threads there were torrents (shout out z-cult!)
Before Z-Cult there was IRC
Piracy doesn't die, it just changes

>>153639416
>Making shitty 3D keychains doesn't mean anything, the only thing that matters is paying for the actual product with money that is used to continue the publishing of said product.
Wrong. Go read any documentary or big animation studio's statement regarding what makes the money.

Remember: Until the CN indie rich kid take over, all animation was done with the idea of selling toys in mind.

Merchandise sale >>> product sales is a decades old fact that hasn't changed even today, just that the 6-12 consumer demographic has shrunk big time.

>>153639479
What was before IRC
Kinko's?

>>153639483
Who the fuck cares about animation studios? We're talking about fucking publishers you mongoloid, for publishers the main moneymaker has ALWAYS been the material they're fucking publishing for sale, not little fucking trinkets for kids.
Cartoons rely on merchandising because animation is fucking expensive and streaming/ad revenue and home media sales aren't enough to cover that.

>>153639374
Ah, people who believe giving ad revenue to leeches is virtuous versus industry hacks and their bootlickers who truly believe they'd be making a good living if it weren't for those people reading their books for free.

>>153639534
>Cartoons rely on merchandising because animation is fucking expensive and streaming/ad revenue and home media sales aren't enough to cover that.
Or your dad can be founder of Nike

>>153639416
>Making shitty 3D keychains doesn't mean anything, the only thing that matters is paying for the actual product with money that is used to continue the publishing of said product.
>This merchandising cope only works for cartoon retards who don't want to admit that their shows fail because they're shit and all the merch in the world wouldn't have changed that.
At no point in history has comics moved more money than animation, and the margins for making money in animation are even lower than for comics.

Do you not read this board? This stuff is discussed weekly, I'm surprised to hear arguments like this here.

>>153639501
IRC announcement bots was basically how the warez scene stated.
Before that (mid 90s) you had some very rare and exclusive BBS servers that let you dl cracked games
And before that (early 90s) you'd have to buy physical cracked games on floppy discs

>>153639534
>for publishers the main moneymaker has ALWAYS been the material they're fucking publishing for sale
You mean the licensing royalties to animation (tmnt) video games (all the marvel stuff) cinema and more.

This is a universal media rule: Direct product sales will never, ever, beat merchandising. Even indies follow this rule. Look at Homestuck.

>>153639501
Flipping through the entire book at the store and then putting it back on the shelf. John Byrne fumed so much about it people started calling it "Byrne stealing"

>>153639590
It's the
>People should be THANKING us for using RCO
that rubs me wrong
Just shut the fuck up, you're poor, you're foreign, you're a bum
That's all you need to say
If you're not scanning or ripping, you're not doing shit for preservation

>>153639616
>You mean the licensing royalties to animation (tmnt) video games (all the marvel stuff) cinema and more.
Horrible examples considering the original publishers of those are fucking dead (Mirage) or owned by a multimedia conglomerate (Marvel).
Wow, look at that, all that licensing didn't do shit to save those publishers from bankruptcy or being bought out, because most of that licensing money doesn't even go to the publishers.

>>153639616
>IRC announcement bots was basically how the warez scene stated.
Before that (mid 90s) you had some very rare and exclusive BBS servers that let you dl cracked games
And before that (early 90s) you'd have to buy physical cracked games on floppy discs
Yeah but that's software, different ballgame
There's a lot of crossover between software piracy, floppy piracy and movie piracy but they're not quite the same
>>153639617
One time when I was a kid I went to a garage sale and they had a whole stack of Mad, I was flipping through one and ripped it by accident pretty badly
I hauled ass to my mom cuz I didn't know what to do

>>153639692
>Yeah but that's software, different ballgame
If you talk about comics, they didn't start was a warez scene but they were housed on IRC
It was a bunch of collectors that were scanning long out of print floppies. They even asked a couple people for permission. By the time Editors realized this was going to shit on reprint sales (years before shelf collecting was a thing) they had basically scanned and made available 90% of all marvel and dc. I don't remember who but someone who worked for marvel wrote about it in their old blogs.

Comics warez don't really got going until the 2000s when the "0day scan & editing" thing got going.

>>153639666
At this point you are just trolling. That's now how it happened.

Beneath the Trees got really popular and is now on webtoons
Where the fuck is its merchandise

>>153639666
Marvel became a media conglomerate through Stan Lee comic up with their marketing and merchandising campaign in the 60s, then successfully lobbied for licensing deals in animation and eventually Hollywood television series. This is when Marvel started making real bank.

This was when Marvel was still independently owned by Lee's uncle Martin Goodman. It isn't until the early or mid 70s they were bought out by a corpo.

>>153639782
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMbrkj_KeV3qJ232e_vDb7TQ6G9FpkRHR

>>153639692
>>153639616
We're talking comics, which started with IRC. Color scanners didn't really become commonplace for every day people till the late 90s and early 00s. Sharing comic scans didn't really become a thing till Ayton (RIP) created CDisplay. That was around 2000ish, I think.

>>153634225
This

Heck, I personally stopped pirating modern comics a long time ago because they were so shit.

>>153639826
That's a free fan dub you moron

>>153634364
>Are you an American
Yes
>How dependent were you on RCO to read comics
Barely. I only used it to look up a comic page to post on /co/ or tumblr. And even then I use to download CBR files on /co/ in the past.
>What comics can honestly say you got into thanks to RCO specifically
None? I would say CBR files and /co/ storytimes got me more into runs.
>CAN you buy comics to begin with and DO you if possible
Yes. I just bought a collection of the public domain hero The Masked Marvel (the cowboy with the green skull).
>Did RCO got you into comics as a hobby
No.

>>153639890
Well, at least there's a place where we can watch Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees online (even if it's just fandubbed videos).

And it's also a shame about the closure of ReadComicsOnline.

Now we'll have to read public domain comics.
>>153639342

>>153634364
>
no thankfully
>
halways. I've been noticing for years that finding series on torrent was getting very difficult and libgen didn't have complete series about anything. I knew RCO was gonna be short lived - front end sites never last - but I was too lazy to find the alternatives.
RCO was too damn convenient.
>
I never used RCO for discovery.
>
No. Not really because there's basically no industry here, and fuck buying translated licenses.
>
No I was a fan long before.

>>153639954
>Now we'll have to read public domain comics.
you're stupid

>>153634148
So now I'm prettymuch guaranteed never to read the thousands of X-men comics required to follow the continuity over several decades with how separate and vast the archive is. Bravo Marvel.

>>153634225
If I can't get media for free I just pirate it and if I can't pirate it then I simply do not consume that media, I will never spend a cent on it unless I am so impressed that I buy or donate out of respect to the creator, and impressing me is no easy feat.

>>153639834
>Sharing comic scans didn't really become a thing till Ayton (RIP) created CDisplay.
For anton to make CDisplay you had to have a healthy community of people scanning and zipping up comics for files transfers.
So year, it started circa the late 90s, just not as part of piracy but genuine fan autism.

>>153640007
That was never required and you'd just be annoyed if you did.

>>153640003
If that's all that's left, then we'll have to take it.

Also, there might be some good Public Domain comics out there.

>>153634364
>Are you an American
No
>How dependent were you on RCO to read comics
When I first started reading comics online, it was the only one I used. Later branched out to other stuff.
>What comics can honestly say you got into thanks to RCO specifically
It was a very long time ago so I don't remember much. I did read the ASOIAF comic adaptation, the Gravity Falls comic I believe, and a couple other stuff.
>CAN you buy comics to begin with and DO you if possible
Yes, no.
>Did RCO got you into comics as a hobby
I was already reading physical comics but RCO is what me into reading online stuff.
>>153634393
Thanks anon
>>153635185
Are you that seething faggot who was bitching because we had Usagi Yojimbo, Invincible, W.I.T.C.H, Dreamkeepers and a bunch of other storytimes all in April?

>>153640155
>Usagi Yojimbo, Invincible, W.I.T.C.H, Dreamkeepers and a bunch of other storytimes all in April?
we really ate well this year ngl

>>153637916
I storytime every now and then and I try my best to find better sources. Usually from the original source. RCO is a last resort.
>>153638408
This, storytiming is now a tedious multiple hours-long chore of solving captchas. It takes between to 2 to 4 hours to dump around 150-200 pages. Random IP bans are pretty annoying as well. Some people use 4chan passes to get around this but I'm not paying a cent to the nishimura shogun

>>153634364
>Are you an American
yes
>How dependent were you on RCO to read comics
not very, but it was nice for catching up on issues I missed or reading obscure older books
>What comics can honestly say you got into thanks to RCO specifically
read all of Cerebus on there.
>CAN you buy comics to begin with and DO you if possible
yes, I regularly visit my LCS and prefer to read physical books if I can. I purchase a healthy mix of new issues/trades as well as back issues
>Did RCO got you into comics as a hobby
no, but it helped

Was there really a lot of good obscure stuff on RCO?
Dang.

>>153634364
>>Are you an American
Yes. Living in South America as of 15 years.

>>How dependent were you on RCO to read comics
Embarrassingly a lot.

>>What comics can honestly say you got into thanks to RCO specifically
Deadpool (the Duggan run), Gwenpool, Hickman Fantastic Four, Hickmans Avengers and New Avengers and all the Secret Wars event that was led to, Dark Knights of Steel, all of the Absolute line and the newest Ultimate Marvel line and all of Fables.

>>CAN you buy comics to begin with and DO you if possible
Well, i do but the translations here are mostly shit. I can buy some stuff but mostly omnibuses and Volumens of already finished series.

>>Did RCO got you into comics as a hobby
Not really but it help maintining a love for the bobby in the lower income times.

>>153640155
>Are you that seething faggot who was bitching because we had Usagi Yojimbo, Invincible, W.I.T.C.H, Dreamkeepers and a bunch of other storytimes all in April?
Why would someone who hates storytime threads enter storytime threads? Are you by any chance retarded?

>>153639022
Does anyone really want /co/ to split? Only time I see people advocating for that its just one or two delusional retards

>>153640312
not split but get /v/ermin style sister boards

>>153639617
Did this so much as a kid the guys at the store just gave up and let me do it

>>153640312
We had a whole thread about it recently

>>153640248
>>153638408
I storytimed frequently in the past few years and after getting caught in two range bans in a short time frame, I'm kind of hesitant on doing another multi thread storytime off the chance I get struck by another one mid-storytime

>>153640303
He made an entirely new thread to seethe about how the catalog was full of storytimes.
>Why would someone who hates [topic] threads enter [topic] threads?
Are you new here?

>>153640370
>after getting caught in two range bans in a short time frame,
Where the fuck do you live, Islamabad?

>>153640407
No, the West Coast

>>153634364
>Are you an American
Yes.
>How dependent were you on RCO to read comics
Significantly.
>What comics can honestly say you got into thanks to RCO specifically
Almost everything I've read in the last fifteen years has either been a /co/ storytime, a recommendation from /co/ that I read on RCO, or a random panel on /co/ whose source I tracked down and then read on RCO.
>CAN you buy comics to begin with and DO you if possible
Yes.
>Did RCO got you into comics as a hobby
/co/ and RCO helped get me back into comics as a hobby.

I didn't have the benefit of an LCS growing up. Our barber kept a couple dozen yellowed issues of old superhero and anthology comics around his shop that I'd read whenever my dad and I went to get a trim, and every once and a while my dad would drop a few bucks on a grab box of comics for me when we'd go garage saleing. But my interest in comics faded away through middle and high school without any place to get new material and this was the dialup days of the internet so finding stuff online wasn't really a thing yet.

I found /co/ in college in the late-00's and it rekindled my interest. I was finally in a town with an LCS so I could actually buy some of the stuff I was finding online, but I still read a lot of stuff in storytime threads and by the time I was in grad school RCO was a thing. After grad school I ended up moving back to my hometown, so no more LCS, but /co/ and RCO (and /a/ and MD) kept me finding and reading new stuff. Over the last decade I've spent something like five or six grand on different physical volumes, books, etc., of western comics and manga; a lot of which I donate to the public library.

>>153640312
Yes. Comic talk is slow, and peaks on Wednesdays. Low-quality single post cartoon threads from the NEETS shove quality comic discussion to the archive while everyone is at work.

https://readallcomics.com/
https://readallcomics.com/
https://readallcomics.com/

>>153640312
Just the same handful of purists who've been bitching on and off for the last twenty years.

>>153639782
https://readallcomics.com/category/beneath-the-trees-where-nobody-sees-praludium-ashcan/

https://readallcomics.com/category/beneath-the-trees-where-nobody-sees/

https://readallcomics.com/category/beneath-the-trees-where-nobody-sees-rite-of-spring/

>>153634364
Not American, i mainly used it to read comics i can't find in the store since most of it has been jacked by manga, funko pops, and the capiest capeshit at my lcs.

>>153640485
phonepost on your lunch break and bump any threads you're wanting to keep alive for after work. problem solved.

>>153640485
This board works so slow these days that this isn’t a problem.

>>153640528
>Ashcans count as merchandise

>>153640205
Yeah, I think storytimes are slowly getting better over the years
>>153640324
I feel /co/ isnt big enough for that honestly
>>153640343
Mustve missed it

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>>153634234
no good comics past 2009

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>>153634338
Search for alternatives anon.
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=hhZlI3l-f1I&si=sY7o-BQF2OsyGilc

https://readcomicsonline.ru/comic/star-wars-age-of-rebellion-boba-fett-2019/1/10

>>153634344
we stand with TKD on all boards.
>TKD
>TKD
>TKD

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>>153634393
Thanks friend.

>>153640642
>I feel /co/ isnt big enough for that honestly
It's not

>>153640935
https://4stats.io

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>>153634396
You can say "NIGGER" on this board?
>>>/co/ here I come !!!

Remember, all the people talking aboutt "tears" and "delicious cope" are Marvel and/or DC interns. They bootlick for free.

>>153641000
I pirate a lot
I just hate twitter fans and especially the ones stupid enough to think RCO's death is a Library of Alexandria tier loss

>>153637937
There's a storytime of one specific book I want to do but doing that storytime involves a massive linewide crossover where you literally have to read every other book in the line in order otherwise the story makes no sense. Should I download giant archives of 3 or 4 other books that I have no intention of storytiming just because two or three issues in each will be needed for a series they otherwise have nothing to do with? Something like RCO was convenient in a case like that because I can just grab the specific issues.

>>153641000
It is cope
If piracy helps the industry, how come the industry isn't healthier than it was before RCO really took off?
How does a couple thousand Indians and Brazilians getting into comics help an industry that has to rely on domestic sales?
How come comics popular among a pirating audience still fail to garner a mere 15k amount of monthly buyers?
Look, piracy is objectively valuable for preservation but to say it has a positive effect on the industry as a whole is easily reputable

>>153641130
*easily refutable

>>153641130
>If piracy helps the industry, how come the industry isn't healthier than it was before RCO really took off?
You can patch as many holes as you want in a sinking ship but all you'll do is slow the descent.

>>153641200
That's not an argument
You can say piracy doesn't do shit to the industry negatively substantial because it's mostly poor people and ESLs
You can say the direct market is an outdated method held up by geriatrics
But you cannot tell me with a straight face that the industry would collapse if sites like RCO ceased

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>>153639022
People want to split the boards because cartoon fags have an uncontrollable urge to make a thousand and one shit threads about little girls and obscure waifus. You're a bad a roommate and we want to move out.

>>153641448
so report them

>>153641448
>we
Anon, "we" are the minority by far and do not have the numbers to make a new board and the cartoon fags making shit threads about little girls are for the most part mentally ill namefags who the mods protect. /co/ is already in decline because of comics and cartoons are decreasing in quantity and quality (and the website as a whole after the sharty hack)
There's a problem and this idea will not solve it and more likely make things worse.

>>153634364
1:Yes
2: Theres other sites and storytimes on /co/ if I can’t get the books I want IRL, but it was still reliable
3: None, it was just a means to read comics I heard about from other places
4: Yes, usually online. I’ve got some Nancy (bushmiller), Bone series, beautiful darkness (well thats French, but still a comic I bought) as well as some marvel/dc stuff. I’m honestly thinking about buying the trade version of redcoat cause the story is pretty fun too, so I have no issue buying comics if I actually enjoy them and if I can
5: No

>>153634364
>All these non burgers in this thread
I never realised how many foreigners are on /co/ aside from death battle spics

>>153641867
US posters have historically and pretty consistently been ~50% of site traffic for the last 15 years or so.

>>153641057
That's an unavoidable edge case if the book wasn't compiled into a digital trade. In most cases, it would just be ignorant or lazy to use worse versions of images you can get through no additional cost.

>>153641271
>the industry
are you aware that most of the shit we talk about here is on Ebay or OOP??
RCO is integral to selling omnibus'
and I can't remember shit i read unless I take a picture of it, you can't do that with tablets, why would you want to read something you don't remember???

>>153634364
>>Are you an American
Not an American

>>How dependent were you on RCO to read comics
RCO is about 20% iof my monthly pull list, the only book I read on there that I would miss having access to is the ongoing batman

>>What comics can honestly say you got into thanks to RCO specifically

I have never one to RCO to read a book I wasn't aware of

>>CAN you buy comics to begin with and DO you if possible

I can and do have a monthly pull list that I order via a direct market seller

>>Did RCO got you into comics as a hobby

I'm way too old to have gotten into comics from RCO, I got into comics via retail channels as a kid.