GoComics, What to Expect April 1
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Chris Waldron, Chief Digital Officer at Andrews McMeel Universal, was kind enough to answer a few questions we sent him regarding the new GoComics rolling out tomorrow.
Let’s mention that we at The Daily Cartoonist are paid subscribers to GoComics (and Comics Kingdom). That said I was more interested in the effects the new site would have on non-subscribers, which we will not be aware of as subscribers. Though a couple subscriber questions did sneak in.
Chris prefaced his responses with a preface about the status of GoComics visitors:
We now categorize visitors to GoComics in three groups: guests, registered users, and subscribers.
- A guest is someone who has NOT created an account or logged in.
- A registered user HAS created a free account and logged in, but they do NOT have a paid subscription.
- A subscriber is logged in with a paid, premium subscription.
Moving on to your questions…
Be patient, the upgrade will not happen until later in the day.
When exactly will the new experience go live?
We are targeting tomorrow (4/1) after the morning surge.
Will visitors to GoComics have access to higher resolution comics?
We are working on several additional changes that we’ll roll out in the coming months, and one of them is to increase the resolution of the comics if we have the original source files. This will allow fans to zoom in and see more detail without losing quality. Stay tuned for that improvement coming soon.
Will comics appear in My Comics daily email?
As a paid subscriber, the comics you follow WILL appear in the daily email. If you are a registered user, however, all your comics WILL NOT appear in the daily email.
Apparently I have been paying $20 a year for years but am in the system as a “registered” user, as my daily emails do not show the comics but only provided links to the “Comics I Follow.” Hopefully that will change.
Onward to access to the archives (ooh, non-subscribers are not going to be happy).
How will archive access change?
With the new GoComics, paid subscribers will have unlimited access to comic archives. Guests will only be able to see the most recent comic and comics from the preceding fourteen days. Registered users will be able to see the most recent comic and comics from the preceding thirty days.
Will the archives expand?
Yes. While we have the entire archive available of many comic features, some are incomplete. We will continue to approach the creators or the syndicates to expand our archives of those features.
I asked about expanded archives because quite a few of the comics do not go back to the beginning. I pointed out The Born Loser as an example, which began decades before the first listed for July 14, 1994.
I asked if the new rates would be reflected in our favorite cartoonists paychecks.
How will this impact the creators of the comics?
It is absolutely our goal to improve creator revenue with these changes. While I can’t disclose exactly how creators are compensated, I can say that they participate on any revenue generated by their creation, be that advertising, subscription fees, licensing, or merchandise sales.
And I expressed concern about screwing up what I consider the best navigable comics site on the web.
… but we’re worried that improvements to navigation will make things more difficult or confusing.
I very much understand that concern. We have kept design patterns from the current GoComics that fans clearly rely on (e.g. A to Z page, date picker and arrows next to the comic) and streamlined things that created confusion (e.g. too many navs and subnavs). We believe that fans like you will come to enjoy GoComics even more as you spend time with the new site. In addition, we are extremely excited about further enhancements we have planned in the coming months that will make the experience even better!
We thank Chris for the prompt response to our inquiries.
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