Sheldon! & Templar, Arizona
I am not the first to note that Sheldon is no longer trapped at comics.com. But, I feel like I can add a perspective to the discussions that have been going on.
I met Dave Kellett at Comic-Con 2006, and he convinced me to buy his book. It was a purchase I am glad I made, but, when I finished reading it, I didn't check out the new stuff. Because I knew that only 30 days was available, and that would be more frustrating than anything else. See, i'm a "chunk" reader. What I mean by that is, while I have my comics that I check daily, i have a number of comics that I didn't read until after they were done (for example Wigu, Checkerboard Nightmare, Concerned — just this past weekend, and many more). And there are a whole bunch of comics that I have all queued up to read their archives in three or four straight sittings.
So, reading the book was great, but I didn't want to miss the middle, then read 30 comics, then be stuck on daily updates. I wanted to power through the archives, and only then, would I be satisfied with daily updates; once I'd finished off everything that already existed. So, Sheldon wasn't a high priority for me.
But, I am a total sucker for merchandise. I buy books even when the archives are available on line. I'm the kind of fan you want. So, as a general rule, don't block my access to content, or you can't have my disposable income.
I also mentioned, in the title of this post, "Templar, Arizona." This is the comic that I am a huge fan of, but wish I could stop reading for a couple months. The comic and story are great, but I find it immensely frustrating to see only a glimpse of the story revealed at a time. I feel like I've been waiting a month to find out what is going on at this rally we've been seeing in the story. And that's no criticism of Spike (the creator of Templar), in fact, if the comic weren't so damned good, I'd just stop reading it.
So, my point is this: There are readers like me out there, who hate reading day-by-day, and would rather spend a weekend devouring the archives. And at least some of them, like me, are people you, if you are a creator, could trick out of some of their money. So, while I will put up with limited access when the thing I want more of doesn't exist yet, I am not so tolerant of content that exists, but which is out of my reach.
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