Marvel Comics running a promotion based on the destruction of DC Comics books
Marvel Comics is running a special promotion for comic book retailers that is based on retailers removing the covers from certain DC Comics and sending them in to Marvel Comics. For every 50 covers from Adventure Comics #4, Booster Gold #26, Doom Patrol #4, Justice League Of America #39, Outsiders #24, or R.E.B.E.L.S #10, comic retailers will receive a “special” copy of Marvel Comics’ Seige #3 featuring Deadpool pretending to be Ali G, the white hip-hop aficionado comedic character played by Sacha Baron Cohen.
It seems comic book retailers may have multiple copies of the before mentioned books lying about due to a promotion DC Comics was running in relation to the Blackest Night crossover event. Retailers were encouraged to order these books in droves so that they would receive special colored plastic promotional rings.
I don’t know what’s more stupid: Marvel basing a promotion on DC’s product or that the special variant cover is based on a comedic pop culture character that hasn’t been relevant in years. When was the last time Ali G was seen?
Retailers have until February 16 to send in the clipped covers.
Does DC Comics care that Marvel Comics is running a promotion based on the destruction of their books? If they do care, they are in a position to do something about it. If they wanted to screw Marvel Comics, they should go back to the presses and print up a whole bunch of covers to one of the qualifying comics and then send 50 of these covers to each and every comic book retailer in North America. That way, the books don’t have to be destroyed and comic book retailers will still get their special variant cover of Seige #3. Granted, DC Comics would have to pay for printing up these covers, but Marvel Comics would need to produce an entire book for every 50 covers. If I was running DC Comics, I would go ahead and eat the cost of printing the covers.
I would do whatever I had to do to make sure Marvel Comics would never again run a promotion based on the destruction of my books.
Z-Cult FM to shut down
It looks as though the one-time popular comic book BitTorrent tracker Z-Cult FM is shutting down. Site owner “Serj” posted a statement that he was shutting it down. The reason he is shutting it down is one of money. He posted the following comment on the Z-Cult FM message board:
Main reason the site is being closed is money issues. The site was on a dedicated server as at time before Marvel etc shut down the site was popular and needed a dedicated server to run but since then I never changed the server hoping that one day we could get all users back but this has never happened. So server is gonna get killed and site put offline for bit.
Even though Marvel and DC both enjoyed a steady increase in sales during the time Z-Cult FM was in existence, both took steps at trying to get Z-Cult FM shut down. At the time it appeared they were successful. Not that this stopped people from downloading comics via BitTorrent. People just switched over to the popular music and video trackers such as The Pirate Bay and Mininova.
So I have been told.
Eventually Z-Cult FM came back, but I think most people just continued downloading comics through the other BitTorrent trackers. If anything, news of the actions by Marvel and DC only made the practice of downloading comics more popular. People who didn’t know that you could download entire issues, even entire runs of comic books, all of a sudden knew about it.
So I have been told.
I’ve always believed, unlike the music or movie industry, file sharing helped the comic book industry. It allowed people to read comics that they wouldn’t normally be able to read. People might be more inclined to starting buying a comic book if they could first go and read the preceding issues in digital form. Unlike the music and movie industry, the digital version of a comic book is a lot different than the version sold in stores.
So I have been told.
Facebook pulls ad featuring Power Girl for being too offensive
Two comic shops ran ads on Facebook to promote an upcoming appearance to their shops of Power Girl artist Amanda Conner. Both ads were removed from Facebook for being “too offensive”.
From Lying in the Gutters:
When asked in an upcoming interview for the column “Shop of Ideas,” Amanda Conner replied, “I don’t think it’s degrading at all. I think that the person they had red flagging that ad probably knows absolutely nothing about comics, they don’t know who the character is because they said it was irrelevant to the ad when it was 100% relevant. They just set themselves up as the morality police, that’s my guess as to the reason she was red flagged. I don’t feel Power Girl’s costume is degrading. I like Power Girl’s costume, I drew it.”
My guess is that whoever red flagged the ad knows quite a bit about comics, they just get easily offended by artwork they deem to be sexist.
Paul Pope does Adam Strange
This is a page from the upcoming Wednesday Comics, a weekly, broadsheet-sized, 12-part series featuring 16 stories starring DC characters told in a Sunday Comics style.
I wish Paul Pope and colorist Jose Villarrubia could just do every comic there is. Click the image to see a much larger image.
This looks unbelievably cool.
New ‘Watchmen’ lawsuit, this time it’s over coffee
Massimo Zanetti, the maker of various crappy grocery store coffees including Chock Ful o’Nuts, is suing Warner Brothers, DC Comics, and the Organic Coffee Cartel over coffee that looks an awful lot like a can of Chock Ful o’Nuts. The coffee, Nite Owl Dark Roast, is being sold online with a percentage of the proceeds going to charity.
Clay Enos, the official still photographer of the Watchmen movie, came up with the idea to sell the coffee. Shortly before the movie was released, he was a guest on the Ron and Fez show where he talked about taking photos for the movie as well as his $100 photo book from the movie.
He also talked about this coffee.
Massimo Zanetti is asking the courts for an injunction against any further sale of the coffee, plus they want a percentage not from the coffee sales, but from the actual movie.
I always figured Swamp Thing stunk, but not like wet ink
I stopped by Borders today after work and was perusing the graphic novel section when I found two copies of the new hardcover Saga of the Swamp Think, Book 1. It contains the first eight issues (#20 – #27) of writer Alan Moore’s 44 issue run on the series.
I picked up a copy. The jacket cover felt tacky. I then noticed the distinctive scent of ink. I took a piece of white paper that I had on me and rubbed it across the jacket cover. The white paper turned green.
The ink was still wet.
I really wanted to buy this book, but not if it reeks of the smell of wet ink. It’s not like the smell will eventually just go away. If I’m not mistaken, the ink is ultraviolet (UV) ink. It’s the type of ink they use in high-speed color printing. UV ink does not cure unless it is exposed to UV light. If it wasn’t UV ink, it would surely have dried sitting on the shelf at Borders.
Also, doesn’t DC Comics shrink-wrap their hardcover books? These two copies, obviously, were not in shrink-wrap.
I don’t know if this stinky, tacky ink problem is true with every copy of this book, or if it is unique to the two copies at my local Borders. I hope it’s not a problem with all of the copies. It’s on my list of things I want to read.
Update: I happened to be back over at Borders today and I gave the books a second look, or should I say smell. The wet ink is definetly on the slipcover, not the actual book. I took the slipcover off and moved the book away from it. The smell is so strong that yesterday I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
Judge rules 20th Century Fox owns rights to ‘Watchmen’ movie
A federal judge in Los Angeles has announced that he intends to rule that 20th Century Fox indeed owns a copyright interest in the Warner Brothers movie, Watchmen. The movie, directed by Zack Snyder, is based on the DC Comics epic graphic novel of the same name.
Watchmen was published in 12 issues from 1986 and 1987. It was written by acclaimed comic book writer Alan Moore and drawn by artist Dave Gibbons. Most comic book fans believe that it’s the greatest graphic novel ever published.
20th Century Fox’s claim to Watchmen stems from the fact that it purchased the rights to a Watchmen movie in the late 1980’s for producer Lawrence Gordon. 20th Century Fox ultimately declined to make the movie for themselves. Gordon then later shopped the movie around with different movie studios before coming to an agreement with Warner Brothers.
Warner Brothers also owns DC Comics.
The movie is scheduled to be released sometime in March. I’m guessing that Warner Brothers will end up having to pony up a bunch of money to secure the rights from 20th Century Fox.
John Nee resigns from DC Comics?
All the various comic book news sites on the Internet are all a flutter over the fact that John Nee, DC Comics Senior Vice President of Business Development turned in his resignation. A week ago.
Who the heck is John Nee?
I’m sure he is a nice guy with lots of talent and ability, but I honestly have never heard of him. I don’t even know what exactly someone in charge of Business Development actually does. I would be hard pressed to name you the person in charge of Business Development over at Marvel Comics.
I think the only reason this is being treated like news is because there were multiple rumors floating about that said there was going to be a major shake up over at DC Comics. Some were speculating that Dan Didio, Executive Editor at DC Comics, was going to get the ax.
Instead of Dido getting fired, we find out that Nee turned in his resignation. In fact, today he was supposedly over at the DC Comics offices doing whatever he does.
The undeniable popularity of Manga is hard to ignore
A list of the top 20 selling graphic novels sold by book retailers in the United States shows something that is beyond dispute – manga is popular and superhero comics are not. It’s not even close.
If I worked over at Marvel or DC, I would be worried. In fact, I would be very worried. Out of the top 20 graphic novels sold in books stores, only two (2) come from Marvel and DC.
The one lone book from Marvel is an adaption from a Laurell K. Hamilton Anita Blake Vampire Hunter novel. The characters don’t belong to Marvel. Both the author and the series has an existing fan base that automatically resulted in sales with readers that may have never read a graphic novel before.
The lone DC book was the acclaimed Alan Moore’s Watchmen. It was first published in 1986 and is considered by almost everyone to be the greatest graphic novel ever written.
Eighteen of the top 20 graphic novels sold in book stores did not come from either Marvel or DC. How can both companies just continue to ignore that? If I was in charge of either Marvel or DC, I would mimic the manga model. I find it remarkable that they don’t.
Superman copyright split in two
The big news in the world of comic books is that Time Warner is no longer the sole owner to Superman. The heirs of Jerome Siegel, one of Superman’s co-creators is now entitled to claim a share of Superman. Siegel along with fellow Superman co-creator Joseph Shuster sold the rights to Superman 70 years ago for $130.
It’s worth substantially more now.
Siegel’s widow Joanne Siegel and daughter Laura Siegel Larson now own half of Superman. Which half they actually own is not known. They are also due compensation for all use of Superman going back to 1999. That includes revenue from the recent $200 million “Superman Returns”.
I don’t think anyone should own the intellectual property rights to something created in the 1930’s. Superman should have gone into the public domain a long, long time ago. With that said, if anyone is going to have ownership to something created so long ago, it might as well be the creators. Or in this case, the people related to at least one of the creators.
Hopefully this will pave the way for William Shakespeare’s relatives to finally get what is owed to them.
Font swipe?
I saw this image today over at Zuda Comics, the DC Comics web comic website. I thought I recognized the font that was used in the title. I spent an hour or so yesterday looking through fonts over at dafont.com and this font looked familiar.
It’s a font called Bleeding Cowboy and its created by Last Soundtrack. The font is labeled on the dafont website as being free for personal use. On the Last Soundtrack website, it states that fonts are for personal use only.
For the commercial usage, a “donation” is required.
I’m not sure what the policy is on fonts. Its not like this is a generic Arial or Verdana font. This font used in the title is extremely stylized. It possesses a unique artistic style. It would seem to me that the font’s artist should at least be credited when it is used to create more art, especially when that art is used for a commercial project. Over at the Zuda Comics website, credit for the title page is given to Jill Allyn Stafford.
Maybe Jill Allyn Stafford and Last Soundtrack are one in the same.
Update: (8 March 2008) Jill Stafford did the art on the title pages for Bayou (the first piece being on page 4 of the story), but she did not choose the font, nor did she do the lettering/numbering.
Reaction to the Wonder Woman PLAYBOY cover
I’ve been trying to keep up with the online funny book feminist overreaction to Tiffany Fallon being painted up to look like Wonder Woman on the cover of Playboy. Even though Fallon is technically nude on the cover, it’s not the most titillating image to ever grace the cover of a magazine, especially a magazine such as Playboy. You have to look close to even realize that she is indeed even naked.
Some funny book feminists have been vocal with their disapproval of the cover. Ragnell writes over at Written World:
If they’re smart, they’ll put their foot down and try and reclaim that image. Pink Raygun (NSFW) asked if we’d see a model as Batman in the same sort of thing. The answer’s no. You won’t see Batman in paint on the cover of Playgirl because DC protects their copyright to Batman, and goes out of their way to stop sexualized images of Batman. The character is money to them, they want to control how the public receives him.
The “sexualized images of Batman“ she is referring to is the watercolor artwork of artist Mark Chamberlain. They are more then just sexualized images of Batman. They show Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder engaged in various sex acts. With each other.
Say what you want about the Playboy cover, but at least Wonder Woman isn’t engaged in sodomy with an under aged minor.
It’s true DC sent a “cease & desist” letter to the New York Chelsea art dealer that was selling the gay Batman and Robin watercolors. That was over two years ago. I don’t know what ever became of the case. Honestly, I don’t really care. I noticed today that at least some of the art is still up for sale at the artist’s website. That makes me think DC wasn’t too successful in getting the art removed.
Wonder Woman on the cover of Playboy is not the same thing as artwork featuring Batman and Robin engaged in sodomy. Then again, what if it was? I don’t remember anyone – male or female – getting angry over the Chamberlain artwork showing Batman engaged in gay sex. In fact, I remember the complete opposite. I remember most people reacting to the gay Batman and Robin art as though it was kind of funny.
Imagine that.
Wonder Woman on the cover of ‘Playboy’
What’s sure to enrage female comic book fans, Tiffany Fallon is on the cover of Playboy magazine sans clothing with her body painted to look like Wonder Woman. The costume is a little off, but it’s certainly a Wonder Woman costume. What does that say about me when I look at a photo of a nude woman and I notice that her red boots are a little off because they don’t have the gold trim normally seen on Wonder Woman’s boots?
Part of me is somewhat surprised that Playboy magazine is still in circulation. Not only because it’s a magazine and magazines are a lot less prevalent in the age of the Internet, but because it is a magazine dedicated to showing pretty females in the buff. I would have thought the Internet would have replaced the need of a magazine such as Playboy. Maybe Playboy is for men that like to look at naked woman, but don’t know how to find porn on the Internet.
In other words, really dumb men. Not being able to find pictures of nude women on the Internet is a lot like not being able to find water at the ocean.
I have to admit that this doesn’t bother me all that much. I’m not a fan of the sexualization of comic book characters, but I guess that’s when it’s done by the actual comic book publishers. For instance, when Marvel Comics authorized that ridiculous Mary Jane Watson statue. The one where she is doing the laundry. For some reason, this doesn’t bug me too much.
It wouldn’t bother me either if Superman or Batman received the same treatment. In fact, I would think it was pretty funny.
I’m not even sure if DC Comics or their parent company, Warner Brothers, authorized Playboy to do this or if it fell into the territory of fair use. It’s not an exact copy of the Wonder Woman costume, but she is referred to as Wonder Woman on the bottom left of the cover.
More on the legalities of downloading comic books
Todd Allen of Comic Book Resources interviews lawyer Darren S. Cahr (AKA Super Lawyer) concerning the intricacies involved with trademark and copyright laws and how they pertain to the use of BitTorrent technology to share comic books. Marvel and DC have recently begun taking steps to stop BitTorrent sites from sharing comic book scans.
From the Comic Book Resources article:
The question is, if you own a physical copy of the comic, is it still illegal to download a digital copy?
“Yes,” says our Super Lawyer, “just as if you own a copy of a comic book you can’t simply take another copy of the same issue from a
store . At least that is the position of the publishing and music industries.”
So the touted Super Lawyer is equating downloading a digital copy of a comic you already legally own to going into a store and stealing a physical issue. The big difference is that when you steal a physical comic, that result for the store is one less copy to sell. That is something that doesn’t happen when you download a digital copy of a comic. Another difference is that a digital scan of a comic is not the same thing as a physical paper comic. One is made of ones and zeros and must be viewed on a computer. The other is printed on paper and involves ink and some staples.
A physical comic and a digital copy of a comic are different from one another. They are not the same thing. Even someone who is not a Super Lawyer can easily tell the difference between the two.
I’m not sure why someone would even want two physical copies of a comic, but I can see why someone would want the physical version and a digital version of the same comic.
Also from the article:
Is it really a good idea to go after some of your more regular customers? This is slippery slope on both sides. On the other hand, there’s something the torrent crowd needs to accept, that they’ve been screaming to the hills about, and that’s the cease and desist letter. Did it occur to anyone that someone like Marvel has to send those letters to maintain their trademarks?
Describing the BitTorrent “crowd” reacting to the cease and desist letter as “screaming to the hills” isn’t really necessary or productive. It’s comes across as unnecessarily snarky. Both sides should be able to discuss this issue without resorting to making insulting remarks about the other side.
When will Marvel and DC send similar cease and desist letters to artists that sketch comic book characters for money? There are artists making money sketching characters they don’t own the rights to. If Marvel and DC are going to go after those that infringe on their intellectual properties, they ought to be consistent. People are making a nice profit infringing on Marvel and DC intellectual properties. It’s not the BitTorrent crowd.
One annoying aspect of the article is the author evidently felt the need to dumb everything down so we comic book nerds could understand the concepts involved. He referred to the BitTorrent controversy as “Secret Torrent
Who is Allen writing this article for, 12 year olds?
Comic book artist Jamal Igle is against copyright infringment?
There has been a spirited debate among funny book nerds over on the Newsarama forums concerning the Z-Cult FM comic book BitTorrent controversy. Comic book artist Jamal Igle has been weighing in on the matter from his prospective. Even though the comic book industry has enjoyed a steady rise in sales during the time Z-Cult FM has been in existence, Jamal believes people that BitTorrent comic books cost professionals such as him money.
In fact, he believes that people that do it should be prosecuted:
Bit torrents of copyright material for mass downloading and file sharing are illegal and should be prosecuted.
Prosecuted? Jamal seemingly thinks it’s wrong to reproduce copyrighted material except when he’s the one that is doing it. Like many comic book artists, Jamal frequently attends comic book conventions and does commissioned artwork of licensed comic book characters that he does not own or have the rights to.
Using BitTorrent to share digital scans of comic books and producing unauthorized comic book art for sale are both illegal. One of the two is done to make some extra money and the other isn’t.
It’s true that comic book publishers know that many of their artists do commission work on the side using their licensed properties and they choose to turn a blind eye to it. They used to do the same thing to the people the used BitTorrent for comics. Marvel and DC Comics never seemed to care about Z-Cult FM. Now they do.
Obviously things change.
If comic book publishers don’t think commissioned sketches adversely effect their bottom line, they are wrong. Comic book fans only have so much money to spend at a comic book convention. Every single dollar they spend on high priced, unauthorized comic book art is one less dollar they have to spend on licensed, authorized products. If I was a vendor at a comic book convention and I paid money to set up a booth on the sales floor so I could sell licensed, authorized comic books and collectibles, I wouldn’t like the fact that a substantial amount of money was being spent on unlicensed artwork in Artist Alley.
If comic publishers want to crack down on copyright infringement, then they need to be consistent about it. They shouldn’t just single out people who upload scans of comic books while turning a blind eye to comic book artists that crank out $500 Wolverine sketches at comic book conventions.
They can’t have it both ways.
DC sends another letter to Z-Cult
Who didn’t see this coming? DC Comics has sent a second letter to the folks over at the comic book BitTorrent site Z-Cult FM asking them to remove all DC comics from their trackers. Both Marvel and DC had – in a joint effort – already sent a similar letter, but it was rejected by Z-Cult FM administrators because the comic book publishers failed to follow the proper Z-Cult FM procedures for getting copyrighted material removed.
Something like that.
This of course does absolutely nothing to stop the BitTorrenting of comic books. This just means that it wont be done through Z-Cult FM. People will just start using the major BitTorrent tracking sites. The same sites that people use for BitTorrenting music, movies, and TV shows.
Marvel and DC Comics can try to send a letter to The Pirate Bay.
The only thing this hullabaloo with Z-Cult FM has really done is to raise the public consciousness that a person can use the unstoppable technology of BitTorrent to download comic books for free. So much has been written this past week about Z-Cult FM. If people didn’t know about it before, they certainly do now. That in itself is ironic because Z-Cult FM was always kind of on the down-low. Not a lot really got written about the Z-Cult FM community before last week. Alexa shows that their web traffic has nearly doubled in the past week.
Maybe Marvel and DC should have just continued pretending that Z-Cult FM didn’t exist. They may have wanted to stop people from downloading comics. Instead, they may have only helped open the flood gates.
Does downloading hurt comic book sales? (Updated)
The news that Marvel and DC Comics were finally taking an interest in BitTorrent networks such as Z-Cult FM got me wondering just what effect peer-to-peer file sharing did to their financial well being. Do peer-to-peer networks such as Z-Cult FM actually hurt the comic book industry? Are comic book publishers losing money because of Z-Cult FM?
We’ve seen what file sharing has done to the music industry. It’s been losing a lot of money because it it. Lots of money. What has it done to comic book publishers?
I found sales charts for the last ten years on Comics Buyer’s Guide. If you look at the overall sales numbers for the North American comic book direct market, you will notice that sales have actually been steadily increasing since 2004.
- 2004 – $328.25 million (5.68% increase)
- 2005 – $352.33 million (7.34% increase)
- 2006 – $395.55 million (12.27% increase)
- 2007 – $429.90 million (8.68% increase)
- 2008 – $436.60 million (1.50% increase)
Z-Cult FM began in 2004. I honestly don’t know when people started downloading comic book scans. I know I first heard of it in 2004. I first learned about it from an article on Ninth Art.
There seems to be a parallel between downloading comics and buying comics. It would seem the more people download comics, the more people buy comics. That’s something not seen in the music industry. Record sales have plummeted with the popularity of peer-to-peer music sharing networks. Record sales continue to decline.
Why isn’t this true with comic books?
DC Comics to publish Starman Omnibus
From the press release:
STARMAN, the acclaimed DC Universe series created by writer James Robinson and artist Tony Harris, will be collected for the first time in hardcover, on high-quality paper, in THE STARMAN OMNIBUS, a series of six volumes beginning in May.
This series will feature new covers by Harris, and will measure 6.75” x 10.25”. Collecting the entire STARMAN series, plus the STARMAN ANNUALS, SECRET FILES, 80-PAGE GIANT, THE SHADE miniseries and much more, these volumes include stories illustrated by Harris, Peter Snejbjerg, Chris Sprouse, J.H. Williams III, Phil Jimenez, Gene Ha, Guy Davis, Teddy Kristiansen, Lee Weeks and many others, as well as several stories co-written by David Goyer.
Scheduled to reach stores in May, THE STARMAN OMNIBUS VOL. 1 HC is a 448 page title collecting STARMAN #0 and 1-16, with a cover price of $49.99 U.S.
I’ve been interested in reading this, but the third trade paperback in the series has been out of print and is extremely hard to come by. Amazon is pre-selling it for $31.49 plus another 5% if you place your order before it’s released.
Popular comic book BitTorrent site Z-Cult FM back online
It appears that people that want to use BitTorrent to acquire digital scans of comics still have a place to go to. Z-Cult FM is back online and is once again offering trackers like they were doing before they were threatened with legal action from Marvel and DC. This from the Z-Cult FM website:
Hi all fans and users of Z-Cult FM,
After much debate and thinking we have decided to take the following actions and we hope you will support what we have decided to do.
Z-Cult FM Comic Community will re-open all of its Trackers and locked down sections back to how they were earlier in the week before any legal action. We are carrying out this action for the following reasons:
- I am (We are) based outside of the US and are not therefore subject to US legislation that was present on the legal documents sent to us.
- Here at Z-Cult FM we have always had a clearly explained and signposted policy of making it clear to all comic publishers and copyright holders that we will on request (and reasonable proof of ownership) remove their material from our trackers if they requested us to. Please see: http://zcultfm.com/dmca.php
- Marvel Comic and DC Comics, who confirmed they have seen our site but refused to follow our policy. All other publishers in the past who have followed this policy have been respected and the agreed actions taken.
- Marvel Comics and DC Comics gave us 3 day to comply with their demands and then decided to go on their Thanksgiving holiday. So 2 of these 3 days we have been unable to contact Marvel by telephone to discuss this matter with them. We would like to thank DC Comics who were available by telephone and were friendly enough to talk about the situation and confirm the documents were indeed from DC Comics.
- The pressure from our members– their readers– demands that we do so.
- Chances are this won’t be the last we hear from Marvel Comics and DC Comics but once they have read our email we sent them with out response they will hopefully carefully think about their next set of actions.
- We would like to thank all our users and the number of outside sites on the Internet for their support. Without members like yourself there would be no point owning such a site.
When I first read about this, I wondered just how any legal action by Marvel and DC would play out since Serj, the guy that runs Z-Cult FM, lives in the UK. Most likely the lawyers working for Marvel and DC thought they would only have to threaten the folks that run Z-Cult FM. I guess now they will have to do more then threaten people with an email if they want Z-Cult FM to go away.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Marvel and DC are cracking down on BitTorrent
I’m not sure why it took them so long, but it seems Marvel and DC Comics are joining forces to try to crack down on using BitTorrent to share comics. I assumed a long time ago that they simply didn’t care that people were downloading their comics. That doesn’t seem to be the case any longer.
Z-Cult FM, a popular comic book BitTorrent tracking site, posted a message to their website on 21 November explaining that they had been contacted by Marvel and DC Comics and as a result, all torrents had been removed from the Z-Cult FM website.
We got legal letters from both Marvel and DC Comics who have been working together to send us these legal threats. We are currently dealing with the legal issues and they have given us 3 days before they are forced to take anymore action..Z-Cult FM website was put offline last night by me (no one else) after I got the email while in work and issued a code red alert (we have drills also 5 times a year). We decide putting the site offline was best course of action to analyse the situation and decide our best course of action. We have confirmed one of the legal letters is 100% from DC Comics when a phone call was made to DC Comics who confirmed the email and its contents. As of today we was unable to contact Marvel and we are trying again tomorrow just to 100% confirm it.
I can’t help but to think that this is somehow connected to Marvel Comics unveiling their new online comic service. I have to think Marvel finally realized just how great the demand is for digital comics. The site went down numerous times because too many people were trying to access the site at the same time.
The loss of Z-Cult FM won’t stop comics from being distributed through BitTorrent. The same popular torrent tracking sites that are used to distribute music, movies, and TV files are also used for comics. They just don’t specialize in comics the way Z-Cult FM did. The Z-Cult FM site was utilized more for torrents of older comics. The comics that can be downloaded from the other BitTorrent sites are usually comics that came out in comic book shops that same week.
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