Oy! Scans Daily MADE comics fans!

[neotoma]

Someone unknown got scans_daily deleted off LJ for copyright violations. One of the mods explains what they currently know, and asks for everyone to refrain from pointing fingers.

However... if it was the work of an industry insider, that person is STUPID -- I've bought twice as many trade collections in the last six months than I did in the three previous years because of stuff I saw on scans daily. It was a wonderful way to get your friends into comics, because you could show them intriguing little bits.

Fortunately, there is an IJ asylum that can be utilized.

Comments

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

And I don't doubt your individual situation but I honestly believe S_D faciilitated a culture of piracy on a far larger scale than it motivated anybody to pay for comics. And no, I can't prove that, but I know plenty of avenues for people to discuss comics that don't involve copyright violations and abuse. There are ways to do the first without doing the second.

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

I don't doubt that there was a good bit of piracy fueled by scans-daily. I'll admit to even downloading a few comics to see what a total issue looked like before adding it to my pull list or getting the trade.

But until and unless there is a better study of the industry, I am going to keep thinking that it rather like the recording industry, which has a wonderful history of antagonizing fans.

Scans-daily was integrated into my fannish life because it was on LJ. It was very conveinent because I didn't have to sign up for and track half a dozen websites.

The only site that I've found at all useful as a comics fan is the IGN comics division, and even then I found it badly organized and almost useless for looking up older trades and storylines -- which is something that scans-daily excelled at.

This is why I've started searching out the Mark Waid run on JLA and on the Flash, after all -- I'm building a library of older trades, and favorite writers and artists, and it's been an interesting shift because there are stories (JLA: Divided We Fall, for example) that I would not have known about without an LJ comm that promoted them.

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

If people want to start a comics community on LJ that isn't centered around piracy, there's plenty of room for that. We run xmen_on_lj based on official company previews and I think it's been pretty effective on a small scale. On the other hand, anything you do on LJ you don't own, that's a risk.

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

Xmen_on_Lj is also extremely narrowly targeted -- if you already are interested in the Xmen books, then it's a good comm.

But it won't do things like get me interested in THOR, or let me know something like TINY TITANS exists. Scans-Daily did that.

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

We started that comm because we were interested in XMen. 3 of us started it and it takes about 15 minutes of work a week. My point is that if somebody wants to start a community -- any community they want with a means and purpose that is within TOS -- they can do it.