Colophon
The font I used for the main header on the home page is called "Carl Barks
Script", based on the lettering of the Golden Age writer/artist for Uncle Scrooge.
I got the font from a German web site,
http://www.donald.org/barks/font/.
I chose the image of Superman because he represents everything good and true about
the comic book industry. Also, in this image, he's judging you. He disapproves.
I think someone just charged him $3.99 for a new comic book.
I believe my use of Superman is fair use, since it is an excerpt used for
critical purposes. If I'm wrong, I will remove him if DC Comics asks me too.
The whole "Superman is judging you" thing is a rhetorical conceit for comedy.
I don't think there's anything wrong with comic book publishers charging
whatever fans will pay. Markets determine prices and free people spend their
money however they like. My argument is that comic book publishers could do much
better by pursuing advertising dollars instead of fan dollars, and expanding the
fan base by providing much greater entertainment value per dollar.
While I'm at it, I should mention that this whole thing was inspired in part
by an article in Wired a few months ago called "Free" by Chris Anderson.
Mr. Anderson is the main guy at Wired and the author of "The Long Tail". He's
going to publish a book length version of "Free" pretty soon. The premise is that
there's a lot of money to be made in many industries by giving things away for
free and then getting the money back some other way. I'm applying that premise to
the comic book industry by saying that if the price per page of a comic was
extremely low, there'd be many more readers, and that would be a valuable
commodity for advertisers.