So you say you can’t afford to buy all the comic books you want to read? Is that’s what’s bothering you? Hey! We hear ya, bub! In these days of inflated prices on our favorite reading past time, all of us have to really budget our buying and collecting habits. Didyaknow, you can read practically all the books you want to without paying for ’em? No, really. We found a website which makes available a ton of NEW comics plus some which have been out within the past 3 years or so. Seriously, dude and dudettes! We kid thee not! “But how can they possible do that?” you might well ask. Well, we couldn’t find much info from the site developers but judging by the amount of ads, the site, as well as the cost of the books must be supported by advertisers. It’s an age old concept. It’s how things like TV USE to be free and in some case still is. When you have sponsors bankrolling the broadcast, or in this case, web publishing, it’s a win, win situation. That must be what this site is all about. Right? It’s called…

Read Comic Books FREE Online

To good to be true? Most likely. This is just one of several sites offering this service. While it is true they are supported by advertising, these sites are actually pirate sites. Part of the infamous Dark Web! These sites work somewhat like a news aggregator. The comic books are uploaded to a server farm somewhere, probably in another country, and the sites actually serve up links of entire comic books and entire series  from the server farms. So we can actually read comics without paying for them. The problem is, this is being done without the permission of the publishers. Yes, this in fact is piracy of comic books.

The above banner is from just one site. There are are actually more sites serving these links up than we could count. There are many domains registered with similar names as depicted on the banner. A little research on the web exposed that these sites are indeed pirate sites. Some of the cover art you see depicted here in this blog posting were pulled from one of the sites. These are new comics only released in the past month. There are thousands of new comic books as well as many from years past. We saw some that dated back to the 1990’s.

When Is Free Not Free?

Is this illegal? Yes, it is very much illegal. Just as the music uploaded for people to download from the site called Napster several years ago, which was  eventually forced to shut down due to a court order. Uploading copyrighted digital comic books to any website or archive, other than for your personal use, is a violation of law according to the terms of purchase when you buy a book. A digital comic is no different than a printed comic book according to the law. If you were to buy the latest issue of, say, Ant-Man and The Wasp and use a color photo copier to duplicate a copy, or several copies, even if you are only giving those away, that is illegal. The same applies to sharing digital copies.

“Could I get in trouble viewing these comics on the web?” You probably would not be in any legal jeopardy just for viewing the pages of the comic. If you were to download the comic book, that’s a different matter. Then you could find yourself in the same scenario many people who started downloading what they thought was free music a few years ago. Several people were prosecuted and had to pay some stiff fines for copyright violations just for downloading their favorite songs. Bear in mind, technically your web browser downloads a copy of each web page you are viewing as you go from page to page on any give web site, so the case could be made that just viewing pages is actually the same as downloading a complete copy of the comic book. That is a technicality, but it’s one layers love to exploit when given the chance.

Here’s another concern:  It may or may not be against the law for individuals such as you and I to view comic book pages on the web, but there may be other risks for you personally. If site developers and hosts have no qualms about the legality of hosting a service to illegally distribute material protected under copyright law, would they have any problems stealing your personal information via spyware? That’s a real possibility we have to consider these days on the world wide web.

How to spot pirate sites: Look for information who is hosting the site. If the owners are unidentified and there is no “About Us” anywhere on the home page links or anywhere else on the site readily available, most likely, the owners do not want themselves easily identified because they know what they are doing is not legal or ethical.

The proliferation of these Read Online Comic Book sites may be a pivotable point for the comic book industry. Just as it was with Napster and other sites which allowed the uploading and mass distribution of “free” music mp3’s, no industry will tolerate the theft of their livelihood. No one can do that and stay in business. However, there is a possibility that publishers could recognize the opportunity here of an audience, like what we presented at the beginning of this article with the comparison to the sponsored supported existence of free TV broadcasts. After all, Napter inspired companies like Apple to create online stores where people could purchase their favorite songs for $1 per download and a whole industry was saved.

REAL Legal & Free Read Comics Web Sites

Yes, there are some places you can both view and download free comics on the web. These are sites which host Public Domain Comics mostly from the Golden and Silver Age of Comics. The first one we have for you is also the “No. 1 Free & Legal” read and download web site. It’s called Comic Book Plus and  was established in 2006 which makes it one of the oldest still around. El Marko claims there was one around back in 1997 which he remembers but can’t recall the name of it. Comic Book Plus has a large collection of Public Domain Comic Books including many of the ol’ Charlton and Tower Comics from the late ’60’s. You can find Steve Ditko’s Captain Atom and Blue Beetle among theses as well as Wally Wood’s Thunder Agents. Comic Book Plus has a great catalog system and viewer. You can read the comics right in you browser or download a copy to read on your computer or iPad Comic Reader App later. Your choice. Another very similar site which has a lot of mainly Golden Age Public Domain Comic Books is the Digital Comic Museum. There are others sites which host Public Domain Comic Books which you can find by searching through Google, Bing or your favorite search engine.

There are also PAY sites you can purchase digital copies ala carte of comics OR join and UNLIMITED READING club . Marvel was the first to do this with Marvel Unlimited. Marvel Unlimited features fairly new comics, usually within 6 months to a year of the release date. Marvel Unlimited also has almost all it’s Silver Age and most of it’s Bronze Age titles available.  With the success of Marvel Unlimited,  Amazon’s  Comixolgy has followed them with their own Unlimited Reading Plan. Comixology not only has a lot of the Marvel Titles but titles from several other publishers like DC and Dynamic to mention a couple. You pay a low subscription rate each month and read all the comics you want. Both the above plans are less than $10.00 per month and for the amount of book you have access to that’s a great deal.

As you can see, there are some safe and legal alternatives to the Napster style comic book pirate sites. Check ’em out!

Project Super Powers 2018

Dynamite Entertainment is at it again! Project Superpowers is Back! Written by Rob (Suicide Squad) Williams, illustrated by Sergio (Swords of Sorrow, Superman) Davila, and featuring an all-star roster of cover artists, this introductory priced issue is the perfect starting point for the most ambitious superhero story of 2018.

An all-new threat faces the Earth, while the team faces turmoil from within and must overcome all obstacles to prove their worth and value in a world that desperately needs its heroes. The Death Defying Devil, Samson, Black Terror, Masquerade, Green Lama, Scarab and more are all here as the adventure begins again.

Featuring an introductory story leading right into the all-new #1 next month, Project Superpowers #0 is action-packed and introductory priced. Includes bonus materials and 16 pages of original story. (Source: Dynamite Entertainment )