Modern Tales facts for kids
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September 2005 screenshot
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| Owner | Joey Manley |
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| Editor | Joey Manley, Shaenon Garrity |
| Website | ModernTales.com (archived) |
| Launched | March 2, 2002 |
| Current status | Discontinued |
Modern Tales was a company that published webcomics online from 2002 to 2012. It was famous for being one of the first places where people paid a fee to read digital comics. Joey Manley started the website and was its first editor. The site featured about 30 professional webcomic artists. Later, Shaenon Garrity, who was one of the original artists, became the editor in 2006. Other artists who worked with Modern Tales included Gene Luen Yang, James Kochalka, Dorothy Gambrell, Harvey Pekar, and Will Eisner.
For the first four years, the newest webcomic pages on Modern Tales were free to read. However, to read older comics, you needed to pay a subscription fee. Later, as it became easier to make money from online ads, all the comics on the website became free. Modern Tales did well, and Joey Manley started other similar websites where people could pay for comics. These included Serializer.net, Girlamatic, and James Kochalka's American Elf. Together, these sites were known as the "Modern Tales family."
Contents
How Modern Tales Started
Working in San Francisco in the early 2000s, Joey Manley became very interested in what artists could do on the internet. To learn more about webcomics, he started a podcast called Digital Comics Talk. He also created a review website called Talk About Comics.
A New Idea for Webcomics
In 2001, Manley thought of a new idea. He wanted to create a website where readers could pay a monthly or yearly fee to get access to a large collection of webcomics. He hoped this payment model would help artists work together. This way, they could become more visible and earn more money. Manley started asking artists to join, many of whom he had met through his podcast. Shaenon Garrity said the webcomics on Modern Tales were "ambitious, offbeat, and often visually experimental." The website was named to sound like old adventure magazines, such as Amazing Stories and Weird Tales.
How the Subscription Worked
The newest comic on Modern Tales was always free to read. But if you wanted to read all the older comics, you could pay US$2.95 per month or $29.95 per year. This gave you full access to the website's entire collection.
Modern Tales History
Modern Tales officially started on March 2, 2002. It launched with many talented new artists and cartoonists. Some of the first artists included Lark Pien, Jason Shiga, Jesse Hamm, Gene Luen Yang, James Kochalka, and Dorothy Gambrell. Famous artists like Harvey Pekar and Will Eisner joined later. However, Modern Tales mostly showed off new artists.
Early Success and Challenges
The website grew very quickly in its first week. Joey Manley thought he might get about 150 subscribers in the first year. But Modern Tales actually got over 700 subscribers in just its first week! Manley believed this was because internet costs were high back then. Also, there were not many high-quality webcomics available for free. As time went on, more and more good webcomics became free. Because of this, the number of people subscribing to Modern Tales stopped growing.
By August 2003, Modern Tales had over 4,000 webcomic pages in its collection. The website also had a special section. It featured 20 Australian cartoonists to help them reach a worldwide audience. In 2004, Manley published a book called Tallscreen Edition. This book was a 130-page full-color collection of works from all of Joey Manley's comic websites.
Changing the Business Model
In January 2006, Manley launched a new version of Modern Tales. This version was free and made money from ads. Manley decided to do this because the way websites made money was changing. He told The Comics Reporter that the original Modern Tales model was "not really sustainable." This meant it was getting harder to keep it going. He saw that he needed to offer free webcomics alongside his paid services.
In August 2006, Shaenon Garrity, who created Narbonic, became the editor of Modern Tales. She worked on bringing back longer webcomics and added a new ad system. As fewer people wanted to pay for subscriptions, Manley eventually made the entire website free to read.
Other Websites Started by Manley
Joey Manley started several other websites that used the same payment model as Modern Tales. These included Serializer.net, Girlamatic, AdventureStrips.com, and Graphic Smash. Each of these sites focused on different types of comics, like alternative comics or action comics. Manley also launched two websites for single webcomics: James Kochalka's American Elf and Lea Hernandez' Rumble Girls. All these websites together were called the "Modern Tales family."
In 2005, Manley also started Webcomics Nation. This was a free service that helped artists host their webcomics. Unlike Modern Tales, which was like a magazine, Webcomics Nation was more like a service for artists.
The End of Modern Tales
As fewer people visited Modern Tales, it closed down in 2012. The other websites in the "Modern Tales family" also closed in April 2013. Joey Manley passed away in November 2013.
Impact of Modern Tales
When Joey Manley started Modern Tales, he hoped that the money from subscriptions would allow artists to earn enough to live on within five years. The websites did make good money. Because of how Modern Tales shared its income, the most popular webcomics, like Shaenon Garrity's Narbonic, earned the most. In her best years, Garrity could have lived just from her Modern Tales earnings if she lived somewhere less expensive than the San Francisco Bay Area.
Six months after the site launched, artist Donna Barr was happy that she was regularly making US$100 per month from Modern Tales. However, other artists made less. In 2005, Lea Hernandez said her income from Modern Tales was just "gas money." Dave Roman said he usually made less than US$100 per year from the site. Before his comic was stopped, cartoonist Jason Shiga could make US$70 per comic strip when it was published in a newspaper. But he only made US$4 per strip on Modern Tales in 2003. Some artists on Manley's other sites, like James Kochalka with American Elf, made more money than the top artists on the original Modern Tales site.
In July 2003, Manley said that Modern Tales was getting between 10,000 and 15,000 visitors every day. About 3,500 people had signed up for a subscription. He told the Alameda Times-Star that "We're not Disney, obviously, but we have proven that people will pay for Web comics." Throughout 2005 and 2006, Modern Tales had about 2,100 subscribers. This was the most among Manley's four subscription services. The entire Modern Tales family made about US$100,000 each year. This money was then split among nearly 100 cartoonists and the company that hosted the websites.
Comic Book Resources said that Modern Tales was one of the first successful ways to make money from webcomics through subscriptions. The success of Modern Tales even inspired big comic companies like Marvel Comics and DC Comics to create their own digital comic websites.
