Uclick Launches Customized Comics Page Service

Posted on October 23, 2002

For daily comic fanatics who want it their way and are willing to pay for it, Kansas City-based Internet comics provider uclick has launched mycomicspage.com, a subscription content site. mycomicspage.com allows users to view their custom page on the Web or the page can be emailed daily. Comics can be chosen from fields including newspaper favorites, political cartoons, kids, sports, offbeat humor, ladies' choice, family fare, workplace, serial and furry friends. The customized comics page costs $9.95 per year.

uclick is no stranger to the content for-pay business. Late last year, the company launched a subscription puzzle service, upuzzles.com, in which for $29.95, subscribers can receive more than 70 crossword and word game puzzles weekly. uclick is an Andrews McMeel Universal company, a company which also includes Universal Press Syndicate and Andrews McMeel Publishing.

"For a small fee, people are getting exactly what they want in a website these days. They pick the news they want to read, the products they want updates on, and now, they can customize their own comics page," said Chris Pizey, vice president at uclick.

Comics can continue to be accessed through uclick's free consumer site at ucomics.com and individual comics can still be emailed free daily. But it's the customization and ease of receiving all of a person's favorite comics in one custom page that uclick is betting will entice people to pay to have their funny bones tickled. Americans spent $675 million for online content last year, a 92 percent jump over 2000, according to a report from the Online Publishers Association (OPA), mostly in the areas of business content, entertainment and personals.

"Pricing a subscription service is always challenging. You want to make it affordable to encourage volume, but you can't under price the technology and the expertise it costs to provide the service in the first place," said Pizey.