Modern Tales is a webcomics site launched on March 2, 2002 by Joey Manley

Joey Manley

Joey Manley is best known as the founder and publisher of the webcomics site Modern Tales, as well as numerous other web-specific entertainment properties. These properties include the subscription webcomics sites Serializer, Girlamatic, and Graphic Smash, and the webcomics hosting service...

, the Modern Tales publisher, and approximately 30 professional cartoonists, such as Dorothy Gambrell

Dorothy Gambrell

Dorothy Gambrell is a cartoonist who writes and draws the online comic strip Cat and Girl in addition to the blog very small array. Her work has appeared in the literary journal Backwards City Review, and the Anton Chekhov anthology The Other Chekhov....

, author of the popular webcomic Cat and Girl and James Kochalka

James Kochalka

James Kochalka is an American comic book artist and writer, and rock musician. His comics are noted for their blending of the real and the surreal...

, the award-winning creator of Fancy Froglin. Gene Yang

Gene Yang

Gene Luen Yang is an American comics artist whose graphic novel American Born Chinese was named a 2006 finalist for the National Book Award in the young people's literature category and was awarded the 2007 Members' Choice Award from the Asian American Literary Awards...

's National Book Award finalist American Born Chinese

American Born Chinese

American Born Chinese is a graphic novel by Gene Luen Yang. Released in 2006 by First Second Books, it was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Awards in the category of Young People's Literature. It won the 2007 Michael L. Printz Award and the 2007 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album: New. It...

was originally published as a webcomic on Modern Tales. Modern Tales has also published several editions of Harvey Pekar

Harvey Pekar

Harvey Lawrence Pekar was an American underground comic book writer, music critic and media personality, best known for his autobiographical American Splendor comic series. In 2003, the series inspired a critically acclaimed film adaptation of the same name.Pekar described American Splendor as "an...

's American Splendor

American Splendor

American Splendor is a series of autobiographical comic books written by the late Harvey Pekar and drawn by a variety of artists. The first issue was published in 1976 and the most recent in September 2008, with publication occurring at irregular intervals...

comics on the web, as well as Shaenon Garrity's webcomic Narbonic

Narbonic

Narbonic is a webcomic written and drawn by Shaenon K. Garrity. The storylines center on the misadventures of the staff of Narbonic Labs, which is the domain of mad scientist Helen Narbon. The strip started on July 31, 2000 and finished on December 31, 2006. On January 1, 2007, Garrity launched the...

.

Modern Tales is one of the first stable examples of the subscription model for webcomic

Webcomic

Webcomics, online comics, or Internet comics are comics published on a website. While many are published exclusively on the web, others are also published in magazines, newspapers or often in self-published books....

s and also one of the few profitable webcomic subscription websites. Several spin-off websites have emerged in its wake, including serializer

Serializer

serializer.net is a website featuring many free and subscription-based alternative comics created especially for the web. It was launched in October 2002 by Publisher Joey Manley, Editor Tom Hart, and approximately 20 professional cartoonists...

, girlamatic

Girlamatic

Girlamatic, published by Joey Manley, is a member of the Modern Tales family of subscription-based webcomics anthology sites. Girlamatic publishes comics with a particular appeal for young adult women. The site launched on March 31, 2003 with...

 and Graphic Smash, each featuring a different editorial focus. Publishers Weekly

Publishers Weekly

Publishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...

calls the Modern Tales family of sites the best known pay comics sites. In June 2005, Modern Tales had about 2,000 members each paying $3 a month.; the majority of content on Modern Tales has since become free.

Joey Manley originally served as both the site's editor and publisher. Eric Burns

Eric Burns (blogger)

Eric Alfred Burns is an American critic, writer, poet, columnist and Role Playing Game developer who lived in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire...

 of the Websnark blog became the editor of Modern Tales' newly-announced free content in December of 2005. Burns was replaced by Shaenon Garrity in August 2006.

"We're not Disney, obviously, but we have proven that people will pay for Web comics," Joey Manley said in 2003. "I want [more cartoonists] to eventually be able to make their living from Web comics."