COMIC BOOKS future?

[RobertScorpio]

In another thread started, we are talking about how cool these hand held "e books" are...i have what they call a SONY READER, but I guess there are others too...

Why don't the COMIC BOOK companies get their buts out of the sand and do this too..and i dont mean online, I mean stuff you can down load and read where ever you go? Comic books go for $3 or more, where i live, and i would love the chance to buy them, store them on my hard drive, and read them when i want to...

As for older stuff? Somehow get that stuff transfered into a ADOBE document and sell it on the web. I would pay, hmmmmm, i would pay $150 for the entire original JLA run from the early 1960s to the mid 1980s.

Or...is Scorpio too late on this one..are they already doing this???

Rob

 

[TemporalFlux]

Digital is the only future comics has; the industry has just been extremely slow in realizing this. The argument is that they are waiting on the right technology (and that next year's rumored magazine size Apple tablet may be the answer); but I believe it a poor excuse for the slow pace.

There are two key things to make people want to digital comics - ownership and price. As you stated, people need to be purchasing the file and not just internet access to the file. This is where Marvel made their mistake. I'm not paying a subscription fee for something I can only read when I happen to have internet access.

On price, my level is 99 cents per digital comic. As small as the difference may sound, I'm not paying 2 bucks for a digital comic; I don't even feel attracted to paying $1.25. If they make it 99 cents, I think you would see the public more accepting; dropping five bucks for 110 pages of content sounds like a good deal in an age where you can drop 15 or 20 bucks for hours of enjoyment on a video game.

Will the comics industry do it? I'm not sure they're smart enough. They've been cannabilizing their readership for decades by raising prices to make up for lost consumers; I'm not sure they even remember how to honestly draw in new readers.

 

[byron lomax]

I really DO hope DC and Marvel get off their backsides and get their comics transferred to digital. There is so much great material that can still only be found in back issue bins and eBay that these companies really should be paying more respect to, especially from the "Bronze" and "Copper" ages which are remarkably under-represented in reprints and collections.

Additionally, there's a huge number of people who have next to no access to comics proper, besides trades in the local bookshop. Most cities in my country probably don't have a big enough fanbase to support even one successful comic shop, so there's very few around. Digital is the obvious way to make comics more accessible.

 

[RobertScorpio]

I really DO hope DC and Marvel get off their backsides and get their comics transferred to digital. There is so much great material that can still only be found in back issue bins and eBay that these companies really should be paying more respect to, especially from the "Bronze" and "Copper" ages which are remarkably under-represented in reprints and collections.

Additionally, there's a huge number of people who have next to no access to comics proper, besides trades in the local bookshop. Most cities in my country probably don't have a big enough fanbase to support even one successful comic shop, so there's very few around. Digital is the obvious way to make comics more accessible.

I agree with you so much...Most of my comics come from the 70s and I would love to get digital versions. Then again, maybe not..I'D SPEND ALL MY MONEY on them...LOL..

Rob

 

[DarthPipes]

The hell with ebooks. I say people need to get the hell out of their house, buy a book, and read it.

 

[Lookingglassman]

I wish they would start making war comics again. I grew up on GI Combat and SGT Rock and The Unknown Soldier.

 

[A beaker full of death]

I really DO hope DC and Marvel get off their backsides and get their comics transferred to digital.

Balls.
A comic page is in itself a composition. Though viewed frame by frame, it is intended to be viewed in its entirety for the overall experience.

For instance, here is a rough of a page I once did. I've highlighted some of the composition lines to make the point.

 

[byron lomax]

I don't think digital comics would be quite the same as a real comic, but I still stand by my original comments. It's the best way to go to make a large number of material accessible to the largest number of people - at least in the near-future.

 

[RobertScorpio]

I don't think digital comics would be quite the same as a real comic, but I still stand by my original comments. It's the best way to go to make a large number of material accessible to the largest number of people - at least in the near-future.

exactly...my days of collecting comics, for value, has long passed..I just want to read them now...

Rob

 

[TheBrew]

I would not mind buying my monthlies digitally and getting physical trades.

 

[MNM]

Digital is the only future comics has;

I disagree entirely, and think that focusing on trying to put comics in a digital realm, one they are not suited for, is a task that is diverting them from fixing the very real problems they have, and that is physical distribution and price. Put them readily available and priced at a decent selling point and they will sell big numbers.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I don't think comics necessarily need to go digital. Regular books haven't been replaced by ebooks yet, though they may well be relegated to niche status in the coming decades.

Comics are already a niche, and they either need to break out of it or perish. They keep rebooting and retooling classic characters, trying to draw a new audience, but it almost never works. It seems to me the critical acclaim (and thus good sellers) goes to new, original series, especially those with a limited run. In fact, the very concept of serialized comic books that run for decades on end may have outlived its usefulness. It's still seen as a barrier by many people.

I don't know how they can adequately address the distribution and pricing problems, though. They would have to essentially abandon the entire concept of comics as collectibles, and start putting them on newsprint again, knowing the physical quality will suffer. I do know that since I was reading comics in the '90's, prices were hiked several times and it was always attributed to rising paper costs. Marvel in particular switched from a glossy paper to a much thinner semi-gloss format to save money. But there's only so far you can go with that.

 

[RobertScorpio]

I don't think comics necessarily need to go digital. Regular books haven't been replaced by ebooks yet, though they may well be relegated to niche status in the coming decades.

Comics are already a niche, and they either need to break out of it or perish. They keep rebooting and retooling classic characters, trying to draw a new audience, but it almost never works. It seems to me the critical acclaim (and thus good sellers) goes to new, original series, especially those with a limited run. In fact, the very concept of serialized comic books that run for decades on end may have outlived its usefulness. It's still seen as a barrier by many people.

I don't know how they can adequately address the distribution and pricing problems, though. They would have to essentially abandon the entire concept of comics as collectibles, and start putting them on newsprint again, knowing the physical quality will suffer. I do know that since I was reading comics in the '90's, prices were hiked several times and it was always attributed to rising paper costs. Marvel in particular switched from a glossy paper to a much thinner semi-gloss format to save money. But there's only so far you can go with that.

I actually agree with you. I would not but any new comics, with the exception of the JSA. But I would buy the comics of my youth because that was the time I thought comics, both DC and Marvel, were at their best...

I think there is a big market in that era because BABY BOOMERS are very nostalgic..and 1960s-70s comics, E-book versions, I think would sell..

Rob

 

[Out Of My Vulcan Mind]

I really DO hope DC and Marvel get off their backsides and get their comics transferred to digital.

Balls.
A comic page is in itself a composition. Though viewed frame by frame, it is intended to be viewed in its entirety for the overall experience.

Digital comics don't have to discard traditional page composition. Once there's a full color e-reader with a decent screen size the device will be able to display a full comic book page in the same dimensions, or greater, than a standard comic. For that matter, a widescreen monitor that can swivel can currently display digital comics with each full page displayed.

Digital comics can and should play a significant role in the future of the medium. That doesn't mean it's an either/or proposition. Just as physical books and e-books co-exist, so too will physical comics and digital comics. But the potential for a lower price point and ease of distribution offered by digital comics means that they could be an instrument to substantially increase comics readership.

 

[Nick Ryder]

Honestly I think the big 2 need to go the way of Magna, where they sell the trades nearly everywhere and the monthly floppies at the comic shops. I think they could easily make more profit by selling 500,000 units for like $14.99 than they could 10,000 at 3.99 - especially when nearly every store with a decent book section could carry the monthly or bi-monthly adventures of nearly every marvel character. I mean how much easier would Secret Invasion or Civil War have been to follow if all that month's tie ins were in one single volume? Even easier yet if you could simply download the comics to your PC or an e-reader.

Once e-readers drop to the $49.99 level for a decent book sized unit, will be the day that Marvel and DC need to start making e-reader versions stat. And not 5 months later either!

 

[Dusty Ayres]

exactly...my days of collecting comics, for value, has long passed..I just want to read them now...

Rob

Guy, I NEVER buy comics to collect and keep so that I can sell them-I've been buying them to READ! If I like the art and story, that's what I do especially. That's what you should do, too.

 

[Mr Light]

What they need to do is sell the trades and comics at a smaller size and smaller cost. Marvel briefly made these "digest" trades that were 2/3 the page size and 2/3 the cost as well. They should do that for everything; the smaller page size doesn't "cram" the image at all.

 

[FalTorPan]

There is probably a reason why they were made only briefly.

 

[Mr Light]

I think they still make them for the kiddie versions of the books because those are still in book stores. I wish they made them for the real stuff too, which they briefly did around 2005. I got the entire run of Robert Kirkman's Ant-Man series this way.

 

[dragunzng]

Just came in to say that since Sony launched comics on the PlayStation Store for PSP on December 16, I've bought over 50 comics, I LOVE being able to get these books digitally.

As an artist I think the digital medium holds a lot of promise for digital comics, but they need to be built around the technology. I'm not just talking about cheesy sound effects, I'm talking about utilising the space, breaking out of the traditional page/book shape and format, and looking into utilising technologies like the giga-pixel image and high resolution image enhancement technology. I also believe the advent of 3D televisions and displays could and should be leveraged by comic book artists to tell stories in more compelling ways.

Balls.
A comic page is in itself a composition. Though viewed frame by frame, it is intended to be viewed in its entirety for the overall experience.

Too true, which is why digital comics need to be made specifically for the medium in order to leverage its individual strengths.

To be clear on my stance, I don't necessarily believe that comics need to go digital to survive, I believe that like the difference between the newspaper strip and the comic book, and the graphic novel, the digital comic will just be another iteration utilising a different display format and delivery system.