Will online comics replace paper ones?

[Green Lantern wannabe]

I used to read a lot, but I no longer read the magazines or newspapers in print, because the online versions are much more convenient, and I understand this is true for the world as a while. So I'm wondering if the same will happen to comics.

Any thoughts on this?

[Matches Malone]

Not anytime soon. One need only look at the proliferation of Barnes & Noble, Books A Million, Borders etc. to see that people still love having something to hold in their hand. I can attest that looking at something on a computer screen isn't the same for me, and never will be.

[Rob on the Job]

I just can't get into reading on-line comics.

Tried it, hate it.

Give me something to read that I can hold in my hand.

[Ryan Day]

Not completely.

I can see them replacing, to some extent, monthly comics. Instead of sinking lots of time and money into printing a new series about, say, a B-list character with a relatively unknown creative team, just publish it on line - if it goes over well, put out a paperback collection, if not, forget about it.

Carla Speed McNeil is doing this with Finder, because the monthly issues just weren't worth the time & money. Slave Labor is publishing some digital comics - I don't know if they'll appear in print if they're successful. It's a relatively risk-free way to introduce new work that doesn't have a guaranteed audience.

[stealthwise]

I love webcomics, but I don't like reading your standard, 22-pager on a screen. It just doesn't work well for me.

[Sgt. Preston]

I'd hate to see floppies replaced by web comics. There's just something nostalgic about digging into the old longbox for those issues of yesteryear. It's a sensory thing that a computer just doesn't provide.

[emile11]

I don't think that reading online will replace paperprint version, specialy the books having graphics or drawings, and that apply also for comics, but probaly it will replace partialy the text books.
But reading online is a very usuful channel for publishers, where they can promote a set or series of books or magazines by placing one issue to be read online.
for reader it is also a good channal to read old and no more available books or rare books.
there is many good places for reading online , take a look on this one
http://www.readpapyrus.org
it contain many books, comics and magazines to be read online and links to several sources to download the full set for off line reading and others to purchase online new publications .

[DrewEdwards]

No. But they're not meant to.

It would be like comic books replacing newspaper strips. Web comics are just another form that comics can take.

[hmnut73]

You know it sounds silly but it could happen.

When thinking about how I was as a kid, when I first started reading comic books. I would put them in my book bag and show them too my friends at school. The idea of kids not doing that seems odd to me. And what is a kid going to do with an online comic book carry his computer to the playground. That's just silly. But I thought about it, I can't go to the park or libabry without seeing someone on their laptop. And I don't remember the last time I went outside my door and did not see someone with an ipod. We all download music, videoes, and information and then take it with us where ever we go without thinking about how it was not really like this only a few years ago.

I know what you are saying. "But paper comic books have a feel to them." I agree, I will never be comfertable reading comic book off a screen. For me it has to be paper. But then I was thinking again about my mispent youth. When I was a kid if you had beef with some one you pretty much just picked on them at school, or maybe you wrote something about their mother on the boy's bathroom wall. However I have a friend who teaches in a high school and tells me that the most common place for bullying today is on myspace.com. Mind you he does not teach at a preppy school in the suburbs (although they are more dangerous then they seem too), he teaches at a fairly dangerous school in the inner city. I found it funny that even there, kids will typically use something like myspace to bash each other.

What does that have to with online comic books. Not much really, except to say that it hasn't even been ten years since I graduated high school but for kids in highschool today the internet is ten or twenty times more common than it was for me and my friends. And while I feel the norm for bad mouthing people should be the school yard or the wall of the bathroom, kids today are just as comfertable trading insults online. Then take the fact that every week there is a smaller ipod with more features. It really only a matter of time before someone can download a comic book to an ipod and read it on the go. And as far as the "feel of paper" complaint- it is true they will never feel right to you or me, or even your little brother. But by the time your kids are reading comics the loss of paper won't be a big deal. If kids today have already traded the bathroom wall for online message boards in 10 to 20 years who knows what kids will be into by then.

I love paper. Screw the environment. But my kids will grow up in a world where paper is nothing speical, it's really not that far fetched.

[Mike Marino]

I don't think we'll see comics go completely digital anytime soon. Probably not in my lifetime. Printed comics are easy to carry around and don't require batteries. There will always be a need for that.

[Karl H]

If they do, that's the day I quit reading comics... Stare at a computer screen all day... don't wanna do it for too much fun too!

[The New Fate]

If all comics go digital I will not follow them any longer. I do not believe this will be the case anyway. So I will just keep on killing the trees...sorry trees.

[Sean Whitmore]

Well, they've already completed the important first step: inventing a computer so small it can rest comfortably on my lap while I'm on the john.

Now they just need to lick that eye cancer thing.


SEAN

[Your Imaginary Pal]

Could you imagine Comic Conventions.
Excuse me Top ranked comic pro, could you transfer your digital imprint to Episode 42E on my laptop.

Comic books are essentially a collector's market. In order to collect things, you generally have to be able to hold them.

I do with agree Ryan Day that online would be a good place for companies to test out their new talent, without having to wonder if sales will suffer. Once it's online it's online a onetime cost to put it up, no shipping, no returns.

I think it's good for a segment of people, but feeling the ink on the page is irreplacible to me.

[Mike Marino]

I do agree that online would be a good place for companies to test out their new talent, without having to wonder if sales will suffer. Once it's online it's online a onetime cost to put it up, no shipping, no returns.

I think this is a great idea. Are either of the big two doing this now? If not, they should be.