Digital Comics Resources: The End of Comics As We Know It - Or Not

[CBR News]

Marvel launches its own web store, About Comics abandons print for digital, Dark Horse expands its digital library and two pundits have opposite predictions for the future of print comics.


Full article here.

[needler420]

Its the end of the world as we know it. And I feel fine.

Digital sucks donkey.

[DarkBeast]

Yeah, I've been hearing this apocalyptic talk for over ten years now.

Digital is just another option. It's a rather large, awesome option, but it doesn't replace print the way that CDs replaced cassettes or whatever. And it replaces comics rather less well than it replaces regular print.

But at what point will the digital utopians admit that digital isn't a 1-to-1 replacement of print? When will they learn that the reading experiences are way different? And I don't just mean "the touch and feel of paper", I mean empirical studies that show people retain less information and think less deeply when they're reading on a back-lit screen vs. reading on paper (or a regular Kindle, I would imagine).

It's cool (and expected) that Marvel and DC are testing the waters and doing some digital-first comics. I mean, why wouldn't they do that? The fact that Jeff Lemiere is doing a digital Batman story does not mean that all LCS's are about to close. Yet that's what so many overblown news stories seem to tell us. "DON'T LOOK NOW but Jeff Lemiere is doing a digital Batman story! DC's already told us that their digital sales are quite meager, and line-wide 99-cent date-and-date digital will never happen, but JEFF LEMIERE IS DOING A DIGITAL BATMAN COMIC so all you LCS's may as well close up shop now!"

And the people who take offense to my sarcasm there are the same people who, if you asked them 6 years ago, would have told you that "They gotta" give us 99-cent day-and-date digital comics and that it "has" to happen soon. They're still waiting, saying the same thing, making the same prediction. I know one of these guys who has literally bought THREE IPADS by now, each one on the day it came out, and yet he refuses to buy digital comics until they get cheaper. lol

Anyway, this news roundup is missing a story about how Graphic.ly is sinking. I guess the future isn't quite what it used to be.

[dupont2005]

Seems like the average big property mainstream floppy is selling around 50k copies or less. Non-superhero, non-licensed comics without a hit TV show tend to sell in the 10k or less bracket. I don't see how digital can hurt things at this point. Until recently my nearest comic shop was 80 miles away. I think for many more it's the same. So now we have phones that can read comics, tablets that can read comics, computers that can read comics. It may not be ideal for everyone, but for some people it is. Let them have at it

[Marc]

I'm all for it and support it, but not at the expense of print. Although I think comics are niche and established as a printed medium it will never be replaced digitally.

Now, personally, I hate reading any store on a screen. It just doesn't fell the same. I love books and refuse to buy digital prints just because they personally do not appeal to me and I do like reading a story on a screen.

[icctrombone]

It means that print is on life support. But at least comics will exist in some form.

[chrisjuricich]

It means that print is on life support. But at least comics will exist in some form.

Who knows? I've been reading comics since I was 3 1/2 years old (1957) when Brainiac fought Superman for the first time. I've drawn and published my own comics, worked for an independent comics publisher as a sales manager, managed a comic bookstore, been a comic dealer online...and I'm still a reader and collector as I push 60!

OK-- not a collector, but still a reader! As for digital comics--got no problem with it. Got an iPad and occasionally read comics on it, but mostly books. Working in a comic bookshop, I get to read whatever I want for free every week but really have no desire to 'collect' or keep any of that stuff.

That being said, my prediction is that print will never die when it comes to comics--but it will continue to be marginalized and continue to shrink. What is exciting about comics isn't DC or Marvel superheroes or all the licensed properties out there--it's the independents doing what they do, whether it's told digitally or in print, and let's get this straight---I. Don't. Care. If. It's. Print. Or. Digital.

Digital will be more prevalent, print comics will be continued to be marginalized into smaller print runs and higher prices, and that combination will eventually cause the death knell of the direct market and the comic book shops out there. Comic shops will be reduced to being something like 'vinyl record' dealers who still have records and such--as collectibles.

While I still prefer reading comics with the physical fetish item in my hands, I've no objection to reading them online I'm rereading From Hell now digitally and it's not so bad an experience.

BUt really--who the frick knows?

[Johnny P. Sartre]

No, not really but it is adding a new type of life and experimentation to the medium. I can't wait to see where digital goes! I love it!

[icctrombone]

I will say that Moving 40+ boxes around my home is a drag...

[needler420]

I will say that Moving 40+ boxes around my home is a drag...

So sell them. Good luck selling your digital copies.

[Brennok]

So sell them. Good luck selling your digital copies.

or loaning them, or trading them, or archiving them in case the store closes.

[Steve Broome]

Wrote a blog about this two years ago. Nothing has changed

http://coalminds.com/blog/2010/07/di...nce=9ec9842a10

[rawhidekid]

I love digital and plan to go about 90% digital. I will not rest till print is dead.

[Kage Kisaragi]

... This is difficult to streamline, but the way I see it, if comics do eventually go more digital that press then it has little to do with the industry dying or the end of a era as oppose to a sign of the times. Our world is becoming more and more high tech, and much like our fiction the old ways of communicating and recording our thoughts and history is changing with it. More and more we see the replacement of old technology with new innovations. cars replaced carriages. kindling stoves replace fire pits. Is it really all that surprising that paper is being replaced by polymers and plastics? You can type up a 10 page report and electronically send it to your peers and your professor for review, and do all this within seconds.

Digital comics is just one more way in which technology is improving our enjoyment of one of our favorite past times in a world where every second of every day is more and more becoming accounted for. Going to the local comic book shop and shifting through stacks of comics for individual or rare comics is time consuming and not always profitable. While Digital comics don't give you access to a genuine article copy of the comic in question, you accept or make do knowing that you can readily find that comic without much searching, so long as you are willing to forgo owning a physical copy of it.

Will comic book readers let go enough that accepting digital versions of comics as oppose to physical renditions will ultimately doom the printed comic aspect of the industry? I don't know, but I do feel that a lot of the anxiety within this debate stems from people feeling that they are losing their precious collection of self-valued comic books. If all comic readers tomorrow woke up and felt that comics are a thing to read and enjoy in the moment they are bought and then discarded would the printing comic industry survive? I mean, in that situation everyone would more than likely start reading digital versions of comics so as to save time (and possibly money), and waste less space.

[weeji]

So sell them. Good luck selling your digital copies.

Weird argument.

1) The point is that there's no need to. The "cloud" Comixology servers can keep all of your purchased comics at all times, and you can access them and download them whenever you want. Physical space (and even digital space) becomes a non-issue.
2) Good luck selling your weekly physical copies as well. I have found it hard to even give my weekly comics away. Stores don't have space to stock them anymore, and people who are into comics already buy them themselves.