The Future of Comic Books

[Ite]

Are they any expert comic book fans who know how the industry is doing right now compared to revenues year to date from the 80s and 90s?

The prices of comics are at a whopping 3.99 now, compared to 1.25 when I frist started collecting.

Will comics still be around 5-10 years from now? Thoughts?

[Adam K]

You don't have to be an expert to know that comics now are doing worse than ever.

[John Lynch]

Originally Posted by Ite

Will comics still be around 5-10 years from now? Thoughts?

Comics? Yes. Comic books will even be around still.

DC and Marvel? Depends on how much they adapt to future generations. Although even if they insist on making no compromises with the upcoming generations (and Marvel has finally taken its head out of its backside and started adapting), they should still be around in 10 years time. As dismal as things may appear, I doubt they've gotten that bad!

[The Sword Is Drawn]

Originally Posted by Ite

Are they any expert comic book fans who know how the industry is doing right now compared to revenues year to date from the 80s and 90s?

The prices of comics are at a whopping 3.99 now, compared to 1.25 when I first started collecting.

Will comics still be around 5-10 years from now? Thoughts?

I believe that they will be. But I think that the distribution model will have to entirely change in order for that to occur. I fully expect Marvel to push for $3.99 to be the standard price across all single books by next year. And pushing for $4.50 the year after.

In 5-10 years I fully expect that 60-80% of all books will become digital download only. Your Avengers, Spider-man, Batman etc will probably always remain printed monthly. But second tier titles at both of the big two will become digital download only, in order to make it possible for those titles to turn a profit.

In order to stay in business Comic Book stores will have to shift their business model a little. They will switch to specialising in selling trade collections (Which is where they make far more of their money these days, anyway). Trades will continue to be put out of books which were only put out monthly as downloads, and your LCS will probably also be selling vouchers for whichever digital download service win the race.

It might be Longbox if it ever comes out. It might be something else. Probably not iVerse, but who knows...

But you can guarantee it won't be Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited. A concept whose very name is a contradiction. Unlimited? Then why can't anybody read it without being connected to the internet, then?

[Ite]

Digital comics are not comic books, so if what you are saying is that almost all comics will become digital, than you may as well say there will be no more comic book industry 5-10 years from now.

[The Sword Is Drawn]

Originally Posted by Ite

Digital comics are not comic books, so if what you are saying is that almost all comics will become digital, than you may as well say there will be no more comic book industry 5-10 years from now.

Cobblers.

It doesn't matter one jot whether its digital or print. Its still the same content and page format, it's a comic book.

You have to move with the times. Reading comics on a laptop or electronic tablet is still reading comics. And with the industry as it is it may well be the only way that it survives.

It happened with music. It's happening with movies and TV. It'll happen with Comics.

[Westgarth J]

Digital distribution would also level the playing field between big companies and any tool with an internet connection and a story to tell, so you can imagine why they're reticent to commit to that model at the moment.
Added to which, wouldn't digital-only cut Diamond out of the profit loop completely? Smaller books would no longer be beholden to their practices and 'minimum numbers' rule, too, so investors in that company and business model wouldn't want digital taking off anytime soon lest it reshape the 'buying' habits of the audience - the knowledge that more people have downloaded the scanned parody of Civil War than paid for an actual copy of the book must be a sobering thought.

[The Sword Is Drawn]

Originally Posted by Westgarth J

Digital distribution would also level the playing field between big companies and any tool with an internet connection and a story to tell, so you can imagine why they're reticent to commit to that model at the moment.
Added to which, wouldn't digital-only cut Diamond out of the profit loop completely? Smaller books would no longer be beholden to their practices and 'minimum numbers' rule, too, so investors in that company and business model wouldn't want digital taking off anytime soon lest it reshape the 'buying' habits of the audience - the knowledge that more people have downloaded the scanned parody of Civil War than paid for an actual copy of the book must be a sobering thought.

I think that talking in such terms as IF digital were to take off is a bit of a moot point.

It has, as you point out in your last example there. Only illegally. I think that we are now sitting in the same situation with Comics in 2009 as we were with Music in the late 90s.

The internet has chosen its desired format (.cbr and .cbz) and pretty much everything which the Big Two have ever produced is available as a torrent somewhere online. Pretty much every book released each week is available a day later on multiple sites.

All we need now is the comics equivalent of iTunes to sort things out.

[thehod]

Its also important to make the distinction between comic books and comics the medium.

Alex from Rocketship will tell you that sales of collections such as Bone always sell very well. The Asterix books have been in print for years.

So yes, the traditional 22 page floppy starring muscle-bound, caped morons beating the snot out of each other may need to evolve in order to continue to be profitable, but there will always be a demand for the printed version of some parts of the medium.

[Roquefort Raider]

I, for one, will probably never buy a digital comic. I just can't stand the format. They may help DC and Marvel's bottom line for while, but I can't see how they will save this market.

If the current distribution system doesn't make it possible to sell monthly pamphlets at a cheap price, then the old approach to storytelling (the unending soap operas that traditional superhero comics still are) is probably doomed. Comics as we know them were created as a cheap form of entertainment, which they certainly aren't anymore.

On the other hand, American comics as an art form could go the way of European bandes dessinées and be distributed in normal bookstores as well as in specialty shops, offering more variety and more material. More like movies than TV series, if you will. There are more and more graphic novels being created in the US, and I think that's the way of the future.

In practical terms, that would mean many, many fewer franchise books with characters that are little more than walking trademarks and a lot more things like Jimmy Corrigan, Age of Bronze, Criminal, Bone, Finder, and most Vertigo titles.

[thehod]

Originally Posted by Roquefort Raider

I, for one, will probably never buy a digital comic. I just can't stand the format. They may help DC and Marvel's bottom line for while, but I can't see how they will save this market.

That's predominantly because at the moment you're trying to read something that was created to be read in print and trying to read it in a digital format.

Once the technology is available to read these thing properly in a digital manner, creators will start catering their books to be specifically read digitally.

In the mean time, targeting the large body of owners of iphones, PSPs and DSs and making comics available to them on these platforms is going to be the way to get people back into comics again, especially if it is done at a competitive price.

[Kosmopolit]

Originally Posted by Adam K

You don't have to be an expert to know that comics now are doing worse than ever.

Sales are up over the past year.

[Ite]

Originally Posted by Roquefort Raider

I, for one, will probably never buy a digital comic. I just can't stand the format. They may help DC and Marvel's bottom line for while, but I can't see how they will save this market.

Me neither, reading comics online defeats the whole purpose, they are horrible to read and you can't have them as a collection which is another reason I love comic books. Looking through your old collection and picking out a comic to read when you are bored is always fun. People who say there is no difference between books and digital crap are kidding themselves.

[Ite]

Originally Posted by Kosmopolit

Sales are up over the past year.

Well that is good to hear, have any numbers or links to verify this?

[thehod]

Originally Posted by Ite

Me neither, reading comics online defeats the whole purpose, they are horrible to read and you can't have them as a collection which is another reason I love comic books. Looking through your old collection and picking out a comic to read when you are bored is always fun. People who say there is no difference between books and digital crap are kidding themselves.

I can't see any difference between the act of flicking through a box of comics and flicking through a digital file of comics.

The two acts are identical, its just the format that differs.

And comics are a medium, and one that is not specifically bound to paper and ink. Its like saying music isn't music unless its on vinyl.