Eagle One Media made a bold move today with their announcement of a comic digital download store. From the PR:
Eagle One Media is proud to announce it has teamed with some of the comic book industry’s leading publishers in making available comic digital downloads to readers world-wide. Consumers are now able to purchase and download hundreds of comic book content through the Eagle One Media website at www.eagleonemedia.com. With comics and graphic novels available from such publishers as IDW, Moonstone, Antarctic Press, Alterna, Rorschach, Heroic, and others in simple to use pdf format and for as little as 99 cents an issue.
Each comic available through the Eagle One Media website www.eagleonemedia.com is formatted in easy to use full page pdf files that can be viewed through the free Adobe Reader computer application. Consumers will be able to save the content to multiple machines and even print the issues they purchase (background watermarks applied). The first couple of pages of each comic can also be previewed for free at the website prior to making a purchase. Each week more comics and graphic novels will be added along with content from newly added publishers wishing to make their content available.
Eagle One Media has an established track record with DVD releases, comics on DVD, and self-described “family-friendly” animated fare (like Dragon Blade: The Beginning).
A quick look at the site shows a number of titles available. Among those included:
Caliber Comics’ Deadworld (more on the way)
Silent Devil’s Dracula vs. King Arthur (coming soon)
Antarctic Press’s Gold Digger, Twilight X, Darkwood, and more
Heroic Publishing’s Flare, CHAMPIONS®, and more
IDW’s IGOR, Zombies, and more coming soon
Moonstone’s The Phantom, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Buckaroo Banzai, and more
Given the climate of the economy and the shifting direct market landscape, it’s reasonable to assume that we’ll see more small press publishers gravitate to a service like this. Expect more on this as new publishers and releases are confirmed.
January 27th, 2009 at 2:53 am
An interesting service, and well worth keeping an eye on. They’d be well-served by putting a bit more work into the preview function, however. Of the three books I previewed, two showed just the cover, a credits page and one page of story; the other (Buckaroo Banzai #1) just showed the cover, credits, and an ad. I’d like to see a couple pages of continuity before I buy.
January 27th, 2009 at 7:22 am
I blogged about Eagle One Media’s new comic DL store a few days ago: http://tinyurl.com/d2qecl
I think this is a wonderful distribution option for creators and small press publishers. You can’t go wrong using this service in addition to other alternate distribution options. As demonstrated by Diamond’s new benchmark change, one means of distribution is never a good thing for small press creators/publishers.
-D
January 27th, 2009 at 9:27 am
BRILLIANT! While Marvel is busy screwing around around with DCU (which is little more than renting comics), someone is finally working out how it should be done.
I fully support this site and intend to, if nothing else, buy Gold Digger from there*, and possibly a few other comics. Seriously, this belongs on the front page with as much publicity, as this is the true future of comics.
I do have a couple of issues with it though:
- It should be its own site, not just a /downloadsite.
- The database could stand to be a bit more userfriendly. I don’t want to have to scroll through three pages just to get to Gold Diggers 36 or whatever. It’d be better if, once you got to a publisher’s page, they were organized by series. And then once you selected a series, you could get to each different comic book from a drop-down menu.
- PDF files = comic equivalent of using .wma instead of .mp3. The pirates have been stealing from you for nearly this entire decade. Why not steal back from them? .cbr is a far better format for comic books, and CBReader is a far better program for it. Don’t be afraid to use tech the pirates have come up with–its a new era.
Still, its early days and there’s plenty of time to work the kinks out. [b]I’m just glad someone finally decided to do this.[/b] I hope more publishers sign up with these guys, and DC and Marvel see that this is the way to go.
I don’t care how many fans say “I’ll NEVER read comics on a computer screen!”, once they realize they can get the same amount of series for one-fourth the price, a lot of them will cave. (Bringing ninety-nine cent comics back is a brilliant move.)
* I applaud Antarctic Press’ willingness to dive headfirst into this and uploading some of their best-selling comics.
January 27th, 2009 at 10:20 am
I love the idea – but second the suggestion of .cbr (or .cbz) rather than .pdf. PDFs are great for printing – but marginal at best when it comes to reading on screen.
Great idea – middling execution.