Here’s something that’s been on my mind recently, in regards to “bundled” print and digital editions: I saw someone complain on Twitter yesterday about the fact that DC charges a dollar more for “digital combo pack” comics, while Marvel’s are free, which is true – but also somewhat misleading, at the same time. Because, after all, with the exception of Avengers vs. X-Men, Marvel’s $3.99 books – the only ones bundled with the free digital editions – contain 20 pages of story… which is the same pagecount as DC’s $2.99 books. So, if you’re buying a 20 page print comic from either Marvel or DC that contains a bundled digital edition, you’re going to be paying $3.99.

Sure, there are DC books that are $4.99 for print and digital bundles – Action Comics, Batman, Justice League and Detective Comics, I think? – but those books have 28 pages of story, which actually breaks down to being cheaper than the $3.99 price point on a price-per-page basis (Just over 17 cents a page against just over 19 cents).

I remember, somewhere in the depths of my memory, that Marvel announced that all of their $3.99 books were going to have digital download codes included at some point in the future. Has any such announcement been made about free download codes in all of the Marvel NOW! books? Some of those, after all, are $2.99, and that would significantly change the price point argument.

Something that I always like checking out every Thursday is ComiXology’s list of their top-selling comics; it’s a somewhat anal habit, I know, but it always helps me get my head around the ways in which the digital market (or, at least, ComiXology’s share of the digital market) differs from the Direct Market. I mean, look at the books above: Sure, there are the books you’d “expect” to be on a top-selling list (Avengers Vs. X-Men, The Walking Dead, Batman, Green Lantern), but there are also a bunch that seem surprising, and point to the different make-up of the digital audience: Masters of The Universe? Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time: Eye of The World? Really? That’s not only surprising, it’s kind of wonderful.

Seeing books that would never have the chance of becoming best-sellers in the DM as is do so well digitally is one of those signs that digital is bringing in, maybe not a new audience necessarily, but at least a different audience from the one headed to stores on a weekly basis. That can only be a good thing for the health of the medium, right?

(Also worth noting: The first and third best-selling titles on ComiXology are creator-owned? That’s pretty great, really.)

and what he does is accidentally get caught in Spring Break fever.

Presented as a love letter for Logan, by Jason Latour (Daredevil: Black and White, Loose Ends, and of course, Wolverine) and art by Robbi Rodriguez (Uncanny X-Force, Polly and the Pirates 2, and the upcoming Collider). What starts as a misadventure for Logan as he comes across an old dive he frequents for Bike Week mistakenly during Spring Break, ends with some pretty funny and violent moments. It’s almost like something that would have appeared in Marvel’s Strange Tales.

Completely unauthorized, but absolutely insane, check out the rest of Sping Break Wolverine, but be warned that last page will catch you off guard.

Snikt.

Marvel goes digital exclusive (for single issues) with ComiXology:

Marvel fans will enjoy continued access to single-issue digital comics via the Marvel apps available for Apple iOS and Android, as well as the new web-based Marvel Comics Shop, all powered by comiXology. Marvel comics can also be found on the comiXology platform available on Apple iOS, Android, Kindle Fire and comixology.com.

I’ll admit, I thought that Marvel already was digital-singles exclusive with ComiXology, but this is the change that’ll interest most people:

In addition, starting today, Marvel’s digital comics will be available through comiXology’s Digital Storefronts for brick-and-mortar retailers.

Me, I’ve got fingers crossed that this might mean that Marvel will finally adopt a “$1 price drop after four weeks of release” policy for day-and-date books.

Valiant is back, and ComiXology has ‘em:

Valiant Entertainment is proud to announce that it has reached an exclusive digital comics distribution agreement with comiXology, the world’s largest digital comics platform available on iPhone, iPad, Android, Kindle Fire and the Web with over 60 million comic and graphic novel downloads to date.

Beginning today with the release of the all-new X-O Manowar #1 by New York Times best-selling author Robert Venditti (The Surrogates) and Eisner Award-winning artist Cary Nord (Conan), comiXology will offer same-day as print digital releases for all of Valiant’s upcoming titles. Additionally, Valiant’s expansive back catalog of classic content will also be exclusively available via comiXology.

It’s the latter part of that announcement that may seem like the immediate draw for fans, especially considering the lack of collections for the original Valiant books outside of the three hardcover collections for XO, Archer & Armstrong and Harbinger. Available today will be early issues of XO, Harbinger and Bloodshot, with issues of Archer & Armstrong, Rai, Ninjak, Shadowman, Eternal Warrior, and maybe most excitingly, Quantum & Woody promised soon.

As someone who uses his local library to read comics a lot – Multnomah County Library System, I love you – this is relevant to my interests:

At a time when some publishers have refused to allow libraries to lend their e-book titles under the old business model, the digital comics distributor iVerse is breaking new ground with a service that will allow libraries to offer digital comics to their patrons to read on just about every digital device. Current plans, which are tentative, call for the service to launch at San Diego Comic-Con International in July, according to iVerse account director Josh Elder.

Publishers already involved with the scheme, which will be called Comics Plus: Library Edition, include Marvel, IDW, Top Cow, Zenescope, Boom! and, of course, Archie, the most forward-thinking of digital publishers, with more publishers apparently in negotiations. Excitingly, it’s expected to be popular with “the kids”:

While the service will be available to all the library’s patrons, Elder predicts that the typical user will be between 8 and 12 years old, with a 60-40 split between boys and girls. “Just as library graphic novel usage is dominated by YA titles, manga titles aimed at a YA audience, and children’s titles, we expect that will be our core audience as well,” Elder said. “Our goal is to reach everyone who is reading graphic novels in libraries.”

I am definitely looking forward to this launching. Hey kids: Digital comics. For free. Legally.

Over at Fast Company, tech writer Rob Salkowitz looks at Marvel’s ReEvolution and unpicks the messaging from the actual tech on offer:

The new strategy provides an elegant solution to a number of Marvel’s immediate business problems. It retakes the initiative in the critical digital space and changes the conversation from “What is everyone going to do about DC?” to “What is everyone going to do about Marvel?” It serves the brand interests and the audience self-image of the self-styled “House of Ideas” by coming to market with a big, bold, announcement that changes everything and RAWKS YOUR WORLD! By lobbing this grenade from SXSW, it made a bid for attention in hipster and high-tech circles, the traditional market segments that border the comics niche and represent its most natural sources of new readers.

Beyond the branding benefits – and he’s right that ReEvolution works as an attempt to retake the digital frontier from DC and Archie, something that hadn’t even occurred to me – there’s the problem of the technology, however: (more…)

How big is the digital comics market? Bigger than you might have thought, it seems:

ComiXology customers have downloaded over 50 million comics since launch, comiXology CEO David Steinberger told ICv2 in a recent interview, with over five million of those coming in December of 2011 alone.

ICv2 also does the math that you were just thinking about after reading that: That 5,000,000+ compares with around 6,400,000 (approx) sales in the direct market as reported by Diamond for the same period. How long before we reach parity between the two, I wonder…?

Apparently, Marvel’s digital future is Infinite. As to what that actually means, we’ll have to wait a week to find out; the publisher sent out a press release this morning advertising the company’s panel at the SXSW festival next Sunday with the subject line “Marvel Infinite Comics Debuts at SXSW’s Interactive Screenburn Arcade,” this image and an invitation to “Join the Revolution,” suggesting that we can expect a week of teasers before the actual announcement. But with so much potential available in both the future of digital comics publishing and the promise of “infinite,” I’m very much looking forward to the official announcement when it comes – A week’s not that long to wait, right…?

Somehow I missed the most important part of the announcement of Diamond Digital, the digital comic arm of Diamond Distributors (in partnership with iVerse) that’ll launch in July: That day-and-date releases will be available for $1.99. This feels like one of the missing steps that will allow everyone to gauge the health and potential of the digital market, although I wonder how much it’ll be undercut by the publishers who aren’t taking part in the program (Pretty much the bigger names in the direct market, with the exception of IDW who are participating: Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, Image, Boom Studios and Dynamite Entertainment, most of whom have exclusive digital deals with ComiXology). There’s actually a wealth of information about the DD initiative in the comments section of this post at the Beat, where iVerse’s Michael Murphey shows up repeatedly to answer questions about the program, including issues of pricing, format and why DD is better for retailers than other digital formats. Go read.

Brian Hibbs has all manner of interesting information from talking to DC executives at the recent ComicsPro meeting:

The redemption rate on the combo pack for the digital codes in JUSTICE LEAGUE? It was just 20% on issue #1, and it has dropped to just 10% (on #4 or #5, I don’t think was 100% clear) — it appears that DM consumers bought those AS COLLECTIBLE VARIANT COVERS, rather than because they wanted a digital copy… The single best sales day for day-and-date DC digital comics has been and continues to be the first Wednesday of release; when the price drops by a dollar there’s a teeny spike in velocity  — evidently it is the 10th best sales day (Is that “on average” or for a specific title? I don’t think that was clarified) — but not any kind of a huge surge; this would seem to indicate that digital buyers are just fine paying the full print price, so that they can be “part of the conversation” at initial release.

There’s more in the post, including DC’s John Rood apparently explaining DC’s digital strategy as being “about aiding physical (format) growth, NOT managing physical decline,” which is more than a little surprising, especially as it’s at odds with almost all other media experiences with the digital market. We keep hearing that digital is an additive market for comics, not one that’s expected to replace print sales, and I can’t help but wonder if that speaks to an overall greater health for the print comic market than many had thought, or an overall greater irrelevance for comics than anyone thought that efforts to discover a digital market haven’t caught on the way publishers would’ve hoped…?

The TV series ended last year, but DC Comics has decided that Smallville will live on – in our hearts. Wait, no, I mean “as a weekly digital comic, with chapters collected into print later.” The DCU blog The Source unveiled the creative team for what they’re calling Smallville Season 11 today: Bryan Q. Miller and Pere Perez, who’ll launch the weekly digital series on April 13, with the print edition following a month later on May 16 (Cat Staggs provides covers for the digital editions, with Gary Frank doing the same for the print version, interestingly enough).

It’s DC’s fourth series to debut digitally, behind Beyond The Fringe, Justice League Beyond and Batman: Arkham City; apparently, the publisher believes that the format is best served as some level of media tie-in. It’ll be interesting to see whether or not it proves popular enough to see a comic-only series at any time – as well as what amount of publicity DC manages to get out of continuing Smallville as a comic, considering the devoted core audience that the show still managed to keep even after ten years on the air.

The good: Marvel is now offering digital versions of their collected editions through ComiXology. The bad: Pricing on the collections is all over the place, ranging from $6.99 for the 105 pages of Avengers Disassembled to $10.99 for the 135 pages of Daredevil: Yellow, with some collections as much as $24.99 (the 330 page Planet Hulk). The potentially ugly: The prices are nonetheless cheaper than the print editions of each book, which could mean that we’re about to see another protest from direct market retailers (understandably) upset about being undercut on what may be a core part of their business. On the upside, a lot of the material being offered by ComiXology isn’t necessarily in print anymore – yes, I know, that’s an odd choice of “upside” – so it’s not direct competition as such, but nonetheless, it’ll be interesting to see (if any) fallout could follow this product launch.

Brigid Alverson has a great interview up with ComiXology’s David Steinberger at Robot 6, talking about the successes in 2011, and what lies ahead for digital comics as a whole and ComiXology in specific:

Who knows what the magic number is, but $1.99 is still an inexpensive purchase. But it says something, the 99 cents vs. 1.99 says OK, this is higher quality. It doesn’t say I’m ripping you off. Some people would argue that the $3.99 books are too expensive [but t]hey are selling quite well… The question is, would you sell more than twice as much if you drop the price in half? That is an experiment that hasn’t happened yet. DC has a public policy of dropping their day and date prices a by dollar a month after the comic comes out.

After 2011 being the year that everyone started taking digital comics seriously, 2012 is the year people will start working out where that magic number actually is, and we’ll see the business change as a result, I suspect…

There’s a really interesting discussion going on over at Millarworld about digital comics and the impact they have on the direct market, with Mark Millar and San Francisco retailer Brian Hibbs both chiming in (along with Brian Wood) on the subject (It spins out of this piece at CBR by Hibbs). There’s the usual extremism and strawman arguing that tends to show up in this kind of conversation online, sure, but there’s also some good points made that aren’t often considered. Go check it out.

Artist Robbi Rodriguez has been making a name for himself as of late. Aside from independent hits such as Tek Jansen, Moon Lake, and the upcoming Polly and the Pirates 2, he’s also joining Rick Remender on Uncanny X-Force and Vertigo title, The Unexpected. Rodriguez has been promoting the sequel to his creator-owned Frankie Get Your Gun. Blog@ talked to Rodriguez and discussed “FGYG2″ and his influences behind his storytelling process.

Blog@: Robbi, you’ve been promoting Frankie for a while now. The first part came out last year or so, for those unfamiliar with Frankie and why she has to get her gun, can you fill us in?

Robbi Rodriguez: Yeah FGYG is an acid western. It’s about the subject of revenge and just what are the ramifications from those actions. Its follows the typical hit list formula at the very beginning, but I start it out at the end of the list. It follows Frankie Kansas, a child born with the soul purpose to seek retribution of a gang of land grabbers from years past. The thing is Frankie is autistic and that handicap has been used to her advance on her campaign over the years by her trainer, Jericho Topo, a ex-war vet. And it will be needed as her last target , Bastin Window, an immortal space god trying  to make out of town as he’s doubled-crossed one to many folks. But at its heart it’s also about some Mother-Daughter relations. I grew up in a house of women and seeing first hand a woman finding her identity with a mother’s preset obligations. I found it could be the foundation hell of a story. Especially one with basically two female leads.

Blog@: Interesting that you’d make Frankie autisic, any reason on why?

RR: That’s an aspect I took from the 70′s Hong Kong and Japanese films. The protagonist in those films always have a handicap. The one-armed boxer for example that actually serves as an advantage. And with all the films in the revenge genre they always have this one-tracked mind or presented as a thoughtless killing machine. While she is not thoughtless at all, she is presented to her world as one.

Blog@: Like “The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi“?

RR: Exactly.

Blog@: The art style is very kinetic here. What are some influences on your style and the visuals you used?

RR: This is basically the voice that has been trying to get out for a while. “Polly 2″ was the hill I needed to climb to find it. I alway wanted to do something like this because this was something I was not seeing out there while I was originally working on it. I am a huge Jamie Hewlett fan, and as you can see by the work, a huge Tank Girl fan, too. Thus the nod with Frankie’s look. I wanted to see comics like that again. I mean you see it in most indie books, but I wanted to bring it back to genre comics. Not just a slice of life about nerd pop culture. And I also wanted to bring that energy of the 70′s low budget genre pics. I guess what they call “Grindhouse”. I grew up on that stuff. Dawn of the Dead is the point I wanted to hit.  Its so over the top, but at the same time it’s so down to earth. I wanted to bring the attitude of a Hewlett and [Katsuhiro] Otomo with character interaction of a [Alex] Toth and [Dave] Mazzucchelli.

Blog@: So where are you taking Frankie and company in Part 2?

RR: Issue two recounts the story of the train ride out of town. It’s the beginning of the race for Window. All the parties are showcased and what they have to lose. My wife was looking over the end of the issue and she was shocked by a direction I took. I knew I was on to something here. It’s an issue to show that there are no black and white hats here. They are grey in their own way.

Blog@: And you’re planning on making this a web series, correct?

RR: This was always planned as a digital comic from the start. Back in ’05 when I just heard the rumors of an Apple tablet reader. It will be online for free at Frankiegetyourgun.com every Wednesday, 2-5 pages a week. But also a magazine-sized version of the issues as well. Then down the line, a hard cover collection with an EP from this great band called Married with Sea Monsters.I wanna use the Radiohead/NIN model. Value for value. Support it in a way you see fit. If you want to chip a buck or buy a book, rad. If you just wanna just read the book, hey just spread the word. It will also be on Four Studio’s Double Feature with 50 pages at 99 cents.

[Blog@ notes: Robbi even made a "trailer" for FGYG2: click here]

This is an absolutely fascinating – and, seemingly, financially insane – idea on how to drive the “new” digital comics audience into direct market comic stores:

Marvel Comics is launching a Digital Coupon scheme with their digital comics, redeemable for Marvel print comics. Buy a comic through the Marvel App and you will be emailed a link to download a $5 coupon with a link to their nearest comic shop. One per customer.

Retailers can then redeem the coupon code on the phone, and will receive a $5 credit from Marvel.

Yes, that’s right; $5 in print store credit – presumably only for use on Marvel products – in exchange for buying one digital comic, which could cost as little as 99 cents. I’m sure that there are all manner of catches that have yet to be revealed (If nothing else, $5 in credit for 99 cents spent doesn’t feel like it’s a metric that’s really going to stick around for that long before the cost-conscious Marvel decides to change it), but in theory, file it under “It’s just so crazy, it could work.” I really, really would like to see this being put into effect, even for a short trial period, just to see if it bumps up print sales – and then, if it does, watch to see what other publishers follow suit.

Potential read-of-the-day: Mark Millar explaining why he’s against simultaneous day-and-date print and digital releases for comics:

I really think day and date release is a disastrous idea and makes no economic sense at all to comics as a business. It’s potentially ruinous for comic stores, and in the long term it’s not going to do publishers any favors either. I see the attraction on a very superficial level. They think they’re cutting out the middle men and all the guys taking a piece of their gross, but there’s an equivalent number of hidden costs in digital too, and it’s short term thinking to obliterate the life-blood of the medium.

There’s a lot, lot more in the piece itself, which I highly recommend checking out.

I can see where Millar’s coming from, but I think he’s wrong in a number of places; if nothing else, I think the experience of DC’s New 52 launch has pushed back significantly against the idea of simultaneous print/digital releases as “potentially ruinous” for comic stores, considering print sales rose dramatically across the line (in the short-term, at least. Long-term, of course, it remains to be seen what’ll happen), and I think he’s ignoring a sizable new audience by writing off digital as a tertiary market akin to movies playing on television years after release – Haven’t both Marvel and DC indicated that digital audiences seem to be in addition to, and not replacing, the direct market readership in their experience?

That said, I kind of love his commentary about the importance of good direct market retailers:

Retailers are as big a part of comics now as the characters or the creators. They’re not just an outlet. These are carefully crafted communities and owned and staffed by people with a genuine passion for what they’re doing in a way that the ‘Amazon Also Recommends’ box isn’t quite going to match.

Seriously, go read the piece. Agree or disagree with him, I think this might be the kind of thing we need more of to have a real conversation about where digital fits in with the current comic industry, and where it should fit in going forwards.

As if Top Shelf launching not one but two digital comic apps wasn’t good enough news – In addition to the “regular” Top Shelf app, there’s also one dedicated to their all ages books, Top Shelf Kids Club – the publisher is also promoting their digital offerings with a pretty great sale on digital graphic novels. $1.99 for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: 1910? $1.99 for the first collection of The Surrogates? That’s a really good deal. But I admit, I’m waiting for the great digital deals on the Eddie Campbell books…

From the same Comics Alliance post that announced that the Ultimate line was also going to include download codes in its print editions, here’s Marvel’s VP of sales David Gabriel:

If the digital comics going same day as print had taken off like this monster sales horse and destroyed the in-store comic shop sales of those print books… they wouldn’t have sold out each time we did another one. The retailers wouldn’t have been looking across the board for second prints on those books. Reorders wouldn’t have been coming in on the books. I think people thought at the beginning that everyone was just gonna turn to digital to get the book and not go up to a retail shop, and we watched that not be the case time and time again.