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.

There’s a line in this report about iVerse raising $4 million in funding that caught my eye:

Among the product offerings iVerse plans to enhance are its PLUS feature, which allows streaming video content for digital comics on iOS.

After getting over my first response of “Streaming video content for digital comics? Oh no, it’s Motion Comics all over again!”, I started wondering what uses streaming video could have for digital comics. Some creators have, in the past, talked about the idea of embedding extra information into digital comics, so that readers could get a more involved reading experience – Could this be a possible use for this kind of thing? Or what about a video (or audio) commentary track, page-by-page?

iVerse has, sadly, somewhat fallen to the wayside as ComiXology and Graphic.ly have become more popular platforms for digital comics, but this kind of innovation could point to a way that they could make a comeback, as well as a way forward for digital comics as a format. It’ll be interesting to see what (if anything) comes of this new round of funding, and experimentation.

There’re a couple of fascinating snippets of information in Vaneta’s latest conversation with DC’s John Rood and Bob Wayne for those of us wondering just what the digital comics market is shaping up to be, in these new day-and-date days (And I’m not talking about the snarky implication that Marvel is offering a “Trojan Horse” to retailers with their Avenging Spider-Man combo-pack promotion). (more…)

This is a great post from the blog Graphic Policy, looking at the demographics of digital comic fans on Facebook:

Interestingly enough, digital fans skew much more male and are more educated than their mass fan brethren.  The average population is 29.12% college grads while digital fans are 54.38% college grads.  Men dominate as well, making up a little over 81% of the population… [D]igital comic book fans are between 26 and 41 and peak in the 34-37 age.  This is over a decade difference compared to the general population.

It’s worth pointing out that this is coming from incomplete data – Those who are Facebook fans of digital distributors like Graphic.ly, comiXology and iVerse on Facebook, as opposed to all digital readers (or even purchasers) – but even bearing that in mind, this is a weirdly fascinating study. Digital fans are older and more male than “general comic fans”? That seems surprising, and somewhat counterintuitive, to be honest; I wonder if it’s also a sign that the digital push isn’t reaching the audiences that everyone was expecting it to just yet…

This feels like it should be being reported as a much bigger deal, but starting in January 2012, Viz Media will be making digital versions of Weekly Shonen Jump available in English two weeks after the original Japanese versions have been released, with editions being made available on all iOS platforms (the iPad, iPod and iPhone) for a month-long 99 cent rental charge, or annual $25.99 subscription fee.

Firstly: That’s a great price point. Secondly: Digital subscriptions! Considering that it looks like western comic companies aren’t quite ready for Apple Newsstand just yet, this, the Walking Dead deal and the Archie Mighty Crusaders announced earlier this week might be the best we’re going to get on that front anytime soon…

If you’re looking for signs that this whole New 52 thing is working out for DC Comics, here’s a good one: They’ve just extended the returnability of the books through April 2012, according to a report on Bleeding Cool. Although the extension comes with a reduction in the number of titles eligible for return, this nonetheless demonstrates the level of confidence DC has in the New 52 as a line – Eight months’ worth of returnability is pretty impressive, and raises the question: If they choose to extend it again, will it be to a year, or to a permanent, ongoing arrangement?

(Bleeding Cool is also reporting that Batman and Action Comics will both start being offered in Digital Combo variants as of #5 of each title, for a dollar above the “regular” price.)

I keep coming back to this Warren Ellis post about the state of web comics, digital comics, and why they’re different things for different audiences, and feeling like there’s something I’m missing in it. Not that it’s badly written, because it’s not – It’s Ellis, after all – but it feels incomplete, somehow, and I can’t work out why. File under Food For Thought, definitely (Anyone interested in comics that aren’t just print, which should really be anyone interested in comics as a medium at this point, you should go and read it, if you haven’t already), but this part bears repeating:

Also, it’s a hell of a lot easier to take your time telling a story when you’re not charging people.

And, while there’s a smile in that comment, there’s also a degree of truth.  Compressing comics down to twenty pages, nineteen pages, probably eight or ten or twelve pages when people get to producing original material through digital comics services… while it’ll certainly make a nice change for a lot of people, after a decade of spacious and airy commercial comics, I’m compelled to point out that the crushed-in nature of commercial comics in the 1970s was one of the driving forces behind the big changes to the commercial medium that came in the 80s.  People were desperate for longer episodes and arcs that allowed them to tell stories more novelistically – and, in large part, they did that by using the then-new process of selling to the direct sales comics store market.

We’re all looking at compression techniques now, because we need them for commercial comics and we’re going to need them for digital comics.

It’s not just digital comics, I’d argue; with both DC and Marvel essentially formalizing “20 pages” as the length of a comic book now in the same way that 22 pages was the formalized length previously, comics in general are going to become more compressed in future.

Also, Ellis is totally right about American Flagg and how essential and overlooked it is.

The “Red Circle” group of heroes has returned to Archie Comics after a brief run with DC Comics, but they are returning with more than one twist.

Archie announced the return of super hero comics in their line via the New York Times last night. In the announcement, they detailed the return, which features the classic heroes living in retirement in a community called, appropriately enough, “Red Circle.” Most of these retired heroes are killed, and replacements, the New Crusaders are brought in to save the day, led by veteran The Shield. The new stories will be 6-page digital exclusives written by Ian Flynn and drawn by Ben Bates, with no release schedule revealed.

In addition to these shorts however, Archie will be offering an extensive digital archive featuring their superheroes. For a low (not yet determined) monthly fee, only $3 or $4, readers will have access to the new stories plus an archive featuring “thousands and thousands of pages” of older stories. More details as they come, but what do you think of this deal so far?

We mentioned the rumor yesterday, and now it’s official: Barnes & Noble is pulling the print versions of the DC Comics graphic novels that are being offered as digital exclusives through Amazon’s new Kindle Fire device off their shelves. Talking to Publisher’s Weekly, a spokesperson explained “We pulled those 100 DC Comics graphic novels that we were not offered in digital format. Our policy is that unless we receive all formats of a title to make available to our customers, we will not sell those physical titles in our stores.”

The 100 print titles will, however, be available via B&N’s website, as well as to customers who make special orders from the stores themselves.

When contacted for a response, DC released the following statement:

We are disappointed that Barnes & Noble has made the decision to remove these books off their shelves and make them unavailable to their customers.

DC Entertainment will continue to make our content available to our fans and new readers through multiple distribution channels including locally-owned comic book retailers, independent bookstores, other bookstore chains and other widespread means such as online through Amazon and through our apps on iOS and select Android powered devices as well as new and exciting devices going forward.

As one of the largest book publishers in North America, DC Entertainment’s publishing strategy is to give our consumers the choice to read our stories in whichever format they prefer but we also know that nothing will ever take away from the joy and collectability of physical books, comics and graphic novels.

I’m not too surprised to see that Barnes & Noble is considering pushing back in some way against the DC Comics/Amazon Kindle Fire exclusive deal announced last week, although the possibility of the chain taking DC books off the shelves of physical stores seems like the kind of upping of the ante that’ll cause a lot of concern for the publisher.

It’s unlikely that DC would be able to back out of the exclusivity clause with Amazon at this point, so I’m not sure what the solution would be for them if other retailers were to follow this route (Remember, the Amazon Kindle editions also look to be significantly cheaper than the print versions, so a direct market retailer protest isn’t out of the question, either) – unless, of course, the potential gain from the Amazon audience is going to be seen as being worth the risk and loss of business elsewhere. I wonder if this is the start of the much-anticipated print/digital war…?

I wrote about this earlier today for Time’s Techland blog (Look at me, crossing the streams of my writing gigs), but as I was doing so, I couldn’t stop thinking about the digital comics world: Multiple publishers and digital booksellers are facing a staggering seventeen class action lawsuits over the pricing of digital books, specifically something called “agency pricing,” which is essentially how digital comic prices are set.

Agency pricing is when publishers set the price of their digital releases, and that price point is used across whatever retailer sells said releases. It’s a system that’s been adopted by the big US publishing houses in response to fears that digital prices were so low that they were undercutting print prices and hurting the print retailers in doing so… Does any of this sound familiar yet? (more…)

Last week’s announcement that DC would be offering exclusive digital versions of certain graphic novels and collected editions on Amazon’s new Kindle Fire tablet may have raised a few eyebrows, but not as many as the price point of Watchmen is going to. ICv2 has noticed that Amazon’s Kindle Fire edition of the collected Watchmen will sell for just $9.99, compared with $19.99 for the print version.

While the decision was presumably Amazon’s – The site lists a “digital list price” of $17.99, and Amazon has a history of offering significant discounts on digital books – this nonetheless marks an interesting departure for DC’s digital pricing, which has generally held something close to parity with print or thereabouts ($2 cheaper for digital sounds like a DC decision, if that makes sense). I’m curious to see how much retailer outcry there will be about this, if any; after all, digital sales are nowhere near print sales at this point, and Watchmen will be a Kindle Fire exclusive title, cutting down its potential audience even further. And yet… 50% cheaper? I can’t see that going by entirely unchallenged, if only for the precedent it establishes…

First Archie, then DC Comics, and now Image Comics: The linewide day-and-date revolution is slowly continuing. According to press releases from both ComiXology and Image Comics, as of this Wednesday, Image’s line will be available day-and-date on both ComiXology and Graphicly, including the latter’s Facebook app.

Oddly enough, while the ComiXology press release makes a point of saying that it will be offering “the majority of their highly acclaimed comics the same day as print,” the Image Comics release describes their agreement with Graphicly as one that will “digitally supply and share their entire publishing catalog, including such hits as Walking Dead, Invincible, Savage Dragon, Chew and many more, to be released same day as print on Graphicly” (emphasis mine). Whether this means that ComiXology is being explicitly denied titles or simply that all the Image creators haven’t agreed to ComiXology terms yet but will soon is unknown.

In the Image Comics release, publisher Eric Stephenson is quoted as saying “For years, print comics have been dependent on a single distribution network, so it’s interesting to be a position to utilize a variety of different digital platforms. As digital comics continue to become a greater concern, it’s important to embrace as many different options as possible.”

After reading Vaneta’s great One Month Later piece about retailers’ takes on the New 52 over on the main site, I’m reminded about one thing that I was curious about, not from a retailer point of view, but a reader’s: How many people who normally buy books in their stores bought books digitally?

I’ve been thinking about this recently, in part because I’ve seen people online say things like “I wanted to try [Book X] but my store was sold out, so I’ll either wait for a second print or skip it,” and found myself wondering, why didn’t you just buy a digital copy? The price is one answer to that question, of course, but we’re into October now, so the digital price point for first issues will start dropping to $1.99 this Wednesday – Will that be enough to convince people to pick up books that they otherwise would have skipped?

Use the comments, people: Have you replaced print with digital now that the New 52 has put the entire DCU day-and-date? Have you sampled books digitally that you wouldn’t have bought in the store? And, with prices dropping this month for last month’s debuts, are you likely to take a second look at some of the New 52 launches now that they’re a third cheaper?

Note: The “Vote” button does not show on some browsers. Choose your option in the poll, and mouse over the bottom left-hand corner of the box to click the invisible “Vote!”

Here’s some good news for digital comics industry watchers: Three of the five most popular iPad book apps of the last week were comics apps. Here’s some bad news for DC, though; their app was downloaded less than Marvel’s, and that was the week when Justice League #1 debuted, and the publisher’s digital push was given a lot of press.

According to the eBookNewser blog, ComiXology’s Comics app was the second most popular iPad book app of the week (behind Al Gore’s Our Choice app), followed by the Marvel app and the DC app at #3 and #4 on the chart. The Bible app slips in at #5, which means that – for one week, at least – comics are bigger than Jesus, in the same way that John Lennon once claimed the Beatles were (Insert your own outrage here – and comics publishers can always feel good about the idea that someone will have to buy their comics in order to burn them, if it came to a worse case scenario).

Now all we need is a digital sales chart, to see who’s buying what books…

A little late, I find this post by Warren Ellis, spinning out of Twitter comments by Ed Brubaker and Brian Michael Bendis, about digital distribution of comics reshaping narrative in the same way that collecting everything into trades and hardcovers did:

Brian (and Joe Quesada, I guess) see digital comics as potentially doing to the serialised graphic novel what the mp3 did to the album. Digital comics services are still very much all about the single rather than the graphic novel. They’re not selling TRANSMETROPOLITAN as ten collections. They’re selling it as sixty singles. Mp3s are priced individually at most music services because people will buy the bits of an album they want. The days of being able to force the sale of a complete unit of songs, in a predetermined running order, are long gone. And I suspect what’s being said here is that there’s a belief that comics could go a bit like that. I also suspect it’s a bit of wishful thinking, hoping that waiting-for-the-trade will go away if you write technically infinite storylines that put the focus back on the individual single, and the individual single being the point of instant gratification that you load on to your tablet.

That said, if you deliberately write against collection as a method to embrace digital distribution…

…well, as I’ve said before, Archie Goodwin once told me that the only qualititative difference between superhero comics and soap operas is that superhero comics replace love scenes with fight scenes. And those shows only end when they get cancelled.

(more…)

Something in the Joe Quesada presentation from Disney’s D23 this weekend has stuck in my brain… Namely, his announcement that Marvel was the #1 Digital Publisher. It’s not that I think he’s wrong, more that… Well, how would he know?

After all, it’s not like digital sales are made public anywhere, like the Diamond Direct Market figures, so surely Quesada is only privy to the Marvel sales figures, right? But perhaps he’s not talking about sell-through, only the amount of individual issues available – although, in that case, DC will take over that crown soon enough, with the 52-issues day-and-date every month status quo established next month. Or was this just an empty boast, made to an audience that wouldn’t know any better and be ready to hear this kind of thing?

I genuinely don’t know, and I’m curious as to what’s actually behind the claim. Is Marvel really the #1 Digital Publisher? And if so, how does it know?

Color me curious about the passing comment in this Bleeding Cool post about the success (or lack thereof) of Barnes & Noble’s attempts to sell comics at their stores:

…it sounds as if there may be a digital comics initiative from Barnes & Noble to come.

I wonder how this will work out? After all, on top of the existing digital comics outlets – of which ComiXology can probably claim to be the biggest, considering their apps for Marvel, DC, and Image – and things like Dark Horse Digital and even Marvel’s Digital Comics Unlimited program, September also sees the official launch of Diamond Digital, the direct market’s response to the digital comics revolution – If it’s not too early to call it a revolution, and if Diamond Digital makes enough sense to be seen as anyone’s response to anything.

Maybe it’s short-sighted, but I can’t help but wonder if there’s space for Barnes & Noble in this space, just now. Variety may be the spice of life – and a friend of capitalism – but with so many stores offering so many different ways to download the same material, is this going to strengthen or confuse the marketplace just as it’s really getting started?

…Because he’s apparently working on one, according to this interview with the Guardian:

The way the comics companies I believe are producing online comics is that they are old comics uploaded online and made available. That I don’t think is the way to do it, because comics storytelling is entirely predicated upon the print technologies of the late 1930s. We have six panels of page on average because that was the optimum numbers of panels to put on a page in a periodical of something like 32 pages. This is what has formed the very language of the comic book. The fact that you turn over the pages. And you can time it so that turning over a page will be the moment of some big revelation. Which you wouldn’t want your reader to have spotted on page 24 just because it’s opposite page 23. And subtler things that really affected the way that a comic story should be told.So what I’m saying is that I don’t think these devices are quite there yet but they have some very interesting possibilities. But before we would be thinking about putting something like the League into that format, I would want to think long and hard about the possible advantages of that new medium and the ways in which my storytelling craft would have to be adapted to best effect from this new medium. Much the same as when comics were just a 24-page thing that you drew on pieces of paper. I was always trying to find what the medium was capable of and to push it as far as possible. Like I said I’ve been having some thoughts about this. People shouldn’t be too surprised if they were to hear something about me working in this kind of area.

Color me curious about the possibilities. Also, go check out the rest of the interview, in which Moore talks about his love of working with indie publishers, and his thoughts about future superhero work.

Dark Horse Comics, who recently launched their digital catalog, are holding a tremendous giveaway at San Diego Comic-Con this week for a few lucky fans.

Each day at the convention, Thursday-Sunday, Dark Horse will be giving one lucky winner $500 in digital comics from Dark Horse Digital. At their booth, #2615, from 9:30 a.m. to 10 a.m., raffle tickets will be handed out to fans who will have presumably been lining up as early as possible for their chance to win.  At 10 a.m. sharp, one lucky ticket will be drawn and that fan will walk away $500 richer in digital comics.

Dark Horse titles like The Goon, Solomon Kane, B.P.R.D. and Hellboy are all currently available as well as countless others in single issues or bundles. Digital Store purchases can be read on your laptop, desktop, mobile browser, and Dark Horse Bookshelf app, available on iTunes. Good luck Dark Horse fans!