opensourcecode

October 18, 2011 6:24 pm Quentin Quire is coming back. Quentin Quire was a phoenix. (oh yes he was!)

June 5, 2010 11:47 am

what a fantastic opportunity to not buy any marvel comics in the next year or so! 

 

seriously, x-men vs. vampires?

 

i don't care. at all. 

May 18, 2010 6:38 am

@wood: point.

I would feel bad about shafting the creators, if I thought i was shafting them. I LOVE comics to death. I have two full bookcases of trades at my parents' house, and I re-read them every time I'm home. I also have about 9 feet worth of single issues in longboxes at their house which I....never...read. Ever. 

But the creators still get paid, no matter if I happen to pick up a single copy of their issues or not. They got paid before the thing ever even went to print. My understanding is, the LCS guys order from Diamond long before happy happy Wednesday. Diamond pays the publisher based on....preorders? I'm not sure how exactly that works. And the publisher pays the creators based on the pre-order sales of their previous work. Actual single-issue sales contribute to a creator's paycheck.....not at all? Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

So, the only people I'm actually taking money away from is the poor guys trying to make it in the LCS business. Which sucks, because those guys are the heart and soul of this business. But There are no english-language shops here. And honestly, with the new price point......meh.

 

I think that discussing piracy is totally valid in this thread, since almost every time I finish a pirated comic I think, "wow. I'm surely happy I didn't pay $3.99 (or $4.99!) for that." I only read stuff like Siege or X-men to find out what's up with characters I liked when I was a kid. And I'm almost always disappointed. And Bendis and Fraction and the big boys are gonna sell books no matter if I get suckered into the single issue scam or not. 

I mean, four bucks for, like, 10 minutes MAX of entertainment? And then the very real possibility of it sucking as much as Fallen Sun??  I get much more bang for my buck from a pack of cigarettes or a beer.  

Much like gasoline in 2007, $4 is the tipping point at which I say, "Screw It. I'm out." Single issues have become a horrible pyramid scheme devoted to screwing everybody except Diamond. 

The exception here is Creator-Owned. So maybe I should keep buying issues from Avatar & Image? But they're always gonna do trades. They have to sell in as many formats as possible to make any money at all. And Godland has kept chugging merrily along despite the fact that I only get it in trades.

 

Seriously, if I'm way off-base here, I'd love to have someone explain it to me. 

 

 

 

May 17, 2010 7:54 am

Yeah. I'm done buying issues. 

Admittedly I just moved to Japan, where English-language comics are damn near impossible to come by, and would probably be marked up significantly, not to mention the horrifying thought of bulk-shipping them home.....

But even when I get home, I'm not buying single issues of anything anymore. I'll think about trades. They're presentable in a bookshelf, and I like having a whole story in one book.

Now, if someone could come out with an even halfway worthwhile way for me to pay for digital comics, I wouldn't spend nearly as much time on RapidShare. But thats the thing: It's easier for me to steal 'em than to pay for 'em. Until that gets fixed, Minutemen & DCP will continue to siphon money from the creators. 

 

The only people I feel bad about shafting are the LCS guys, and they don't have those in Tokyo.

 

 

How's that for a first-ever post? 

 

:)