One of the things I've noticed as digital comic distribution has butted its way to the forefront of comic book conversations is the incredible animosity it engenders for some. If you want digital comics, then paper and the current system, and if you're for digital comics, then you must be against all those kindly comic book retailers. I know there can be middle ground and the success of one isn't the damnation of the other. It's all about choice, you see.
Dark Horse, working on their own kind of digital solution, is floating out this olive branch to brick and mortar retailers who worry about digital comics cannibalizing their business. It works like this. From July to September of this year, participating retailers will be sent a list of 100 exclusive codes, which can be used to redeem original Dark Horse content from their digital store. The stores can simply print out the codes and distribute them to their customers as they see fit. The material featured will be from their best selling titles. July is B.P.R.D., August will be Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, and September will feature Mass Effect comics.
If you're a reader and you want your store to take part, you've got to let them know. If you're a retailer and you want in, email digitalexclusive@darkhorse.com with all your pertinent business details.
Here's a glance at a page from the B.P.R.D. exclusive. Looks like Guy Davis to me.
Will this work out? I think it's a nice gesture, but there's a big fear and defensiveness from the retail market about what digital comics will mean for them. I can't say I blame them, but I do think there's a place for everything, and it's about giving consumers what they way. Without more sales, the publishers are going to close shop before the retailers who will soon follow. A rising tide floats all boats? That's probably too simplistic, and things will no doubt shift, leaving some behind, and others ahead, but to continue forward in the same way is madness. Me? I want it both ways. Maybe Dark Horse's initiative is a tiny step in the right direction.
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Curious. I want dital to succeed, but I do think it could hurt brick and mortar retailers. I don’t relish that idea, but I’m also concerned that not embracing digital will hurt the overall industry in the long run. But this idea seems like it’s asking retailers to help people transition to digital, which is not in their best interest. Nor is it necessarily in anyone’s interest. Digital could bring new customers, but I don’t see the benefit of pushing existing customers there, especially for comic shops.
i want it both ways as well. Very well stated points Mr. Josh. I think digital exclusives like this are the way to go. Create reasons for people to go to comic shops and still get digital content. Lets get creative.
@Rob3E The benefit is more people buy more comics.
@ResurrectionFlan I see that as the overall benefit of digital, but people in a comic shop are not generally new customers. And comic shop owners have less reason then anyone to push digital.
@Rob3E –i think we’re holding on to the LCS and the DM as the end all of comic retailing when it isn’t. Maybe the publisher selling directly a digital product to the customer through their own site or a 3rd party like Graphic.ly is the future. Maybe shops offering digital product that can only be purchased through them is a happy medium.
Retail models change. When grocery stores became the norm, all of your neighborhood butchers, bakers, milk delivery services went away except for the very best ones that figured out how to carve a niche for themselves. Thats called progress…its not a bad thing.
Not at all interested in digital ‘comics’ If real comics are replaced by lesser digital versions then I stay with back issues and my 5,400+ comics collection that took me 20 years to get and will take another 20 to re-read.
@wallythegreenmonster I agree. There are other potential models for retailers to explore. I just don’t see the advantage, especially for shops, in marketing digital comics to current print customers. You’re not getting new customers, but potentially transitioning people to digital at the expense of the shops.
Yes! This is a good start. I always said that I wanted the comics industry to follow in the foots steps of the movie/tv industry. I would like to pay around an extra $1 and get the physical books with download codes like DVDs are bundled with a digital copy. I really think this is a way to throw the brick and mortar stores a bone and help them keep there sales up. Ultimately I’d like to have the choice to buy just the digital copy, hard copy, or both together.
This is a bad idea. Now I have to suck up to my LCS guy to get any of these exclusives? Why can’t they simply allow me to buy it on their app. Let’s not prop up the horse-and-buggy dealer. We’re in the future, people. Digital will take over as tablets get cheaper to buy. LCS is going the way of the dodo. We don’t need to prop them up, we’re going through a paradigm shift, and people will have to adjust, just like when the computer came in, the typewriter business was screwed.
Digital media is much cheaper than paper. The winner will be the first comic company that realizes this and quits with brick and mortar all together. Newspapers, books, and comic books are all going to change the way they are consumed over the next 10 years. The only benefit will be the savings that the average consumer realizes. We’ll still see real comics just like we see records, but they’ll only be produced for the most hardcore among us.
The publisher should include a field in the didital site registration process for you to list your “Registered Dark Horse Supporting LCS” or something to that affect. To even become a registered Darkhorse supporter, retailers would have to commit to certain requirements. Those requirements could involve a combination of things like inventory dollar levels, shelf space, in-shop promotional materials on display, and many other possibilities that would help Dark Horse get a larger share of the dollars being spent in that shop. In return for that commitment from that particular LCS, Darkhorse would agree to kickback a percentage of the digital sales that customers of that local shop make on the darkhorse site. The shop has an icentive to push Dark Horse to its customers, and DarkHorse stands to make more money as well. Win Win.