Rob3E

October 25, 2011 1:13 pm I don't agree that the risk is that low. Currently there are two main digital distributors and a few smaller ones. Maybe we'll keep those two, or maybe one will come out on top, or a third option will arise, but in any case, it seems likely that in a new market like this, not all competitors will thrive. Any publisher/artist that releases their own materials through their own app are an even bigger risk. If you want to continue to access the materials you buy from them, they have to continue to remain in business and continue to support new devices. I think it's inevitable that some publishers will go under. It's the nature of the business. I only know of two publishers operating now that were also publishing when I first started reading comics. I imagine that there are more then two, but I also imagine that there are far more that have come into creation and/or gone out of business since then. It seems highly likely that this will continue to happen. I didn't buy my music digitally until I could get it in a format that I could convert/move/store at will. Now I have bought music from a number of vendors, but it all goes in to the same pot, so to speak, and is not tied to the success of the company I purchased it from. This also has the very large benefit that I don't have to remember where I bought a specific track in order to listen to it. I tell whatever device I have to play some Barry Manilow, and it will play whatever I have, whether it came from iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, or ripped from my CD collection. I wish digital would follow suit and eliminate my one, remaining issue that keeps me from being a full adopter/supporter.

October 25, 2011 12:41 pm "Digital comics may not last as long as print comics on their own, that is, if you don’t back them up, blah blah blah, but if you are responsible about keeping your devices backed up and all that, you’ll have them for a very long time. Yes, there caveats to this, ..." There's a pretty big caveat to this, like how it's actually not possible. I love digital, but the one point that bugs me is that it's not possible to back up files or access them again without the aid of the digital distributor. If Comixology or Graphically goes out of business, I don't know that any amount of backups will save my collection. Only the issues that are actually copied to a device are backed up at all, but not likely in a way that will transfer to future devices/platforms. Some small publishers release DRM-free pdfs or cbzs, but they are a very tiny minority. For the most part, your access to your comics is controlled by the distributor. No amount of backing up will help if they go out of business or simply decide to turn off your access. To me that is the one, remaining place where print wins. Several books in my collection are small books from small publishers who no longer exist. I can and do still revisit these titles every now and then, but in a digital world, my access would end when the publisher's app failed to get updated for the latest device/OS.

October 25, 2011 12:22 pm "... and, my to my chagrin, over this time I have become a full convert to print comics ..." Misprint? Starting off the article professing your love of print, and then explaining why digital is better is a little confusing.

October 18, 2011 10:46 am Hey, that Captain America jelly donut was pretty tasty. We can't all have a Vibranium shield, so some of us need a little extra padding for protection. Or a lot, as the case may be.

October 17, 2011 1:35 pm It's all about whether you're going through the eye socket or trying to penetrate the skull. Only Phillips will give you a chance at the latter. No use blaming the Home Depot guy. He probably didn't know about the radiator hose. And you're the one publishing it to the web, so it will be on your head, Conor, when the Zombie Apocalypse comes, and people die unnecessarily because they used the wrong tool for the job. But it's all academic, really, because Dale hates to loan out his tools, so if he's going to loan you a screwdriver, you'll take what he gives you, and you'll like it.

October 17, 2011 10:11 am I also noticed that a deep, spurting wound just became a non-issue after the zombies had passed. At the very least someone needs to get that boy a tetanus shot! Somehow the final scene didn't play right for me. Having read the comics, I should have known what was coming, but I did not. But I never, for an instant, thought that the scene was leading anywhere good. I feel like for it to have worked, it needed to play as a little aside in which we're taking a moment away from all the horror to enjoy something beautiful when all of the sudden, Blam! Didn't happen, though, at least not for me. The whole scene was just an extended moment of "something bad is going to happen. Will it be (A)? Will it be (B)? Maybe (C)? [BLAM!] Oh, right, /that/ happens." So maybe having read the comics gave me enough of an insight to know, but for me the scene would have worked so much better if I had, for one moment, believed that it might not end with some tragedy. Although perhaps what really tipped me off was the fact that I had watched the Season One marathon which is really just our merry little gang getting repeatedly kicked when they're down over and over again. I guess that's what the story is, but the series doesn't, to my mind, spend nearly enough time building people up to some level comfort/security before knocking them back down. Still, it has been a good, if incredibly depressing, story so far. I'm still hooked.

October 10, 2011 2:44 pm "Regarding scans decreasing as “official” digital copies become more available, do we have any reason to think that the file sharing will decrease at all? Or now that the barrier to sharing is lowered (no physical scan, just pure software re-packaging), will there be more torrents out there?" It seems like almost every comic is already being scanned. Making a DRM-free version can't really increase the number of torrents because it's already near 100 %, especially where the big two are concerned. I mean you could end up with a scanned copy of Action Comics #5 and a digital copy of Action Comics #5, but it's hard to see how that would increase piracy. At most it could decrease the amount of time that it takes for those torrents to get out, but according to this article, that could be as little as 30 minutes after it hits the shelves, so, again, the degree to which a digital version could affect piracy seems small. That said, the degree to which piracy could be curbed is another unknown. The number of torrents is not really an indicator since one torrent can represent thousands of people pirating the files or dozens. Even the number of people downloading a specific torrent isn't a great indicator (if the number was available). The only real way to gauge a digital copy's effect is by the sales of the digital file and if there is a corresponding change in print sales. With digital files already so prevalent and easily acquired, it seems like the solution would be for publishers to release their own files that are as open and easy to use as what the pirates have. Like Anville points out, in the music industry, selling DRM-free files didn't end piracy, but it did create a situation where people could pay for the same type of files they had been pirating, and some people, at least, did pay.

October 6, 2011 6:35 pm You nailed it. Thanks.

October 6, 2011 5:07 pm That Swamp Thing panel reminds of something during the Moore run. Now I'm going to have to look back through them and be creeped out all over again.

September 26, 2011 4:32 pm Someone, maybe SLG?, is going to a model where their issues will be digital for some titles and their print will come after the fact as a collection for some titles. As for formatting for a monitor, I think one major factor in digital moving forward is the growing number of tablet computers. Changing the format for a monitor will A) alienate the tablet owning market who may end up being the fastest digital adopters, and B) force publishers to abandon a print counterpart entirely or increase costs considerably as they print non-standard sizes or have to redesign page layouts for existing digital content. If anything has a long term affect on the dimensions of comics, I think it's likely to be the dimensions that become most prevalent in the tablet market, not desktop monitors. But really I don't think we need to create a schism between print and digital just to make digital successful. I don't really know that making digital it's own 'thing' is a goal. What I would like to see is less focus on the medium and more on the content. As a consumer, I am happy with the state of digital music not because they found a way to make the music dramatically different then buying the CD, but because it got to the point where listening to the music was the same experience no matter where the music came from. There are things that can be done on a screen that can't be done on a printed page, not just different "page" dimensions, but sound, animation, guided panel progression, and more. These are interesting ideas, and they could make a new thing of their own, but the more you rely on them, the more it becomes dependent on the device rather than simply another way to present the same type of story telling. I'm not opposed, but to me that's not the "digital comics" I'm interested in. I think digital comics will come into their own when, come Wednesday, one person can read their screen and another can read their floppy, and both will have almost the same experience.