Digital Comics

Oh no, Naoki! Not you too!

My new logline on all things comics is that in two or three years (probably two) original digital comics will be where comiXology is now—a major player in the game. Over at Publishers Weekly, Matt White provides a foundational, publisher-by-publisher look at what is going on in the digital-first arena, and it's a LOT.

By Todd Allen I was wondering if we had a full-on exclusivity war brewing when I started hearing about publishers, particularly digital imprints going exclusive...

By Todd Allen While the print version won't be showing up until October, DC continues to have a fairly imaginative creative line-up on it's Legends...

A trio of stories on digital from Publishers Weekly that illuminate book demographics and strategies: § Jim Milliot surveys a recent report from Bowker and notes that digital book prices are falling, but Gen Y has overtaken the Boomers as the biggest book consumers:

Mere days ago we revealed ACES WEEKLY, a new digital anthology which cartoonist David Lloyd is launching. The contributors list sounded awesome, but no sample pages were released. However Kyle Baker has posted a huge preview of SMASH MANNIX VS THE MOB, his strip for the anthology, writing:

Another digital to print success story—Alex De Campi and Christine Larsen's VALENTINE, which made headlines as a digital only comic that was translated into multiple languages. As noted below it was a true digital pioneer, with more than 350,000 downloads. And now...you can hold it in your hand.

Yet ANOTHER creator owned digital anthology project, this one spearheaded by artist David Lloyd (V for Vendetta). Details of Aces Weekly have now been revealed. The impressive list of contributors includes:

Add the UK's 2000 Ad -- home of Judge Dredd -- to the list of publishers going day and date. They're even getting their own app, via the Apple Newsstand, which is offering a free introductory 69-page sampler with pages from Judge Dredd: Day of Chaos, Zombo, and Ichabod Azrael. Subscribers get up to a 24% discount and a selection of free back issues. Single issues are $2.99/£1.99.

If you are one of the last souls who has yet to buy WANDER or DRACULA THE UNCONQUERED #2, allow me to convince you. Put away that latte money for I have something better for you to enjoy.

A digital magazine about...digital comics? Why didn't anyone think of that before?

by Alexander Añé -- One of the hot topics in the comics industry is the movement into the digital medium, and of course the biggest question in that migration is, "what's it going to cost?" Sunday afternoon at San Diego Comic-Con, the leading voices in this debate came together to discuss this topic: Mark Waid representing Thrillbent, Scott Kurtz the creator of PvP, IDW Publishing's ePublishing director Jeff Webber, Chris Ross attending as Top Shelf's director of digital publications, and moderating the panel is comiXology's Chip Mosher.