Digital Comics

Marvel continues to pull out all the stops for promoting Avengers Vs. X-Men. If you've been on Facebook, particularly if you've been playing the Marvel: Avengers Alliance game, you may have noticed some comic book down the right hand side of the page. Ads that look like these:

And so the orphan comics begin...one of the three most prominent comics reading apps is getting out of the app business, as Graphicly has just announced they're focusing on transitioning all kinds of material— not just comics—into ebook format for tablets. You can read the whole announcement below, but basically all of the books your purchased through Graphicly apps will still be readable—you just won't be able to download the apps any more. That leaves comiXology and iVerse in the comics app business...for now. Ebooks are a huge and growing market and lots of print publishers are trying to get their products into the new platforms. Graphicly has been moving more and more into offering self-authoring tools, so it all seems like a natural progression. And where does this leave such comics-centric acquisitions as iFanboy? Developing...

The internet is crossing international lines! Or at least it is with 2000 AD, the essential UK anthology, which will soon be available digitally only 2 days after it hits UK newsstands. Not quite day and date but better than the two weeks it takes physical copies to get to the US. Copies can be purchased at 2000 AD's own store; subscriptions can be purchased via Clickwheel. In addition, 2000 AD publisher Rebellion is working on their own digital comics platform for later this year.

ComiXology's collection of media mavens continues with the addition of Peter Levin to the advisory board. Levin is the CEO of Nerdist Industries, and has worked with Nikki Finke and the Angry Birds in the past. Other advisory board members include ICv2 CEO Milton Griepp, former DC publisher Jenette Kahn, and former ZDNet head Jeff Ballowe. So as you can see, this advisory board doubtless has a lot of advice.

Once upon time there was a webcomic called Goats. It was reasonably popular, to the point Del Rey published three print collection. Then the dark shadow of despair passed over Goats.

After braving the (for Southern California) biblical rain storms in getting from San Diego to Anaheim, I rushed past the bewildered cheerleaders and volleyball players to make what was promised as a panel full of pyrotechnics.  Mark Waid versus David Steinberger of comiXology over the appropriate price point for digital comics.  Same as print?  An iTunes like $0.99 flat price for everything?  Somewhere in between?

Andy Ihnatko has a new iPad and he also has a beta of comiXology's new app optimized for the new retinal display and he says it rocks. Not only that, but comiXology will be upgrading all of its offerings to the HD format...FREE.

Mark Waid has been teasing his upcoming webcomics project(s) for a little while now. The same stuff that got him involved with this digital Nova comic Marvel's putting out in relation to Avengers Vs. X-Men. As of today, you can download a free sample of his upcoming format.

This is a pretty good deal: you get a free digital copy of THE WALKING DEAD VOLUME 1 just for showing up at the booth.

While Marvel's corporate policies don't allow for too much investment in their print business, they have been really ramping up the digital side of things. Why? Rob Salkowitz looks at the meta side of the new online comics line and AR experiments in terms of how it positions the company:

Marvel's SXSW panel has started and Twitter is going berserk. (Remember, Twitter was launched at SXSW.) There's also a reporting from CNET who seem to have gotten a heads up, even if the reporter doesn't seem to be aware Jack Kirby and Jerry Robinson are dead (or that the Joker isn't a Marvel character).

Following on what seems to have been a successful run with the Ultimate line, starting in June, Marvel will include a digital download code with ALL its books selling for $3.99. Marvel's moving ahead in this regard is interesting, since DC's John Rood has indicated that redemption of their combo packs has been "astonishingly low." In contrast David Gabriel says Marvel's program has been a big success.