Digital Comics

Over at CBR, Kiel Phigley had a chat with John Rood, DC's Executive VP-Sales, Marketing and Business Development, about DC's digital sales and it's worth taking a closer look at. The biggest question, which is still utterly unanswered, is how many copies these digital comics are selling. The second biggest question is where these sales are coming from and Rood does get into that, just a little:

Eddie Campbell's long out of print DAPPER JOHN has been released as an iPad app, he writes:

As the fallout from the Dark Horse digital initiative continues to blow like a glowing cloud over the internet, one other digital initiative has been trashed pretty thoroughly by a bunch of retailers in public and private: comiXology's digital storefronts. The rollout of terms was poorly handled and pissed off a lot of retailers with fears that it was just a front for comiXology to get their customer information. Perhaps in light of this, comiXology has just made a lengthy release about the program's first few months with news that money has been paid out early and at a lower minimum payment. Also a new TOS perhaps more to the liking of retailers will be released, along with other improvements. And the retailers that did use it have called it a big success. 100 stores -- listed below -- are taking part in the program. So -- consider this a new sales pitch: "Take a look at me now."

Responding to last week's Dark Horse vs the retailers controversy over the price of Dark Horse's simultaneous digital release, writer Brian Wood has summed up the very hard rock and very rocky hard place that we all find ourselves in. While acknowledging that no one wants to see their local comics shop go under, he says for creators, it is a rough time with big question marks everywhere:

Evidently, due to some misunderstandings, Dark Horse CEO Mike Richardson has released a statement regarding the publisher's imminent switch to simultaneous print and digital release: digital comics will be priced at $2.99 for the first month, dropping to the standard price of $1.99 after that. You can read the statement below. While it's obvious that keeping DH's retail partners from mutiny is part of these decisions -- DH also has a jacked-up digital price for a one month window -- it presupposes that the print and digital audiences are the same. There isn't really any evidence that this is the case right now. However, in the short term, digital sales will continue to be seen as a direct competitor to print. Like we said, we understand the concerns on both sides.

DC isn't the only publisher betting big on the new generation of tablets -- IDW has made more than 30 of their GNs available for the NOOK, including Darwyn Cooke's Parker adaptations, and works by Joe Hill, Max Brooks, Anne Rice, and Eric Shanower. Unlike DC's exclusive with Amazon, this doesn't seem to have pissed off any retail partners...yet.

Marvel has updated its iOS app with a bunch of new features -- however, the App store tells me that you will have to restore all your purchases after the upgrade. The new features sounds worth it, however. What could go wrong? To entice you, Marvel is running a big sale on stuff like SCHISM, ULTIMATE COMICS SPIDER-MAN, and other recent releases. That's a nice way to get people up to speed with the current goings-on for future print or digital purchases.

In the latest announcement of its kind, Dark Horse announced today that as of December 14, 2011 it will be releasing all its comics simultaneously in both digital and print. (Remember, just say no to the "day and date" phrase.) Over at Robot 6, Brigid Alverson did a little digging and found out this simultaneous release extends to original graphic novels and trade editions, with a price point from $2.99 to $7.99.

Mark Millar has staked a place out for himself as both a franchise comics creators, able to sell books on his name alone, and someone who isn't afraid to hold a renegade opinion -- and he is prepared to defend his answer with his own logic, which may or may not conform to what is generally considered common sense. Thus this long piece in which he says day and date digital is not a good thing for comics, suggesting that a theatrical to dvd type model make more sense -- print being the theatrical release, digital being the DVD. Digital readers "aren't as hardcore as the first group, but they're a great place to recoup any money lost in the initial phase. Digital comics are like TV rights to me in that they're the tertiary phase of all this. These are for the most casual, mainstream readers or viewers and much cheaper than the primary or secondary waves. They're a great way of pulling people in for the next product coming out in theatres or in comic stores, but absolutely not the bedrock of your business."

We all know DC signed a deal to give Amazon digital exclusivity to 100 graphic novels (and it kind of blew up in their face). You were probably thinking that you could read one of those DC digital graphic novels, like Watchmen, on any device that runs a Kindle app. (Bleeding Cool has a tweet of Warner Bros. saying just that.) It turns out, this is not the case. As DC's Hank Kanalz says, "You can't do that today but that’s the intention going forward. Like other other Amazon digital editions, readers will be able to read their graphic novels on any device."

Did you ever notice it’s more expensive to buy new digital comics, than it is to buy new print ones?  The big trend from...

Just a few days ago we mentioned how digital comics magazines for the tablet are the next frontier, and here's another new one, INK. INK's pedigree is pretty good: it's produced by the students and faculty of the School of Visual Arts in New York, a hotbed of cartooning talent and innovation.The first issue can be read for FREE and downloaded for iPad or read on the web.