DC Puts All Its Comics on the iBookstore

[johndoejohndoes]

Originally Posted by mightyneek

Perfect! I'd like to see IMAGE get behind this and put up The Walking Dead series!
...Well one can dream right?

Walking Dead is already up though?

[mightyneek]

Originally Posted by johndoejohndoes

Walking Dead is already up though?

Correct, However it's the volumes not the individuals. I'd love to get a fresh issue auto-downloaded to my iPad!

[ncaissie]

I have well over 1000 superman and batman comics. I buy them monthly also.
I prefer to have the book in hand. Comics are one of those collectable things and good luck collecting digitally. If I can’t have the books to collect and resell then I wouldn’t pay very much for them. They should go back to $0.10 for the digital version. It’s just not the same.

[mightyneek]

Originally Posted by ncaissie

I have well over 1000 superman and batman comics. I buy them monthly also.
I prefer to have the book in hand. Comics are one of those collectable things and good luck collecting digitally. If I can’t have the books to collect and resell then I wouldn’t pay very much for them. They should go back to $0.10 for the digital version. It’s just not the same.

I agree. I'd even do .99 cents an issue. But I get it, if the world is moving towards digital production; the author,artist etc needs to make a buck.

[Mike Valmike]

Originally Posted by ncaissie

I have well over 1000 superman and batman comics. I buy them monthly also.
I prefer to have the book in hand. Comics are one of those collectable things and good luck collecting digitally. If I can’t have the books to collect and resell then I wouldn’t pay very much for them. They should go back to $0.10 for the digital version. It’s just not the same.

/Nods

I think our way is done, though. The future is this.

Full disclosure: I own a hobby gaming store and following a strong autumn with good revenue from big releases in Magic: the Gathering and other products, we have been assessing the business cases for adding various product categories, including toys, sports cards, console gaming, and yes, comics. (We already have a vintage arcade and do a lot of eBay business.) There are other factors weighing against comics (you are forced to do business with Diamond, the exclusive distributor of Marvel products, and Diamond sucks, as does their game subsidiary Alliance Distribution) but the biggest factor of all is that dead tree media is on its last legs. And that's a shame because the content quality for comics is generally good and they have a significant public following that we'd like to attract as customers, and that as a positive factor is a significant favorable aspect of the category. You don't sell a thing unless you can get a customer to walk in the door.

Right now, we wouldn't dare put any serious money into paper comics. It will probably be possible to field a full store's inventory worth of books in ~2015 for a tiny fraction of the price of that same store stock today. As comics-only shops go belly up, as they consistently do (Arizona's longstanding champion chain Atomic Comics committed tax suicide and closed all its shops in 2011) it may be possible to make big buys for nothing on the dollar. But any more than that, and there's a fair chance you're buying a bunch of mulch/firewood.

The reason for this is simple: They can reprint EVERY issue this way. All the way back to 80-year-old vintage stuff. It can be "remastered" and appear with no paper stains, discoloring, damage, and so on. It can be read an infinite number of times by an infinite number of paying readers without disintegrating a paper issue. Every comic ever made can become a revenue driver all over again, times infinity. It's a treasure trove of IP unheard of in modern media. I wish I had been in a position to buy their IP and back catalog rights before the iPad came out. The future in media is in millions upon millions of microtransactions.

And BTW, the difference between this and something like Comixology, which is a great platform, is that everyone has the iTunes store built into their iOS device and so the IP has much greater reach, and so it actually justifies all the work to make those back-issues available. Also, a lot of folks are squeamish about buying ANYTHING digitally, and have only just gotten comfortable with Apple's digital offerings, and won't likely move beyond that for some time if ever, and that's making a big assumption that they even notice that other platforms exist. The younger buyers will seek out, and spend profligately on, any platform, but wait for them to have a real once-bitten Come-to-Jesus moment as soon as some platform goes belly-up and they lose all "their" paid-for collection on it.

Anyway that's how I assess the comics landscape right now and in the wake of this news, I would say that the old way of reading comic "books" is a clock reading 11:57 p.m.. Take my industry expertise (or don't) for what you will.

[ncaissie]

Originally Posted by Appleisntpefect

YAWN

Seriously, who reads comics in 2012? How many times can Superman die, then return to life?

I do! Always will.
And if they still sell them I'm betting millions do. My wife thinks I’m a big child. I’m painting the hood of my F150 Blue and going to pain the Superman Symbol on it.
And my wife suggested it. BTW I’m 39 years young.

[chirpie]

Originally Posted by Appleisntpefect

YAWN

Seriously, who reads comics in 2012? How many times can Superman die, then return to life?

How many times can a person obsess over an incremental quality increase in a product and follow rumors of it's development for months on end?

I mention that only because I guess I don't see the need to specifically point out when I think what someone else enjoys is useless to me.

[Wolfpup]

This is so smart of DC! I mean those are the three big platforms you want to target, and you should be on all of them.

I hate activation, I hate reading on backlit screens, but still, this would be cheaper and easier to store than normal books, so I may try it out...

Wish someone would release a color eInk 10" or larger device! That would be peeeeerfect for graphic novels.

[xkmxkmxlmx]

Originally Posted by KnightWRX

And frankly, iBook to me is "screw it, who cares about giving our customers a good digital experience". The iBookstore is not a good digital experience, it's DRM'ed, single-vendor, single-platform, lock-in.

Don't forget expensive. Sometimes even more expensive than their print version.

Originally Posted by mightyneek

Correct, However it's the volumes not the individuals. I'd love to get a fresh issue auto-downloaded to my iPad!

It is the volumes AND the individuals. I have been buying the single issues for quite a while now.

[SeanZy]

Is it just me or does iBooks handle the comics just poorly?

Like really poorly. Watchmen looks terrible in it, and so do some other comics I have downloaded.

[Wolfpup]

Originally Posted by SeanZy

Is it just me or does iBooks handle the comics just poorly?

Like really poorly. Watchmen looks terrible in it, and so do some other comics I have downloaded.

That's too bad. Have you tried the Kindle program for comparison? Nook? Wonder if they're any different. I know when the Kindle program first gained graphic novel support it was terrible, like instead of showing the full page I'd turn the page and it would be stuck zoomed in to one tiny point lol. But I THINK it maybe works now?

Even 9.7" isn't really big enough though, but I still plan on trying this...maybe this weekend.

[robanga]

I understand the convenience thing but for someone already buying through Comixology, i do not see the compelling reason to change.

I do buy some books through the Apple store (Also Amazon and audio books though Audible)

[mightyneek]

Originally Posted by xkmxkmxlmx

Don't forget expensive. Sometimes even more expensive than their print version.



It is the volumes AND the individuals. I have been buying the single issues for quite a while now.

I'd like a link to one. I only see volumes.

[xkmxkmxlmx]

Originally Posted by mightyneek

I'd like a link to one. I only see volumes.

Here you go, sir:

http://www.comixology.com/search?sea...m&dftgn=Issues

----------

Originally Posted by SeanZy

Is it just me or does iBooks handle the comics just poorly?

Like really poorly. Watchmen looks terrible in it, and so do some other comics I have downloaded.

It is not just you. You should try out Cloudreaders. It will open pretty much any comic book associated file type out there.

[danpass]

Originally Posted by grassfeeder

mega nerds rejoice.....

Crisis on Infinite Earths here I come


edit: apparently not. No results for that series

[Wolfpup]

Seems pretty limited what they have.

Also, to my utter surprise, neither Barnes & Noble nor Amazon support most of their graphic novels on the iPad. I was going to try all three, see which I preferred both in terms of reader and DRM, but...

And GEEEEZ 9.7" is NOT big enough for most graphic novels. Yeah, I'm REALLY going to try it on a 7" tablet lol

Also kind of cool...the iPad 2 with it's TWO A9s still isn't powerful enough to not have pauses and fill ins for a graphic novel, which is kind of awesome.