CLICKWHEEL BUILDS ON ITS 2000 AD BACKLIST

[2000AD Online]

www.clickwheel.net, the distributor of online comic books for Apple iPhone and iPod and the exclusive distributor for the sci-fi comic 2000 AD, has announced it will be expanding its backlist in the lead-up to the main 2000 AD digital download service launch later this year.

Clickwheel and 2000 AD publishers Rebellion have agreed to include archive material from 2007 in addition to the weekly 2000 AD comic downloads, which began in December 2007.

Will Simons, Creative Director of Clickwheel said: â??The plans Clickwheel and Rebellion have for the 2000 AD download service are wide-ranging and incredibly exciting. They began with the 2000 AD Christmas special in December and weâ??re now implementing the first in a series of archive content.â??

Jason Kingsley, CEO and Creative Director of Rebellion added: â??As the download service was designed for existing overseas 2000 AD readers and latent fans, the first archive will feature every issue from 2007 to give fans access not just to copies they havenâ??t read but also overall storylines over a number of issues.â??

Will concludes: â??2008 promises to be an exciting year for Clickwheel and 2000 AD. We have offered the latest copies of 2000 AD since December and with the 2007 archive in place, characters and storylines within the comic can be fully explored and enjoyed.â??

The archive goes live Friday 15th February 2008. Visit www.clickwheel.net for more details.

Link: Tharg's Newsround

[ukdane]

Link: http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=146854" target="_blank">and now the yanks know too :-)

[monty--]

I wonder if Clickwheel will put Progs from the 80's online? Or do you think they'll lose a fortune in reprints if they do?

[The Adventurer]

I wonder if they're ristricted by what they can reprint in this. I'm sure they can't host any issues with the "banned" content or "Zenith" or the like.

[W. R. Logan]

>I wonder if Clickwheel will put Progs from the 80's online? Or do you think they'll lose a fortune in reprints if they do?

they'll have to be digitised first. Anything ost Prog 1200 is already done but anything ealier will just be whats been reprinted not entire Progs. The archive is due to be revamped soon with more stuff being digitised besides whats being reprinted.

[numanti]

Every prog has been pirated though, so digital versions of all the progs exist and are out there.

Surely if Rebellion got hold of those files they could make the majority of them available legally to download?  Bands have done similar things by making bootlegs legally available so Rebellion could do the same thing with those stories they have the rights to.

[W. R. Logan]

>Every prog has been pirated though, so digital versions of all the progs exist and are out there.

but no where near the quality that 2000 would want for their digital archive.

[The Adventurer]

Indeed, you want really high res no compresion archive quality files. Not the merely okay quality of JPG pirate scans.


Interesting legal factoid, as I understand it, Rebellion could do that (take illegal scans and use them in official digital releases) because the original scanner has some kind of legal hold on the original scans and Rebellion would be "stealing" the work of the individual without permission through a roundabout way,

[The Adventurer]

Could = Couldn't

[The Adventurer]

Also, what the heck is the deal of not having Prog 2007 to go with the 2007 issue roll out? BAFFLING

[Peter Wolf]

 I havbe a bootleg digital archive.The quality isnt good as its scanned from progs.Some stained and yellowed.Plus the disc freezes and crashes when viewing certain pages.


 I suppose any material that has been in EEs has already been scanned digitally.


 Referring to the 3rd to last post the original scanner has no legal hold over a scan from the prog if they are publishing and distributing that scanned image.They still have no right to scan and distribute images especially commercially that belong to Rebellion.

[numanti]

I'm not sure that high quality digital copies would be practical for sale by download, though - it would add up to too much disc space if someone wanted to collect everything digitally - and at $2.99 an issue there is also the slight problem of the cost of building up a digital collection by downloading individual issues - it's great for buying a download each week to keep the collection going, but I'm just not convinced that the archive will sell in the current format.

Now, if they were to sell dvd's of whole story arcs, or even of prog collections, in super duper quality, that would be more practical - or downloads of story arcs done in a Case Files style even, then that might work (but could that affect sales of TPB's?)  

I just can't see that having everything available that they have the rights to would be affordable or practical if they were to be made available as individual issues for download at $2.99 each - it's cheap for an ongoing title, but it adds up when there is such a huge archive.

[The Adventurer]

They high res scans are more for Rebellions use in remastered paper reprints. Of course they'd have to give us lower res scans for DL.

[I, Cosh]

too much disc space

This is 2009. 100 Terabyte hard drives are standard.

Pretty stupid not having Prog 2007 though.

[Buttonman]

Buying your calendars at the Barras again, eh Cosh?