Prog by App?

[JOE SOAP]

Shellac had the right idea - when you bought their album on vinyl there was an unmarked CD of it, unadvertised, inside. It simply stated 'this is an inferior product' but allowed you 'have' the benefits of the digital format.

I get the point but I don't buy the comparison. The music's the thing not the cover or what hunk of plastic holds the notes.

I'd hate to see the printed prog go but if it has a better chance of survival for the foreseeable without the costs of paper and press, I'd soon get over it.

[Link Prime]

So - Free / Discounted digital progs for those that have a paper subscription.

While I freely admit to loathing some of Marvels money-grabbing policies, it was actually quite cool to get the free digital download code in some of their recent offerings.
A simple idea: the customer shells out for the printed version, and has the option of an additional free download to their iPad as they see fit. That's the best of both worlds for me.

And to get back to the topic of the thread...a 2000AD App not being available in 2012? Tragic.
For the love of Grud, just bite the bullet and distribute with Comixology already!

[Bat King]

Still don't get why people don't like comics and books these days...

[JOE SOAP]

Still don't get why people don't like comics and books these days...

A matter of space.

[Emperor]

If subs all switch to digital its the end of the prog. PJ's cogent argument about page design on digital will come into play, paper sales will continually diminish and the vital joy of having a product in your hands, with all the narrative tricks and limits that implies, will dissipate. Comics are and need to be a separate THING, not just another display wrapper on an ipad.

Of course, the hope of all digital comics is that it will also reach a good number of new digital readers, so they expand the number of subscribers. The big question will be quite how many this will be.

In the long long term most commentators expect the comic to a more specialist product (especially as current readers start dying or at least having to keep an eye on space as kids toys appear to multiply in all the cupboards of the house), with primary distribution being digital and the main paper product being trades.

A large question would be - does an anthology even make sense in a digital first model? An emerge format is 10-11 pages at $0.99 and so there might be some pressure to say, jam two instalments together and sell them individually. I don't see there being a big pressure for this as long as the quality stays high across the board (especially as the anthology format is great for introducing you to new stories you might not usually try but come to love) but I'd have jumped at this in the early 90s so... keep your game up Tharg

[Trout]

Still don't get why people don't like comics and books these days...

A matter of space.

At last count (just before our house goes on the market) I have packed up 54 boxes of comics, plus at least four of related tat. I still have the last year of 2000AD and the Meg to box up, so that will mean another box. I also bought some Case Files with birthday money last week so it's looking like my collection will fill more than 60 boxes in total.

It's starting to get silly now. I reckon an iPad for the US comics, at least, will take the pressure off.

- Trout

[Bat King]

I couldn't possibly stop getting paper copy... part of the experience is holding the prog, turning page, etc.

Same with books...

OK I can see the sense storage wise & resource wise... And for re-reading I may end up getting a Kindle in the future...

[Emperor]

The view from IDW:

Last year you said the digital share of your revenues were insignificant. Is that still the case?
No, it is not the case anymore.  Oddly enough, digital for us is almost exactly 10% of our direct market revenue, and I don't know why that is.  It's like dollar to dollar, from a percentage standpoint, which is just a weird coincidence but it's been holding true, and digital revenue continues to increase at an unbelievable rate for us.

...

There's just no question at this point that selling comics digitally is definitively not impacting [print] comic book sales.  If anything you could make the argument that the success of digital is driving more print comic book sales.  The correlation at this point is that increased digital has resulted in increased print.  Whether or not that is a direct correlation, I don't know how you would figure that out. I can say with no uncertainty that our increased digital revenue has come at a time when we've had increased comic book sales.

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/22866.html

So it needn't be doom and gloom.

[Link Prime]

The view from IDW:

Last year you said the digital share of your revenues were insignificant. Is that still the case?
No, it is not the case anymore.  Oddly enough, digital for us is almost exactly 10% of our direct market revenue, and I don't know why that is.  It's like dollar to dollar, from a percentage standpoint, which is just a weird coincidence but it's been holding true, and digital revenue continues to increase at an unbelievable rate for us.

...

There's just no question at this point that selling comics digitally is definitively not impacting [print] comic book sales.  If anything you could make the argument that the success of digital is driving more print comic book sales.  The correlation at this point is that increased digital has resulted in increased print.  Whether or not that is a direct correlation, I don't know how you would figure that out. I can say with no uncertainty that our increased digital revenue has come at a time when we've had increased comic book sales.

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/22866.html

So it needn't be doom and gloom.

I read the same kinda comment from some DC suit recently, stating that "digital is providing additional profit, and not harming sales".
From personal experience I can categorically state that my comics consumption has increased dramatically since I started buying digital as well as print.

[Mardroid]

From personal experience I can categorically state that my comics consumption has increased dramatically since I started buying digital as well as print.

That's the same with me. There's no doubt a physical paper comic is a much nicer experience* but I can get by reading them on my laptop. For me, it's mainly the lower price that's the clincher rather than space, although space is a bit of an issue. In my case it's mainly novels that take up most of the space rather than comics, and I still buy those. (I did download a novel for my Kobo the other day, but again, that was because it was a bit cheaper than the harder versions even second hand. Still rather more than I think's reasonable for an e-book, mind. For books that have been out for a few years buying a second hand copy physical copy still works out a good deal cheaper, if you don't mind it being second hand.)

*I don't have an Ipad so don't know how that compares. I did copy a couple of comics over to my Kobo Touch, and that worked fairly well, but it's a bit too small for that. And not colour.** Which is fine for black and white and greyscale comics obviously.

**Strangely the Kobo Touch appears to be more compatible with comics than the colour device, the Vox. You'd think it was the other way round, right? Reading comics on my Touch is just a matter of plugging it in and dragging the file across as if it's a hard drive.

[IndigoPrime]

With the new iPad, the screen is at such a high-res that comics look great under normal use. I would say the main reason paper still wins out is because the iPad's quite heavy and can get warm. That said, the iPad's about 650g, and plenty of trades are heavier.

In terms of sales, I suspect typical comic buyers will continue to buy many favourites in paper format, but might try newer stuff in digital.

[Roger Godpleton]

We should be able to buy individual stories separately.

[Trout]

We should be able to buy individual stories separately.

And again, the voice of youth says something surprisingly sensible.

If the iPod has meant a new focus on individual music tracks, rather than complete albums, then why shouldn't digital comics do something similar? Why buy progs as anthologies when we could buy titles instead, whether or not reprint albums have been released?

It's such a simple idea that I can't believe I haven't seen it mentioned here before. Maybe it was and I missed it.

Returning to normal service: Roger's mom doesn't wear knickers.

- Trout

[pauljholden]

I'm pretty sure I floated the idea several years ago, where I posited the idea that 2000ad could become an umbrella title to an anthology series (much like, say, the twilight zone) where every individual strip could be bought.

For readers, it sounds great; you're only buying what you want but, the big disadvantage is sometimes, for example, Dredd might be 'carrying' the rest of the strips - and some strips may need to be carried for a while BEFORE they become popular/bed in.

Something that DC has started doing recently is short (11/12 page - or 22/24 ipad screens) on going weekly strips for 69p. This may be a new on going model for 2000AD and other publishers.

-pj

[JOE SOAP]

Maybe this is a future for digital comics:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at4-lfhgj8o&feature=player_embedded