Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Season 8!
January 7, 2007 | 4 Comments
OK, so the title may be slightly misleading, but Joss Whedon has decided to realize all his visions for Season 8 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in comic format.
Here is the marketing summary about the book:
Since the destruction of the Hellmouth, the Slayers — newly legion — have gotten organized and are kicking some serious undead butt. But not everything’s fun and firearms, as an old enemy reappears and Dawn experiences some serious growing pains . . . Buffy creator Joss Whedon brings Buffy back to Dark Horse in this direct follow-up to season seven of the smash-hit TV series.
Quick facts about this exciting project:
- Published by Dark Horse Comics
- Begins in March 2007
- Will run 20-30 issues.
- Will be stretched over 2-3 years, coming out monthly
- All stories will be official series canon (unlike previous licensed Buffy/Angel comics)
- All major characters will be making appearances
- Joss has created an over arching story (big bad) that will guide the series
- Joss will write the first 4 issue, last four issues, and a smattering in between
- Major comic writers have been signed up to write including Brian K Vaughan
- Original series writers will be involved in issues
- 1800 slayers exist, with 500 actively fighting evil as a team with Buffy
- Georges Jeanty is drawing the book, cover art by Jo Chen
- A comic book Season 9 is not ruled out!
In the TVGuide.com interview with Joss, the first five pages of issue 5 were revealed. I have compiled those into a CBZ file here for your enjoyment.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Issue 1 (Preview).cbr (right click save as)
I preordered my copy today at Discount Comic Book Service (only $0.74) and I just can’t wait!
Tags: buffy, buffy the vampire slayer, cbz, comic, comics, dark horse, dcbs, discount comic book service, joss whedon, season 8
Digital Comic Reader
May 15, 2006 | 12 Comments
If you are reading digital comics in Windows, CDisplay is the right application for you.
If you are reading comics on a Mac, unfortunately there is not a CDisplay version for you. However, you can get FFView.
Comical is also a pretty nice application and is available for MacOS, Windows, or Linux. In one instance I even had a file Comical could read that CDisplay was showing improperly. However, I think overall Comical is slightly inferior to the other two applications.
On a slightly different topic, if the new Sony Reader that was shown at CES and highlighted on Gizmodo turns out to be as good as it appears, that may be another solution to investigate. The biggest disadvantage here that I can see though is it appears to only display in black and white.
Tags: "digital comics", cbr, cbz, cdisplay, comic books, comical, comics, ffview, linux, macos, sony, sony reader, windows
Digital Comics Unleashed (CBR/CBZ)
February 26, 2006 | 25 Comments
Over the years tons of people have made Flash based digital comics. Most notable to me is Marvel’s dotComics, now re-branded as digital comics. These formats are terrible. I always assumed this meant all digital comics therefore were bad.
Until I discovered the CBR and CBZ formats. These are simply zip or rar files that contain sequentially named JPG files, then are renamed either .cbr or .cbz with the last character indicating the originating format. Creation of this format is therefore trivial. Readers can also be created quite readily. I also love that there is no built-in DRM, but I’m sure the comics industry feels the opposite on that one. I gave my opinion on why they shouldn’t care back when I first started talking about the comic industry needing to go digital.
Anyway, there are some great free readers that have been created for both platforms. On OS X, use FF View. On Windows, use CDisplay. I’ve tried both these programs and they are amazingly well suited to reading comics digitally. The no-frills approach and the surprisingly good quality has me up late reading some independent comics I otherwise would not on my laptop.
Just to prove I’m not the only nut who wants this, I read this on loony blog:
Why would I consider this to be a viable alternative, while the official CD comics that are out there are mostly just a mildly amusing distraction? Because this is just the comic itself. There’s no animation, no music, no cheesy sound effects, just the comic itself, presented in a straightforward manner.
My main reason for wanting this is that I’d love to get all my back issues cheaply in this format so I could go back and read them at my leisure, without reducing the value of the originals through handling. It would also be nice to be able to afford experimenting with series I would not normally read on a whim. $1 an issue would really allow for that.
Similarly, in another comic reader’s article “The comic book industry is ignoring a multi-million dollar revenue stream”, he states:
[...] for the purpose of archiving stuff I physically own, so I can put the paper copies in storage. No small thing!
Here are some examples to try:
- Zone-H Comics - scroll to the bottom for the one linked in CBR format.
- Liberality for All (2.1MB CBZ) - a crazy right wing comic (only to be enjoyed by those with massive head injuries)
Tags: "digital comics", cbr, cbz, comic books, comics, dotcomics, flash, jpg, marvel, marvel comics
Save the Comics Industry, Go Digital!
December 12, 2005 | 13 Comments
The comic book industry has been hurting for a lot of years. This is no surprise to anyone who has remotely followed comics at all over the last 10 years. Comic book shops continue to close. I think the closest one to me is now over 100 miles away.
Is this because people aren’t interested in superheroes?
I’d say a definitive no to that one. Just look at what’s been coming out of Hollywood in the last 5 years: Spider-Man (1 & 2), X-Men (1, 2 & 3), Daredevil, Sin City, Electra, Blade (1, 2, and 3), the Hulk, Batman Begins, The Fantastic Four, Superman Returns, and more! I’d be willing to guess the total revenue on these movies far exceeds how much the printed material is pulling in. Not to mention cartoon series and video games…
Is this because we read less?
I’m not sure where national or international reading numbers sit, but if anything we are reading differently. Blogs and web news as well as online published magazine’s are unlikely to be tracked, but all seem to be doing well.
So here’s my theory of how to fix comics.
Distribute online. Satisfy the long tail and distribute your comics just like Apple iTunes music store. Right now tons of comics are being illegally distributed online through BitTorrent. Just go to isohunt.com and search for any superhero you can think of). This shows a clear desire by the community to get their comics in this format.
Here’s how I would suggest making it a success:
- Take a chance and distribute your comics in CBR/CBZ format with no DRM. If you put DRM on it, people will break it. Those who want to steal comics will. Don’t invest the time and resources to put some crappy rights management that’ll inevitably be broken immediately upon release. So don’t bother, it’ll just slow you down and likely produce bad press. Think about the good press of being the first industry to trust your clients.
- Do not provide comics in a Flash format that is cumbersome to read. CBR.cc currently has an indie comic called “Six Gun” that they provide as Flash. This is cumbersome to read and I’d guess most wouldn’t bother. I want to click one button and have it flip the page. Simple. Marvel also used to do this with their various Ultimates titles, providing s few issues as Flash based digital comics. I forced my way through one, loved the story but hated the experience.
- Provide comics at a great price point digitally, I’d suggest $0.99. I’d happily grab up of comics that I don’t want to preserve long term at that price.
- Release less printed copies, so there is a reason to collect and save. Collectors want to feel like what they have is valuable. Fewer actual printed copies would make this true again.
- Provide online previews of the first 4 pages of every comic.
- Try some new ideas out in a cheap digital only format.
- Allow me to one click subscribe to a printed version. Once a reader gets hooked on the digital version, it’s likely they’ll want to go further, or collect the printed ones.
- Do fantastic cross title promotion. For example if I buy mostly Spider-Man, and he is making a guest appearance in X-Men, tell me about it when I login to my account. Or, if I buy New Avengers and you introduce The Sentry, tell me about the back issue Sentry mini series you have so I can get back info on the character. Or if I love everything Brian Michael Bendis ever wrote, tell me when he decides to write a 4 part Spider-Woman mini-series. Amazon has become famous for this, follow their lead here.
- Finally, provide your entire back issue library easily accessible. Some of these books have histories that extend back into the 60’s. How am I supposed to remember something that happened to a hero before I was born in a book that I can only read if I find an old copy on eBay? Of course I can read about it on a fan site, but how does the industry profit from this and continue to produce great titles?
OK, that’s my rant. Hopefully the industry smartens up and adopts this fantastic new medium to expand to the potential we all know it has. Put it this way, make comics easy enough to get digitally, that it would be ridiculous not to.
Tags: bittorrent, cbr, cbz, comic book industry, comic books, comics, digital publishing, DRM, ecommerce, long tail, marvel