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