Jun
01

Digital Comics: DC Shows Everyone Just How Big Their Dick Is

The big news yesterday hit that DC Comics will reboot their entire line of comic books beginning in September: all new #1′s, all new creative teams, all new continuity from which to tell all new stories about their classic characters. In the wake of their currently ongoing Flashpoint event, apparently some kind of event will occur that will reset the DC Universe to 0. Rolling out their big guns to show how serious they are, DC announced the first title in this reboot launch for August 31: The Justice League by writer Geoff Johns and acclaimed artist Jim Lee.

DC's rebooted Justice League. (Image courtesy of Newsarama)

 

 

For comics fans alone, this was a bombshell of an announcement. The hits didn’t stop there though as DC announced that in conjunction with this reboot, everyone one of their new titles would be available digitally same day as print.

That’s right. That noise you just heard was every comics retailer in the country shuttering their doors.

The comics Internet has, of course, exploded into fanboy rampage as the dwindling numbers of comics retailers express their outrage that DC is leaving them in the dust. They’re correct, too. DC isn’t just leaving them behind. They’re bending them over first and giving them a right good evening of buggery.

I’ve written before on the state of digital comics and how upset I am that there isn’t a better selection and a better on-time delivery date for new comics to digital apps. With this announcement, DC is coming down squarely on the side of the future, where people consume their content digitally. Pay attention to that Amazon announcement where books sold on the Kindle outsold print books? Yeah. DC did too.

I dig DC’s decision to jump headfirst into the digital arena. This is a great first step for them, but if they really want to bring the AWESOME, they need to take a couple more key steps to become the reigning giant of digital publishers:

  1. Make digital titles less expensive than print titles.
  2. Sell bundles or collections of stories at discounts, similar to affordable trade paperbacks.
  3. Make an effort to get their entire library in their digital store.

Like a friend of mine said, I want to reread Preacher in all its glory, but I don’t want to pay $2 per issue for the complete digital edition (for a total of $132). It makes no sense. Sell that at a massive discount and I will by the entire series, like I will with other complete series like The Invisibles, Transmetropolitan, and Justice League International. For what it’s worth, I think DC is on the path doing these things; they’re probably just waiting for their competitors’ next moves in the digital arms race.

One thing is clear though: retailers, your day is DONE. No more will parents have to worry about what their children are being exposed to in shifty, dank stores run by unkempt and unclean comics fanboys. Those retailers that survive will be the ones who innovatively design their store experience, as James Sime has done for Isotope.

As for the rest of you, I will not miss your terribleness one iota.

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta
Mar
23

The SXSW Experience

I tried to document as many of my ongoing thoughts as I could over on my Posterous feed during SXSW, but I thought I’d take some time to try and make some coherent sense of the week-long insanity I put myself through.

Location, Location, Location

There didn’t seem to be any consensus on a single new technology or app that debuted or blew up SXSW this year. However, plenty of existing ones brought immense marketing campaigns to Austin, and the majority of those seemed to be location-based services. Gowalla, in my opinion, severely dropped the ball by not preparing local Austin businesses for the influx of SXSW geeks galvanized by the Gowalla passport scavenger hunt. Foursquare, on the other hand, ruled the day by deploying 2000 virtual “Golden Tickets” into specific checkin spots in Austin that unlocked free tickets to their Big Boi headliner show. So many more location-based companies littered the landfalls in Austin as well, each with some zany promotional campaign to get people to download and use their app.

David Armano's Allhat3 at Guero's.

For my money, Foursquare was the clear popularity winner here. Their partnership with Pepsi – where they created an actual competitive foursquare court near the Austin Convention Center – culminated with an AWESOME party at the Seaholm Power Plant, where all sorts of people got to chill with Dennis Crowley and his Foursquare army to the tunes of Locksley, The Sounds, and Big Boi.

App Discovery of SXSW: Roqbot

Roqbot is an app-based service that allows you to take control of online-enabled jukeboxes in bars, clubs, restaurants, and other locations featuring these types of music services. Once you download the app, you develop a DJ profile of your favorite music and check into whatever location you happen upon that has one of these net-enabled jukeboxes. From there, you’re able to control the music playlist emanating from the box. Don’t like Lady Gaga? Spend a couple Roqbot credits to put some Oasis on higher in the music queue. You also earn free credits to play by unlocking various checkin rewards or you can just connect Roqbot to a Paypal account and buy songs directly. It’s SUCH a great a control solution for jukeboxes in places. I can’t wait till they expand their services into the DC/NOVA region.

DC Represents

I was caught off-guard by the massive DC presence at SXSW. From government rockstars like Amanda Eamich from USDA to nonprofit supercolliders like Tammy Gordon of AARP, DC’s varied social media community descended on Austin in force. I hung out with Mike Schaffer, Director for Social Media at iostudio the most, and lamented that despite having met and living near DC, we never hang out like we did at SXSW. I’m making a pledge to change that behavior on my part now that I’m home, and I want to invite any and all DC/NOVA peeps to call me on any antisocial leanings I may display from this point forward.

Margie and Dave Newman, masterminds of the DC Flacks Meetup group, created an on-the-fly “DCxSW” Twitter handle and hash for all of us while in Austin. They also organized an impromptu meetup of these DCists at the Driskill Hotel one night where I had the best networking conversations of the week. I met a lot of folks i only knew through Twitter here, and I am super-excited to build upon those relationships in the future.

So here’s a big public shout-out to all my DCxSW peeps: Margie, Dave, Schaffer, Gabe Hilado, Amandare!, Alejandra Owens, Peter Corbett, Tammy Gordon, Tammy Portnoy, Lisa Byrne, Patti Shea, and all the rest of you AWESOME DC peeps. It was also great meeting a bunch of non-DC folks like Jeff Esposito, Teresa Cantwell, and old friends Anne Weiskopf and Tonia Reis (formerly of TWTRCON fame, now The Realtime Report

"You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas." --Davy Crockett

).

Walking in Your Footsteps

Much of the research I performed in prep for this massive undertaking panned out well. I intend to do up a fuller post on the travel hacks I came with on the fly, but the basics came down to comfortable shoes and clothing at all times. I can’t tell you how many times I just had to sit down because my feet hurt so bad from walking around so much. People recommended Converse as the go-to shoes for SXSW, but I have to put in a plug for the much comfier and supportive Merrel’s that I brought.

Panels & Speakers

For the mot part, I found SXSW panels pedantic and freshman. The only ones that piqued my interest and delivered a good conversation were a panel on The Singularity and another with John Hagel III on shaping the future. The Singularity panel brought together experts like Michael Vassar from the Singularity Institute and Natasha Vita-More from Humanity+ for a SUPER-AWESOME discussion about the ethical limits of transhumanism and posthumanity. I’m stll processing a lot of the info from this panel, but be sure to check out the convo archived on the #singularity hashtag. That conversation is still going on, so feel free to jump in and add your thoughts.

Seaholm Power Plant, site of the Foursquare/PepsiMax party.

I missed Seth Priebatsch’s keynote on the gamification of marketing and education, but I heard it was cool. I also missed Christopher Poole, aka moot of 4chan, who gave a keynote on social communities online and how their influence will continue to grow in the future. I heard good things about both of these keynotes but just couldn’y sync schedules to make them

Getting Your Groove On

I was most disappointed by the party situation. I RSVP’d for several parties specifically to hang out with or meet people that were throwing them. Unfortunately, every party is oversold, leading to massive numbers of people often crowding into small clubs, all trying to figure out who’s there that’s important or famous. What’s worse, I got the distinct impression at many of these parties that pre-existing community relationships led to a degree of “cliquey-ness” that isolated a lot of outsiders. This bothered me mainly because a lot of folks like myself stood in these long-ass lines for long periods of time to get into cool parties that only turned out to be fun for the cool kids.

 

Ogilvy Notes, a cool attempt to make visual sense out of all the information overloading SXSW's attendees.

There were literally so many people at many of these parties that you would get interrupted talking to someone of note, and they would never come back to you due to successive interruptions. It’s damned hard to connect with someone in this fashion, and you can damn sure bet I’ll be working on a SXSW Guide to Party Ethics for 2012.

Even worse, most of the Interactive parties featured some of the worst, most annoying DJs on the planet. Note to party organizers of the future: they don’t call Austin the “Live Music Capital of the World” for nothing. If you want to throw a SXSW party next time, do some fucking due diligence and get a couple of inexpensive but AWESOME live acts instead of a bunch of douchy DJ pricks.

Music vs. Interactive

SXSW should really be broken up into two conferences for Music and Interactive because virtually everyone from the Interactive festival popped smoke when the Music festival began. It was SUCH a sea change in personalities too: I joked to a buddy that all the Interactive geeks stayed inside the Convention Center for Interactive where Austin had to shut down streets to accommodate the influx of Music nerds.

What’s funny about the disparity between Music and Interactive attendees (and the lurking Film festival geeks too), is that they could all stand to spend time in each other’s sessions. So much inspiration flowed out of musical performances that I think would have benefited Interactive attendees, particularly the PR and marketing types who were hard-charging the entire time selling and jiving versus soaking up the people’s culture.

 

Emmylou Harris performing solo on the Radio Day Stage.

I’ll do up a separate post later on the musical discoveries I made. Those are stories in and of themselves.

Omni Hotels Continue to Rock

Not only did my lovely friends at Omni Hotels hook me up with a couple free drinks and grab bag of SXSW necessities, I also found that the Omni’s parking situation far outweighed any other in downtown Austin. Where other lots were jacking prices up to $10 and $20 at a time, the Omni kept a moderate $7 a day parking charge for SXSWi. What’s more, you could avoid that charge completely if you returned for your car after midnight, where they opened the garage. GREAT customer service from Omni, especially for people who weren’t even staying at their hotel for SXSW. Thanks again for the stops along the way!

(Pro-tip: The Omni also had the cleanest bathrooms in town. At about midnight when those tacos are kicking in, ain’t nothing better than a spotless and empty bathroom!)

Where Do We Go From Here?

 

The Macallan 15, proud sponsor of SXSW and drunk-asses everywhere.

SXSW was a worthy event, but I’m not sure I can do it all in one sitting again. It was a great time, and I enjoyed it, but had it not been for the people I met there, it could have been a big old bust. I brought back with me a ton of great ideas and content that I have to work with, so I hope to see some heavy return on investment soon. In that vein, keep your eyes peeled for successive posts about different SXSW aspects that I couldn’t fit into this one.

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta
Feb
24

SXSW: The Adventure Begins

I finally bit the bullet this year and bought a full conference pass to South by Southwest, Austin’s long-AWESOME music, film, and tech festival. Having suffered through years of Twitter and Facebook friends broadcasting the varying degrees of AWESOMEness emanating from one of my favorite towns in Texas, I’m taking the @Du4.llc plunge.

While I do have a few specific goals for my trip, a large part of it remains unplanned. I intend to broadcast my experiences often, and I thought this would be a great opportunity to develop a publication strategy for a single event. Granted, it’s a media-heavy event, so separating out fun content from crappy stuff could be dicey. So here’s a quick breakdown of how you can find the different Du4 media that I’ll be pumping out from AWESOMEville.

Where I’m Gonna Be: Plancast

Here’s a new social stream with which I’m experimenting: Plancast. The idea is similar to a calendar except you organize your plans socially around what your friends are doing. You can also link into several existing tags for types of events, like I’m doing for SXSW. I’ve been invited to and RSVP’d to a staggering number of parties and events at SXSW, so keeping track of everything via my email inbox has just become too tedious and confusing. I’m hoping to use Plancast to organize my plans (duh) for Austin and share them with folks via my Plancast stream so if you do want to link up with me, it’ll be easier to sync schedules.

However, let us all remember the special operator’s maxim: “No plan survives first contact with the enemy…”

Twitter: @Du4

I’ll be broadcasting my hour-to-hour activities at SXSW via Twitter. The #SXSW hashtag will probably be overloaded with people tweeting on it, so follow me for direct updates. I’ll also be retweeting cool content I find on Twitter throughout SXSW. I’d also encourage anyone who’s doing remote listening of the event using tools like TweetDeck, Hootsuite, Radian6, or whatever, please hit me up with any emerging hashtags you see coming out of SXSW so I can find ‘em “on the ground.”

Twitter is also my go-to service for preferred commo. If you need to get ahold me right away, @reply or DM me and I’ll get back to you fast. Even better, if you’re attending SXSW, be sure to hit me up so I can follow you around too!

Locations: Foursquare and Gowalla

I’m a dual geolocation user: Foursquare for the badges, Gowalla for the items. There will be a TON of SXSW specific checkin rewards for 2011, so I’m going to have a ball checking in and sampling all the AWESOME places and things to do during the week. I have both accounts connected to my Twitter stream, so just follow me on Twitter to see where I am and what exclusive badges and achievements I unlock as I roll through Austin. I will probably post some pics and tips for various places too. Where Plancast is a proposed schedule of where I am planning to be, Foursquare and Gowalla will show where I actually end up.

Pro tip: you can click on the link in each checkin tweet I make to bring you to my Foursquare or Gowalla page and see everywhere I’ve been.

Photos: Posterous and Instagram

I’ve been noodling with how to use a Posterous page for a while now. For those who don’t know, Posterous is a dead simple, email-based blogging system. You have a couple simple commands that you set up via your preferred email account, and then you just publish content to your Posterous stream via email or SMS. It works best when you’re on the go and want to share something or capture something quickly form your mobile device and get it online and visible. You’ll also receive every comment on your posts via email and be able to reply back via email.

For SXSW, I’ve developed a brand new Posterous page where I can instantly upload content. I’ve found this is the simplest way to upload HD photos from my iPhone to a website where people can view them without a corresponding account. You just click on that link and BOOM: AWESOME shit direct from Du4. Because I can gin up other content and get it quickly published as well, I may use this Posterous page for snap, on-the-street blogging or “scrapbooking.”

(Aside: I got the idea for said use of Posterous from “vigilante pundit” and comedian Baratunde Thurston, who uses his Posterous as “an internet scratch pad.” I love that description of the service, and you can see from Baratunde’s updates exactly how well such usage of Posterous suits him.)

Baratunde Thurston at ROFLCon II

Baratunde Thurston (image via Wikipedia)

(Aside 2: I’ve also got a Pulsememe stream I’ve been using via Posterous to share stories and other content I view through the Pulse iPad app. Pulse is a cool reader-like app that I use now for ALL of my daily reading; Google Reader is dead to me after playing with this. Pulse connects to a separate Posterous URL where I share any interesting articles, links, and other stuff that comes across my ADD-addled eyes via the Pulse app. I also pull my Links of the Week directly from this Pulsememe stream.)

For those of you on Instagram, you can follow my feed (my username is du4) there for any photos I upload and touch up using Instagram’s color tools. Instagram does not have a web-based version of its users’ streams so you can only view it from your smartphone.

Longer-form Reporting: Must. Be. AWESOME!!! dot com

If SXSW is social media nerd heaven, then I wouldn’t be a crown prince in the nerd host of angels without a blog. So every couple of days, I’ll throw together something more thoughtful than a mere tweet or photo upload can convey here at http://mustbeawesome.com. You can also expect some video blogging, interviews with rad people I meet, and other video clownishness posted here.

Stay Mobile, Stay Flexible, Stay Alive

SXSW is going to be a good opportunity for me to really put the gas pedal down on developing and sharing content online. I may get part way through the experience and realize that I don’t need all the streams I’ve talked about above. I figure this will be a supercool learning experience though. Let me know what you think by leaving a comment here or anywhere on one of the social streams I’ve described above. If there’s something I’m missing, I wanna know about it!

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta
Jan
27

JWT’s 100 Things To Watch in 2011

I got quickly overloaded by the abundance of “2011 predictions!” posts, white papers, and other internet ephemera that started spouting before the turn of the new year. As an armchair futurist and a self-described Challenger of the Unknown, I have to pay attention to a lot of the thinking bubbling up from the cesspool of teh Interwebz just to maintain a reputable degree of “cocktail party talk.”

No single source really jumped out at me as AWESOME in the 2011 prediction glut until I came across JWT‘s 100 Things to Watch in 2011 presentation on Slideshare (embedded below for your reading pleasure). What really struck me about this preso were a couple things:

  1. JWT leads with its track record. Not a whole lot of people out there honestly self-assessing their prior predictions. I can respect companies and people who are willing to include the credential of their work, positive or negative, before making predictions about the future. How accurate was JWT about 2010? Two words: BACON EVERYWHERE.
  2. They call Foursquare a “mobile gaming app.” This is the most accurate description of what Foursquare really is and how it works. Most netizens like to describe Foursquare as a geolocation social media tool, which completely misses the point. What makes Foursquare special is that it’s competitive, and that’s how you bring back users time and again.
  3. The preso’s author, Ann Mack, is credited as Director of Trendspotting. That is the BADDEST-ASS title I have ever encountered from a PR firm.
JWT: 100 Things to Watch in 2011

View more presentations from JWTIntelligence.

For these reasons alone I ascribed enough of a degree of credibility in JWT to actually consider their projections for 2011. Here now are the ones I found most AWESOME:

Auto Apps

I’m very intrigued by the integration of social and smartphone-type apps to vehicles of the future. The obvious one that JWT identifies is Pandora, which is the internet nerd’s answer to mobile radio. But think about where this goes: Security systems that tweet your iPhone when someone jacks with your car. Shutdown options for stolen cars. Intelligent maps that ask you if you’re interested in stopping at some AWESOME attraction while on your road trip. Lot of potential here.

Biomimicry

Design that takes inspiration from naturally occurring shapes and constructs? Love this concept. Sounds very posthuman to me.

Breaking the Book

Glad JWT sees that redefining the way we read is going to explode even more in 2011. They briefly touch on the future of publishing with Kindle Singles and the concept of serialized e-publication, but I think there’s more to it than that. With the advent of the tablet market, I think books are about to be redefined as a medium en toto.

Detroit

Everyone knows how sad of a story Detroit has become since the economic recession of the past few years. JWT proposes that Detroit is in for a turnaround this year, an idea I find curiously sticky given my sudden fondness for Detroit-set TV shows like Hung. Could Detroit become the playground for a new Silicon Valley-type creative ecosystem? We’ll see.

Group-Manipulated Pricing

I think this is a gimme just based on the data we all saw in late 2010. Things like Groupon are going to become more and more popular because it’s a social enterprise that crosses online and offline worlds. While people will gravitate to services like these to get monetary and consumer deals, I think they’ll become more popular because of the social act the service brings. People ENJOY saving money together, and this may even cross the geo-location boundary at some point when people get better deals by checking in somewhere as a group. The even more amazing facet of this phenomenon (which JWT missed, surprisingly) is how democratizing prices in this fashion looks VERY similar to a socialist economy.

Ignorance Is Bliss

JWT posits that if information becomes ubiquitous, as it seems to be doing via internet-age enabled apps and services, more people will simply stick their fingers in their ears and choose not to care. I identify with this to some degree because I do it all the time: do I really care that much if everyone on the planet knows I just checked into Samuel Beckett’s Irish Gastro Pub? Blow that up to the next logical question: If no one cares, are we bound for a sudden slingshot backwards in technology and progress?

Nanobrewers

I know TONS of people in the DC area that brew their own beer. The idea that these folks can sustain their own businesses by doing something they love is totally rad. The larger question, I think, is what’s the magic number that turns your hobby into a sustainable business? People will always want to drink a cold beer, but how well is that helping other more esoteric businesspeople (see Etsy).

Near Field Communication (NFC)

This concept is similar to RFID in that it involves the exchange of information between mobile and other devices within a four-inch zone. JWT sees utility in this for ticket purchasing, wallets, etc. Once that proves out as a useful method for data transfer (and it will), I’m more interested in the propensity for NFC-enabled wetware in humans. Why carry ANY device when you can embed it subcutaneously and turn your body into a digitally transmitting wallet?

Objectifying Objects

Love the idea of “fetishizing” – as JWT calls it – obsolete physical objects into decorative accouterments or other re-purposeable items. My wife and I buy things like this from the French Market in New Orleans all the time. She has two clocks up in her office that were made from old vinyl records painted in new artistic ways. I’m real interested to see new expressions of this “recyclable” art form this year.

Odyssey Trackers

JWT’s example is more extreme than mine, but this concept involves the aggregation and broadcast of all social and personal media information from people who go out to explore the world. I’m looking into some innovative storytelling uses of this when I trek across the country in a few weeks.

Older Workforce

I dont actually think this is AWESOME as much as it is alarming and shitty. My dad always told me he expected to work until the day he died and I should too. Data is clearly indicating that there is no way national entitlement programs will be able to satisfy their constituents without immense tax increases (something our already bloated deficit can’t handle). So the alternative is to continue to work past your retirement age. After all, what the fuck am I gonna do with $265 a month from the Social Security Administration when I’m 70?

Social Networking Surveillance

We’re living in a post-Wikileaks world now, people. If you don’t think there are little nondescript buildings at Fort Meade where tons of poorly-paid federal contractors are poring over your social media output, think again. Take it from a guy who’s participated in studies of social media and social networking in more oppressive societies (like Egypt): there is no more privacy.

Social Objects

Love love LOVE the concept of making THINGS social: attaching personal information, reviews, or other data to objects to advance the knowledge of a community of consumers. I thought JWT was going to miss the emergence of “cloud-seeding” in 2011 (I’ll talk more about this in a subsequent post) but their identification of this phenomenon coupled with apps like StickyBits makes it all better.

Space Travel Goes Private

FUCK. YES. It’s about fucking time. It’s the 21st century, for Chrissakes.

Storied Products

Transmedia Producers

JWT describes the first concept as something that involves consumers demanding more of a personal connection to brands they love. I actually think these two things on JWT’s list are interconnected in such a way that they deserve to be together. Transmedia producers have had a really hard time finding mainstream access and recognition beyond mere marketing effects (see the “Why So Serious?” campaign instituted for The Dark Knight). The more studios and companies blur the lines between marketing and production, the more transmedia’s reach will be seen. In the meantime, I actually think we’ll see more transmedia pros find better paying and better recognized work creating transmedia experiences for products on behalf of brands.

Temporary Tattoos Go High-End

According to JWT, there are places in Dubai that sell temp tattoos in actual gold. I actually think upgrading temp body art to designer levels (e.g., Chanel) is a new form of posthuman body modification. Up till now, I’d seen body mods as purely utilitarian and ability-expanding instead of cosmetic or vanity-inspired. So combine the functional with the fashion and what could you get? Solid gold Prince Alberts that deliver electrical shocks during sex? ZING!

Tintin the Movie

JWT’s calling this the next big franchise, possibly the new age replacement for Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. With Spielberg AND Peter Jackson at the helm, I don’t doubt that it could be HUGE. But I’m not sure it hits the imagination highs required of big summer tentpole films like Harry Potter or Star Wars. Unless of course Spielberg and Jackson do some reinterpretations of the original source material and Tintin fights a robot zombie or something.

What Did They Miss?

Despite how great and how comprehensive this 2011 list is – and I encourage you to check out the entire preso – I actually think there are a lot of things JWT and other futurists missed. We’ll explore those next in a subsequent post.

In closing, I’d like to point out that this report is published annually by JWT Intelligence. Key in on the italicized word there and think about that for a second. From my experience, having worked in what many consider “real” intelligence (i.e. the U.S. government Intelligence Community), I find fascinating how many communication and public relations companies are choosing to characterize their future endeavors in the vernacular of intel. The term “business intelligence” has been around for quite some time, but I think its use in commercial enterprises like JWT implies another, more sinister intelligence-related word: espionage. So if this report compares as an intel assessment for JWT’s 2011 operations, what do you think its competitors and their communities of interest are doing with it?

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta
Jan
13

So Far, Digital Comics Are Not AWESOME

I have some fundamental problems with the way comics publishers are approaching their digital publication strategies. Marvel and DC – the two biggest publishers on the block – seem to be the most egregious trespassers against the simple 2.0 adage of “Everything: anytime, anywhere.” Here then follows a discussion of some of the ins and outs of the issue.

The Instant Catalogue

The thing that bugs me the most about how The Big Two have handled their digital offerings involves the massive back catalogue both companies possess. I should be able to download Paul Levitz‘s entire original run on Legion of Super-Heroes at a reasonable price. Currently, virtually all digital comics run about $1.99 and day-and-date releases can cost up to $3.99 depending on the publisher. With so much available content in their vaults, comics publishers can EASILY adapt whole swaths of comics runs for mere pennies in overhead.

Image courtesy Comics Alliance

Instead, what we’ve been seeing so far are limited runs or storylines from popular comics that get offered in digital stores and are sometimes taken away after a period of time. There are so many comics runs that I would pay for to have digitally on my iPad, but I’m leery of the cost… especially if they’re only available for limited amounts of time and there exists the possibility that the publisher may offer those comics again at discounted bundles.

The bottom line comes down to ABUNDANCE: there are so many comics available, why not sell them ALL digitally? I know there are obvious business reasons for this, and we’ll get into those in moment. But for a fan and reader – someone who is going to spend their scratch on comics – to not offer these extensive catalogues digitally and at reasonable prices is simply retarded.

Price & “Bundling”

Traditionally, comics are sold at a per issue price and then discounted for graphic novel or trade paperback collections. This has become the common practice in the comics business particularly because publishers make more money off trade collections (which can be reprinted) that are sold in traditional bookstores (versus scary comics shops). This has created two separate classes of comics readers: the periodical reader who buys issues as they come out, and the “wait-for-the-trade” reader who wants to read an entire serialized story in one volume.

Digital stores can go either way here. Dark Horse Comics – which will launch its own online comics store very soon – is actually undercutting other comics publishers by offering individual issues of their comics for $1.49 and larger discounts for “bundles,” which will contain multiple issues comprising a full storyline. Dark Horse has also been experimenting with releasing graphic novels and trade collections as separate apps in the iPad store at prices much lower than their print counterparts.

Image courtesy myappworld.com

Dark Horse’s example provides the best look at how well this digital comics economy can work. At the end of the day, there is NO REASON why digital comics should cost as much as their print versions. The overhead has already been spent (aside for some small costs in adapting the print version to digital readers), so it’s almost pure profit, which gets split between the company and the creators (and Apple). Dark Horse’s comics become a much more attractive buying option for those readers who are looking for affordable ways to get into comics, stories, and characters.

I still believe these prices are overinflated (music costs $0.99 generally), but I also understand that the economics of the comics business are such that some compromises have to be made. We’ll get more into that later.

The Direct Market

The comics industry pivots on the direct market, which is best defined as comics specialty retailers who preorder, stock, and sell comics out of their own stores. Beginning in the 1980s, the comics direct market sprung up to replace newsstand publication as the primary source of sales for all comics publishers. As such, comics publishers court comics retailers because that’s been their primary method of sales.

Digital comics changes all of this. The third party between me and the comics I love switches from the high-touch retailer to the virtual comics store app like ComiXology and the platform on which I’ll read them (i.e., Apple). This has created a huge uproar in the retailer community, which cannot compete with the prices digital comics can promise to readers. Some retailers offer discounts off regular subscriber orders, but digital essentially kills further instances of the walk-in customer, which has been on the decline anyway for years. Because of the relationship comics publishers want to maintain with their retailer industry, I can understand how it’s important for them to price comics similarly to what they charge in the direct market… so as not to shoot retailers in the back.

However, I believe digital comics is a needed wake-up call to retailers. Look up your nearest comics store and go visit. It’s not very pretty, is it? Usually, it’s a dark, scary hole in the wall run by swarthy longhairs in white-stained T-shirts full of unkempt pop culture product that may or not include statues of anime babes getting tentacle raped. There are exceptions to this perception of comics retailers: James Sime’s excellent Isotope in San Francisco, for example, is designed as a lounge instead of merely a comics store. But for the most part, comics retailers are the same subhuman basement-dwelling nerds they’ve always been. If digital comics don’t force them out of business, then maybe they will force them to at least take a shower and start selling comics as respectable professionals. Speaking as the former manager of a comics store myself, I can tell you that this is a kick in the pants the direct market industry sorely needs. Otherwise, they deserve to close their doors.

Periodical Versus Collected Reading

The great thing about digital comics is that you can have your cake and eat it too. Love a series so much you HAVE to get the latest issue on the day it comes out? BOOM. Buy it at full price from the digital store. Want to wait instead to read that comic when it’s been collected into a larger storyline? BOOM. Buy it as a discounted collection. This is possible RIGHT NOW. It just takes comics publishers having th balls to do it instead of catering to their direct market fanwanks.

One of the greatest examples of this is Robert Kirkman‘s AWESOME zombie epic The Walking Dead. Through its own iPad app, Kirkman sells every issue of this comics series for $1.99 and $2.99 for brand new issues that are available on the same day as their print release. Furthermore, he offers collected editions that contain full storylines at $9.99. I still think this is too expensive, but the availability of the comic and the options Kirkman gives readers is what’s important. He GETS that the more options he can give his fans to consume the content – and the more barriers he can lower to new fans’ entry – will result in more downloads and more access.

Stupid Sales Tricks: The Perception of Scarcity

Probably the worst, most offensive sales tactic the big comics publishers have tried out with digital comics involves the perception of scarcity. Marvel, for example, has developed a “Vault” in which they’ll place digital comics after making them available for a short period of time. Similar to what Disney does with its home video releases, this creates a false sense of scarcity– “If I don’t buy Daredevil #24 before February 1st, it’ll be gone forever!”

This tactic completely defeats the purpose of Long Tail-inspired digital product sales and marketing. It does nothing but demonstrate that the comics publishers do not understand digital content at all. NOBODY owns the comics you download from an app or a digital comics store. They are merely CONTENT one CONSUMES. Scarcity and value only have meaning in a physical world where only so many copies of a given comic are available and must then be traded at prices determined by the collector market. To try and engineer this system within digital comics stores is flat-out wrong and stupid.

The worst offender of this tactic lately has been DC Comics, who made a huge to-do about all the great new digital comics offerings they were going to sell via their online stores. Sure enough, they released initial runs of some very popular older comics like Preacher and Transmetropolitan. Go look for those comics now. They’re gone. With nary an announcement or a discussion, DC simply pulled them from their digital stores. So now, the next time they decide to put them up, there will probably be a run on digital sales as digital consumers rush to get these titles before they’re taken away again.

This is terrible, offensive practice that needs to come to an end immediately.

Image courtesy 148apps.com

So What’s Next?

The good news is that digital comics are still in their infancy and have a lot of room to evolve. I think within the next year, we’ll see a drop in prices for most digital comics. Within 2 years, we’ll see more innovation in terms of bundled or collected editions. DC or Marvel will probably release an entire title’s run as an experiment at some point, possibly at a high price point or as a separate app to determine how well something like that would sell. While this happens, smaller comics publishers and independent comics creators will beat the big guys to the punch by releasing their comics at the same time as print editions and even exclusively online.

For my money, here are a couple comics publishers that I think are doing it RIGHT:

  • Dark Horse currently offers some Frank Miller graphic novels (Sin City, 300) and a Serenity collection as inexpensive iPad apps.
  • IDW has separate apps for many of its licensed titles (e.g. Transformers, G.I. Joe) and is beginning to offer original graphic novels as apps (e.g., Darwyn Cooke’s Parker adaptations The Hunter and The Outfit).
  • Boom! Comics, while not quite day-and-date yet, are beginning to offer more and more of their comics close to publication date.

Got any good digital comics recommendations? Send ‘em to me in the comments section!

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta
Jul
13

Engaging in a “Now Media” Continuum, Part 5

And now, the final video from my MountainRunner Institute talk at the “Now Media Seminar.” Let me know what you thought!

You can also find the slides from this preso by following this link.

Jul
12

Engaging in a “Now Media” Continuum, Part 4

Here’s Part 4 of my MountainRunner Institute talk from the “Now Media Seminar.” HOWF!

Also, you can follow this link to see the actual slides from the event.

Jul
11

Engaging in a “Now Media” Continuum, Part 3

Here’s the third part of my MountainRunner Institute talk from our “Now Media Seminar” on July 6th. Hope you dig!

Jan
12

HOWF! The Must. Be. AWESOME!!! Podcast

RCA Type 77-DX microphone used by Edward R. Murrow (courtesy of oobject.com)

In Must. Be. AWESOME!!!‘s continuing mission to seek out new AWESOME things, your cuddly and adorable host has been conducting a series of experiments in podcasting. Currently, I’ve found TweetMic to be the easiest program to use in recording and instantly uploading audio podcasts to the web via Twitter, particularly because its iPhone app is so easy to use. I like the quick and dirty, no-edit style of podcast deployment this tool offers, but I also recognize some people’s preference for well-produced regular podcasts that can be downloaded outside of Twitter on channels like iTunes. If you have suggestions on how my podcasts can improve, either through programming or tools, please drop me a line and let me know.

In the meantime, please enjoy the inaugural Must. Be. AWESOME!!! podcast, “HOWF!” (At this link, you can also find an archive of some of my earlier experiments with TweetMic. Be forewarned: they’re not at all up to snuff.)

Dec
15

Toute Suite with HootSuite

I just discovered this AWESOME new tool for identity management: HootSuite. For social media users with multiple lifestreams, it is essential to your well-being.

hootsuite

You can tie your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Ping.fm accounts into the tool and manage then using a variety of options. They just developed Twitter List support, which provides even more functionality. This would be an ideal tool for social media powerhouses who manage multiple Twitter identities. I’ve even set up a number of Twitter searches for specific hashtags and subjects that update continuously.

There’s even an RSS reader from which you can pull in multiple feeds and organize according to your preferences. I haven’t monkeyed around with that one yet, and it looks cool, but I’m a diehard Google Reader user.

Also cool: a built-in URL shortener, an iPhone app (as yet untried), and built-in analytics tools with which one can use to measure each Twitter user, hash or other stream they’ve integrated into the tool.

Also AWESOME: there’s a bookmarklet (the “Hootlet”) that you can embed on your toolbar. As you browse, you can punch that thing and it launches a separate browser box that takes you instantly to a status update poster. You can choose your social media network here and choose to post a link to the page or media file you’re currently browsing or something completely unrelated. GREAT functionality for the power browser.

I’ve been hesitant to adopt a third-party tool to manage my Twitter account primarily because the best of them are desktop downloads (Seesmic, TweetDeck). The great thing about HootSuite is that it’s all web-based. I can’t even tell you how handy it is to have one dashboard from which to manage my outgoing posts/tweets/updates. No more bullshit getting caught between my Twitter audiences and my (profanity-fearing) family networks on Facebook. HootSuite will be even more functional to me once they integrate other social networks I use like Goodreads (hint, hint).

Check it out, social media mofos. I think you’ll like it.