Discussion: will comic books die?

I'm not sure where it's going--but Apple is licensing comic content, on the Web and from print rights holders.

I'm devoutly hoping for a tablet that's vaguely like the iPod touch, only about three or four times the size.

Please please please Steve, oh hear my prayers . . . .

... hope not. Always liked printed comics. Reading one on some new-fangled electronic gizmo simply won't be the same. Not saying it ain't an acceptable alternative, but it just won't be the same. And part of the joy of buying comics is collecting them. Can't much do that with electronic ones, now can you?

Ken said:

... hope not. Always liked printed comics. Reading one on some new-fangled electronic gizmo simply won't be the same. Not saying it ain't an acceptable alternative, but it just won't be the same. And part of the joy of buying comics is collecting them. Can't much do that with electronic ones, now can you?

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Ah, but -- the sales of older op items on the tablet would fuel print versions--this has very much been happening with genre fic that is part of a series.

Publisher gives away the first volume as an e-book--and it fuels printed and digital sales.

And I"m all for anything that provides increased royalties to writers. I'm seeing some of my favorite writers in really desperate straits of late.

... if it 'fueled printed comics, like in other genres,' then I'd be all for it too. I'm just concerned about digital ones replacing print versions, altogether. Added royalities for writers and artists would most definitely be a plus, so long as the royalties end up in their hands and not elsewhere. Someone should be making sure that writers get their fair shake. ps I admire your adaptability. Got any to spare?

Ken said:

... if it 'fueled printed comics, like in other genres,' then I'd be all for it too. I'm just concerned about digital ones replacing print versions, altogether. Added royalities for writers and artists would most definitely be a plus, so long as the royalties end up in their hands and not elsewhere. Someone should be making sure that writers get their fair shake. ps I admire your adaptability. Got any to spare?

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Heh. As I am aging I find reading print harder and harder. I got my first e-book in 1989.

I'm a fan. I am particularly a fan of reading ebooks on my iPhone. It's very clear type, and I set the size.

But I do think that comic books and graphic novels are in far less danger of having lost sales because of digital versions; there's an issue of the way people read them, often turning them around in order to see things--that isn't easily done on the screen.

I do very much see "collected reprint" editions.

One of the first e-books I worked on was in 1993, or 94; a CD-ROM of Art Spiegelman's Maus, with all sorts of extras--original drawings, his father's journals, and hours of interviews with Art and with his father.

I've got mixed feelings about this one.

I didn't like the ipod until I did. I never listen to it around the house, that's what my stereo is for, but as soon as I figured out that I could take all of my music on holiday with me I got one. When I figured out that I could listen to podcasts that I always miss while I'm at work as I walked to the gym I became convinced they were a thing of genius.

Comics are meant to be savoured. New issues are meant to be on paper and enjoyed on your couch when you have a lazy hour or two. If you ask me if I want to download my new issue instead of buying it then the answer is no. I want to collect it. I even want to drive an hour or so every few months to go and hunt down back issues.

Now, if you ask me if I'd like to take a whole bunch of back issues from my collection on holiday with me so I can reread them I'd be interested, and if you ask me if I'd like to be able to read issues of comics I've never bought to see if i like them I'll be very interested....but if i do like them I'll want the paper.

I can't see an issue by issue electronic model working for me, but I could get excited about about a licensing model that allowed me to download and read a whole bunch of comics electronically for a monthly subscription.........but if the paper ever stopped appearing in the shops I could imagine my interest in comics will slowly fade away.....or I'll just spend all my time hunting down back issues that will keep the comic shops alive but not benefit the comic companies directly.

Craig

Wiskel said:

I can't see an issue by issue electronic model working for me, but I could get excited about about a licensing model that allowed me to download and read a whole bunch of comics electronically for a monthly subscription.

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This this THIS! I would SO pay for something like an online subscription to, say "All DC comics." Or even something like "All DC comics where [insert character] appears."

I think the other aspect that is a major consideration in the comics question, though, is the collectability aspect of it. Most hard core comics fans are also collectors. They see it as a kind of investment. Okay, not a great investment, but along the same lines as, say, baseball cards.

Personally, my favorite format is the trade paperback collections. I buy TPBs of series I would not buy issue to issue. However, I also collect Batman comics - I don't wait for TPBs because I hate it when they leave out my favorite issues.

I would like to be able to buy a digital collection of old back issues I can't find anywhere else, but I also like comics in print form. Part of the enjoyment for me is paging through them over and over to look at the art.

DIE!?!?
I get the impression they're taking over publishing and Hollywood as well.

I believe eventually tablet gadgets much like an over sized iPod Touch will give way to digital comics, but there are still a lot of people who enjoy holding a comic or graphic novel.

I see the graphic novel industry continue to grow (just look at the collected editions in Previews) and digital comics to take baby steps. Marvel and others are experimenting with hybrid comics with some Flash animation and narration. Personally I prefer a nice interface with dialog that is easy to read. I'm using iComics on the Touch right now, but still prefer holding a comic. If Marvel opened their digital library to Apple, I would conciser subscribing to it.

I really hope not.

I worry a lot about the future of books in general and I think comics are a part of that same concern. For some reason I feel like comics and graphic novels are a little safer because of the art - because it is not necessarily as easy to read comic balloons and text that has variable sizes digitally, as it is to read straight text that looks more or less the same both on the page and on a digital device.

Also, from what I understand Graphic Novels are still one of the few growing areas for print media (although the dragging economy has popped that bubble to a degree). So I feel like that helps extend the life of comics a bit more. As others have mentioned comics are very much about collecting which also protects them to a degree (I personally feel the same way about my "regular" books as well, but not everyone does).

I have dabbled in the last couple years reading comics digitally, and I don't really like it. I find the sizing to be problematic dependent on the screen size or what viewer you're using, and well, I just like holding it in my hands and feeling the paper and all of it (the paper version also never crashes) but I suspect someday we will be pretty well converted to digital for all of it (and then my personal library will be a REAL collectors item!). I think that day is pretty far off though - farther than any of us realizes (but maybe that's just me hoping).

jst5150, Can I get a clarification about what you mean by 'comics'.

If you mean the standard US superhero comics then I reckon they will be around for a while yet. The oversized BD titles may have a harder time. Manga has now become so ingrained in popular culture (and are outselling everything in worldwide sales) that they stand the best chance of all of surviving.

The A4 British comics scene has all but died (the life support will be pulled any day now).

I wonder if one reason manga is so big is because it is female friendly.

What I see happening(and who knows if I am right or not). Is that we still have print comics but we also have online ones too and perhaps the online version has more goodies, more extras maybe concept art etc.

I'm wondering if the single issue comics will fade away to make way for graphic novels. Maybe there could be individual issues online and then after 6 issues there could be a print graphic novel.

I hope not. I hate trying to read digital comics on the computer.

Comics will not die out, just evolve.

Print will be for the big companies.
I think they will go to stocking Walmart shelves instead of comic book stores.

I see most of the little guys going digital.
It's so much easier to work online than doing print runs.

You can set up a site and store really cheap and have the whole
world to sell to 24 7.

You can do stuff for Mobile, PSP, DS and book readers.

You Don't have to deal with Diamond!

Books can be full color and as long as you want.

All the profits are yours.

jst5150 said:

Sure. I'm talking about comic books of any ilk.

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In that case, including all the myriad forms of 'comic', there is no need to worry. Does anyone here really think that the smaller companies will vanish overnight? They keep turning up with new ways of surprising the big players. Virgin Comics, while not inticing me to spend my money, aren't in the business to lose money. Various people from Marvel, including Joey Q, have stated that they ARE NOT making their money from the films. The comics are doing well enough on their own.

I don't know if they are telling the whole truth, but the fact that Disney thought them to be a good investment suggests the comics industry (as American publishers see themselves) is in fine shape. Not great shape, but not in desperate need of assistance either.

The UK - sadly - has been decimated since 97? 98? We have DC Thompson, the various Rebellion titles and the indie Blue Silver characters. I'm not sure if the occasional stuff that appears would influence the UK market much, but it is always nice to see new publications. There was a childrens title along the lines of Eagle launched a couple of years ago (mail order only I think), but the newsstands are dominated by preschool stuff and kids titles.

A few nostalgia annuals do not make an industry. Thinking about the heyday of UK comics in the sixties and seventies will just make everyone who remembers those titles cry. I'm slightly too young to have read all those wonderful comics as they appeared, but I was lucky in being able to pick up a lot of them cheaply in the eighties.

I'm making myself depressed typing all this.

I honestly think the Newspaper has a better chance of dying out before comics (which is unlikely in itself, despite print media being dominated by digital media, digital get it's news from print most of the time) comic's don't have competition.

Comics DO have competition, though not from a similar-format / storytelling viewpoint. The money which would have been fed into comics thirty or forty years ago has slowly been eaten up by computer games, DVDs, tabletop games and other media. There is a distinct possibility that the market will contract further, but dissapearing? No.

Newspapers, on the other hand...

Agreed.

Funny, newspapers (which rely on timeliness) and comics, which rely on whizbang visuals, are the MOST vulnerable to being replaced by electonic versions.

There are a few major issues with comics moving to the web. They share many of the same issues that comics in print do, but bear with me as I wander through this.

1) Availability - Now having been a small press publisher, I know the majors had an advantage on me because they could put out their comics faster and cheaper than i could. But, I still managed to keep up with my projected schedule and never missed a deadline with Diamond or my readers.

Small presses that are consistently late with delivering to the distributor are rather quickly dropped by the comic shops. They're tying too much money up in product that doesn't ever appear on their shelves.

Conversely . . . web comics seem to have a real issue with hitting deadlines. Probably because they're free, the creators don't seem to take it as seriously and honestly, it's tough to complain about the frequency of "free stuff". BUT, miss enough deadlines and it's easy to delink and move on.

If web comics want to replace print comics, the people on the web are going to have to take it seriously. I don't expect them to be like Bill Hollbrook, who's done Kevin and Kell as a web comic seven days a week since 1995 and hasn't missed a day (as well as doing two syndicated comics - On the Fastrack and Safe Havens). I do expect them though to set a reasonable schedule and meet it. If that means doing two comics a week, then do two comics a week. Build up a buffer and be ready to go incase you get sick. Don't be doing the comic the day you're supposed to post it.

2. Affordability - Currently most comics on the web are free. The creators make their money (if any) on donations and selling ancillary stuff. If they're lucky, they sell collections of the strips to people who want to be able to read a lot of strips without having to page through one by one. (Hmm, web comics make money selling print comics . . go figure).

If the big comic companies come to the web as their only means of distribution, then that's going to change the web comic paradigm. I don't see Marvel, Dark Horse or D.C. just posting several months of comics up and hoping someone will buy the trade paperback. Sure, it works for Phil and Kaja Foglio, but that's a two person team, not a major corporation. But after 15 years of getting free comics on line, will the viewers support pay for comics from the bigs? If not, what's the advantage to going web?

And I don't see that many "web comics" having the number of readers that rival any print comic and this is when they're free. I think their numbers would dry up if people had to pay for the web comic.

3. Piracy - The old bugaboo. Sure, people scan in comics now and share them on the web. But, if the comic companies want to make money on the web, there has to be a means for them to "make money". If people are going to take their web comics and release them into the wild (more than they do already), what's the benefit for the comic company?

You can only sell so many Wolverine t-shirts and PVC figures. If people aren't buying the comics (web or otherwise), then there's no more money for artists and writers. And believe me, there's little enough as is, unless you're really lucky or really good.

4. Presence - Print comics have enough trouble being found in the Diamond catalog unless you're with the big four. Web comics are damn near invisible unless you're lucky and stumble on a link from somewhere else. How do you find the ones you'd be interested in reading?

Web comics have the same problem that e-books have. You can't just go to a page, look at the cover art and read a quick synopsis of a web comic. You have to know it's there and then go to the web site and hope it's something you're interested in. I haven't found any "on-line comic store" that has web comics posted to browse the same way I can browse a comic shop and see what catches my eye.


So, to make a long story short (TOO LATE!), I can see comic companies having a presence on the web and doing stuff on the web, but until there's a way to successfully monitize their presence on the web, I don't see them abandoning print any time soon.

So many people have said that comic books are dying. My own friends believe this to be true. I do have to say though, go to any comic convention. Seriously. Even if it comes down to putting things onto the Kindle and leave comics on the web and such, they aren't going anywhere. However, I must agree with Rich. The good old fashioned print comics aren't going anywhere for a while. There is too much money to be made with the print comics for them to abandon them so quickly.

Only three or four companies will consistently make money with print comics. I've found reading the 22-page installments on the iPhone brings a certain freshness to the brief version of comics, but it is on the graphic novel that the print industry will survive. As far as conventions go, the fan base there are sort of like a life support system. As long as they're there, comics will stay, but because of them -- their affinity for long rambling "events" that go nowhere and often extreme politics hypocritically mixed with the outright objectification of women -- comics have withered to the point of obscurity. Just what I've observed...

The comics that DON'T do that are embracing the changing dynamic and will not establish themselves the "old-fashioned" way.