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[LOLtron]

Your good buddy RU is here to explain why he is not up on the digital comics bandwagon.

Hello there, internet people, it's your good buddy RU here to talk to you about digital comics and why I am not convinced, yet.  The main reasons for my trepidation to dive into the digital pool are price and ownership.  Not wanting to "read from a screen" or "missing the feel of holding a comic book" are outside the scope of this article and will only be referred to as tertiary problems associated with digital comics.  Also, for the purposes of this argument, I am talking about legally obtained and paid for digital comic books.

Comics are too expensive.  There is nothing anyone can say that will convince me that $3 for 32 pages (12 cents a page) is worth 10 minutes of entertainment.  I appreciate the fact that both DC and Marvel have lowered prices (kind of) recently, but why should anybody try out a $3 or $4 comic book they can flip though in minutes when for just over the price of two comics they can buy either a 1000 page novel, or a Netflix account. 

Why should a kid start a comic book collection when a respectable pull list could cost him/her (or the parents) about the same amount as a new video game that takes up way less space and will provide hours, rather than minutes, of entertainment?  I know that there are many local comic book shops (LCS) that have a pull list discount to reward loyal customers, in my experience this is roughly 10% off the cover price and mail order comic book services offer larger discounts (up to 40% at DCBS and MoC), all of which helps to take the bite out of a monthly comic book bill that has been rising well above the rate of inflation in the 25+ years I have been a collector.

For years we have been told that one of the main reasons for these price increases is due to the high cost of paper.  Fair enough, I have no idea if that is true or not so I'll take them at their word, but, why then, are digital comics the same price as physical ones?  Just by going through an app store any one can see that $3 for a digital comic is too much when compared to the other entertainment options available on a tablet or smart phone.  Furthermore, as a customer of a mail order service, even waiting a month for the comic to go down a dollar in price (some comics decrease in cost when the next issue comes out) is more expensive than the physical copy I get delivered to me.

There are two main reasons for the cost of digital comics advertising and LCSs.  As far as I know digital comics do not have any advertisements in them, much like physical collections, and that, along with binding, probably has a lot to do with why trades are often more expensive than the single issues.  But, surely the decrease in the overhead costs to produce a digital comic book offsets the lack of advertising. Also, why not have ads in a digital comic? Ads pop up all the time in my other apps, and it's not like flipping past an ad showing a hamster driving a Scion is all that difficult or time consuming. The lack of ads is not an excuse for the cost of a digital file the purchaser doesn't even own (we'll get to that in a minute).

The other reason given explaining why digital comics cost the same as physical ones is that the comic book companies do not want to scare or threaten LCSs who were able to stay in business even with the rapidly decreasing comic book reading population.  I love my old LCS.  When I moved 6 years ago one of the hardest things was to leave the shop that got me into comics, and I still make a point to stop in and buy something I could have found way cheaper online.  If I ever heard that they went out of business I'd be very sad.  It took a while, but I finally found a shop in my new city that is serviceable for my needs - Comics missed due to me not paying attention when I filled out my DCBS order, a free Previews Magazine, and a pretty cool quarter bin – it would be very inconvenient for me if it went out of business. 

But, my wallet, bank account, and wife are all happy that I have found a cheaper way to buy comics that doesn't rely on a LCS, and if reasonable prices for digital comics are what forces some LCSs to close their doors then so be it.  I don't want to sound harsh, but much like the local record store, the shops that can adapt to the digital age will be the ones that survive, and those that can't update their business plans will close down.  This is how capitalism works.  There are still music shops, there are still places to rent movies, there are still book stores (even without Borders), and there will still be some version of the LCS surviving the digital revolution.

Yes, I have purchased some digital comics, mostly from Comixology, but it was because of awesome sales: 99 cents per issue of Rasl, Superman: Red Son, Red, and Atomic Robo collections for $4 (~99 cents an issue).  I don't really mind reading comics on my Ipad, but once I've read one what then? There is nothing I can do with the comic.  I can't rename the file so that it fits with whatever I find myself using for this collection, I can't loan it out to a buddy, unless I want to give them my whole tablet, nothing migrates over to my computer for me to point to and say "That's what I bought." In short, I do not own this comic; I paid for a long term lease.

Ownership implies many things, but the main one is that once you have purchased something you can do whatever you want with it as long as you do not violate the creator's copyrights.  If you really like a cover, you can take it into Kinko's (are there still Kinko's?) and have it blown up into a poster for your personal use and you have done nothing wrong.  You can loan it out to your best friend, you can give it to a neighborhood kid, and, yes, you can sell it when you are done with it.  None of this is possible with a (legal) digital comic.

An admission: I have stolen digital comics.  I have torrented (it's a word) whole collections.  I can make up any reason to justify my actions, but it comes down to the fact that I wanted something but didn't want to pay for it, so I stole it.  After each download I spend time, sometimes hours, renaming each file so that there is one unifying structure to my torrent collection.  I have talked to many collectors who go to the "torrent store" every week who talk about renaming and filing away their comics, so I am not alone.  Figuring out a filing system is what collectors do and it's not something you can do with your Comixology file, because there isn't one. Legal digital comics stay on your tablet and do not sync over.  If you buy a new tablet you have to wait and re-download your collection before you can enjoy what you paid for, unlike your digital movies, music, or games that sync right over and are immediately available.

I've lent out Sandman, Watchmen, X-Men, Fables, 100 Bullets, Ultimate Spider-Man, and a whole host of other books to friends, some of which started buying comics because of what they read.  You can't lend with digital comics.  CDs, MP3s, movies, movie files, and everything else I own I can give or lend to anyone I want, but not digital comics that cost the same as product I can do with what I want.  Even after purchase, access to the comics is dictated by whoever I bought it from.  Amazon's Kindle, an e-reader whose books are cheaper than physical ones, has the ability for owners to lend each other digital books, but comics do not.

DCBS gives a small discount based on any Comixology purchase, and I have searched comixology.com up and down and I have not been able to find a record of my purchases.  I am not saying that there is no way for me to know what I should have access to; I'm just saying there is no easy way to do it.  So, if Red Son suddenly disappeared from my IPad there is nothing I can point to that says "yes, I bought that" from Comixology.   

Although I'd feel slightly less ripped off, none of this would matter if I was able to download and sync a .CBR file to my computer.  I have no faith (based on previous experiences with other digital services) that if I bought a new tablet, if my IPad died, or if I had to restore my tablet for some reason I'd be able to re-download all the books I've paid for.  Even a downloaded file would be no guarantee that my lease with the comic would remain valid considering the fluid nature of digital rights, and If you think this is an over-reaction, ask Kindle owners about George Orwell's 1984and how it disappeared from their machines.  Futhermore, I've had hard drives die on me without backing up purchased music that I was not able to re-download because the store no longer had the digital rights to the music.  What if DC decides to go the way of Dark Horse and have their own digital platform? Would I be able to re-download something I bought from Comixology?

There are other reasons I am not excited by digital comics, but cost and ownership are the ones that make me angry.  I wouldn't mind so much if I had to wait six months to download Avengers #5000 if it were 99 cents.  I'd even be ok with the lease agreement since it was so cheap.  Instead it's a full priced (no pull lilts discounts on Comixology) download to which I have only very specific and very limited access.

For now, my wife will have to deal with the decreasing amount of free space in the basement as I squeeze filing cabinets and shelves together to find room for more physical storage.



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Written or Contributed by: GHERU

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[bkthomson]

Great article.

[BlueStreak]

I was sent this link when I commented on the price of digital comics: http://markwaid.com/?p=762

[S.F. Jude Terror]

Valid points. All entertainment industries need to do away with drm and sell people the products they want to buy.

[MrBlack]

For years we have been told that one of the main reasons for these price increases is due to the high cost of paper. Fair enough, I have no idea if that is true or not so I'll take them at their word...

If the comic industry is anything like the book industry, that may very well not be true. Printing costs for books end up being a relatively miniscule amount of the price the consumer pays. This may not be true for comics (smaller runs + color pages may equal a higher printing cost per comic), but I doubt it's the major reason for the increase in the price of comics.

[Keb]

I agree with RUcy on this one. I don't want to lend my tablet to someone so they can read comics. It's really sad how digital pirating changes the smaller things about media.

I recently put about 80% of my comics into storage in my brother's basement. A few months later, I was wanting to read some of the stuff I have, like the Invisibles and 100 Bullets and other comics I've bought before. So I downloaded digital scans of these comics and I've been reading them. Why the fuck not? I own them right?

Well, on the topic of ownership: I don't really own them anyway. Not the actual intellectual property. That's all owned by the comic companies/creators. So really, it doesn't matter if you can or can't share shit. In reality, you don't own that shit so you have to do as they say.

Still, I like digital reading. I'm a convert. I just won't buy digital comics unless they change the pricing. In that aspect, I agree. What I'd like to see in the future is the "digital download included" with either paperbacks or single issues. It's something that record companies are doing with vinyl now, and I think it's awesome. It's almost a standard now to buy an LP and get a download card with the purchase. It's convenient for those people who buy vinyl and don't want to rip the vinyl to MP3 (a painful process). I think it could work well with comics too. If there's a 1-time use coupon for a digital copy that comes with the comic, I think that would help convince people to go digital or provide incentive for people to at least try it. Even if they don't have/want the technology to obtain the digital copy, they can always give it to a friend. /endvinylrant

[GHERU]

thanks everyone
This is something I've been writing my head for quite a while now and I am happy I was finally able to get it out

[Punchy]

Couldn't you just give someone else your comixology log-in info? Before I had a smart-phone myself I used my dad's to test out the Marvel App, and now both phones are using the same log-in to read the comics that come with the free code.

[Punchy]

That said, I'm also a digital sceptic, it's nowhere near as good as print IMO.

[Victorian Squid]

If the comic industry is anything like the book industry, that may very well not be true. Printing costs for books end up being a relatively miniscule amount of the price the consumer pays. This may not be true for comics (smaller runs + color pages may equal a higher printing cost per comic), but I doubt it's the major reason for the increase in the price of comics.

It hasn't been the main reason for a long time, and I wondered when reading the article if there were examples that could have been cited of people in the industry making that argument recently.

The main reason is just that the only way to keep profits from imploding as the readership dwindles is to keep making more money off of fewer readers. The Market Research Co. of America's statistics are that in 1945 almost half of all Americans read comic books including 95% of all boys & 91% of all girls between ages of six and eleven, and readership has been declining ever since, long before the advent of the Direct Market and the collapse of the newsstand market.

[GHERU]

Couldn't you just give someone else your comixology log-in info? Before I had a smart-phone myself I used my dad's to test out the Marvel App, and now both phones are using the same log-in to read the comics that come with the free code.

you could
but then that person could, in theory, also buy more comics using your account info and credit card

also, and I am not sure about this, it might be that if I log out of my comixology account on my Ipad, then log into another one and download the books he is "lending me" that I'd lose my collection that is attached to my account and have to re-download then all over again once I am done.

Not the worst thing ever, but its not convenient and its, for sure, not worth the price

[Punchy]

you could
but then that person could, in theory, also buy more comics using your account info and credit card

also, and I am not sure about this, it might be that if I log out of my comixology account on my Ipad, then log into another one and download the books he is "lending me" that I'd lose my collection that is attached to my account and have to re-download then all over again once I am done.

Not the worst thing ever, but its not convenient and its, for sure, not worth the price

If they were your friend, you could trust 'em.

Maybe say 'You've got 2 weeks then I'm changing my password' or something.

[GHERU]

If they were your friend, you could trust 'em.

Maybe say 'You've got 2 weeks then I'm changing my password' or something.

all valid options
but also way more inconvenient then handing over a stack of comics and telling them to get them back to me when they can

again, if there was a major price difference I'd consider the log-in option (and then have to remember a new one) but for the same price physical books have the advantage here.

[GHERU]

It hasn't been the main reason for a long time, and I wondered when reading the article if there were examples that could have been cited of people in the industry making that argument recently.

The main reason is just that the only way to keep profits from imploding as the readership dwindles is to keep making more money off of fewer readers. The Market Research Co. of America's statistics are that in 1945 almost half of all Americans read comic books including 95% of all boys & 91% of all girls between ages of six and eleven, and readership has been declining ever since, long before the advent of the Direct Market and the collapse of the newsstand market.

I read it every once is a while - usually after some one asks how the industry can keep readers if they continue to price them out of the hobby - and a quick google search found some recent (3 years) articles / blogs on the subject

but, you are right, I probably should have done more research into the paper argument portion of this - I just remember the reason as something that always stuck in my craw

[xaraan]

Aside from the idiotic pricing model for comics (both print and digital) these companies trying to control your electronic purchase after the fact is what really kills the product. In the end, you are right, I don't want to buy a license to read or listen or watch something unless I know I'm "renting" it. I want to own something and if it's digital I want a digital file. DRM is not going to protect their copyrights or product, it's only going to hurt customers that want to buy their product. (Hell, look at the problems Diablo 3 players are having... they cannot even play a single player game that they bought because the servers went down that they must stay constantly connected to in order to play the game they own).

To think that comic fans... the same people that often like to bag, board and organize their collections would be ok with not being able to do this electronically is crazy. There is also the old argument that if you give fans something they want digitally at a decent price then they won't pirate it... that doesn't mean nobody will, but most would rather get hold of something legitimately. That means that no, selling digital books at $3 isn't going to cut it, not being able to share you books or lend them isn't, not being able to organize them isn't, etc. Fight the future and you will lose most times and it seems they are fighting it most often instead of working their way into it.

The idea that they need to make money off of fewer readers is an interesting one. Obviously that's the case, but I think they abuse this model, not only by having higher pricing, but by having multiple covers, relaunches, branch-books, one shots, cross-overs, etc. Combined it's a recipe to burn comic fans out on their product.

But quality is still the biggest issue. I don't care if I can get them for free I would not read 90% of the crap out there in comics right now and I'm a pretty easy going guy in the absorbing content (books/tv/movie/comics/music) dept.