One of the recurring thoughts whenever I check out that DC Comics app on my iPhone is how cool it would be if my entire collection was digital.
Like, everything. The collection that I stopped counting and cataloging decades ago, but if I had to ballpark it, I'd have to number it around 7000 floppies (is that what you get with 25+ longboxes?) Plus another couple hundred in trades and manga.
How cool would it be to have it all in my pocket. Obviously MB storage is a concern, and a goodly portion of my collection is weirdass B&W explosion books that would never be included, but you get the point. I'm always saying how I would like to re-read 52 or whatever, and having it on my iPhone would make that so, so much easier. Read over lunch. Read in the car. Read on the couch. All without having to dig and unwrap and refile the books.
Comics Alliance posted a nice piece today about the inevitability of digital comics. And how the publishers are purposefully pussyfooting around in it, creating a doomed strategy because they can't afford to tick off the retailers. I'm sure I'm not alone: I'd like to have both. For every comic I buy, hard copy, at the store, I'd like a ride-along digital version. Right now, a brand new issue of Justice League: Generation Lost - the only new book that DC is fielding day-and-date both digitally and on racks - costs $3 each. That is nuts. I'm sorry, but a digital book should not cost the same as a printed book.
DC puts out a lot of older material at discounted prices (and a lot of interesting books by indie creators that have signed on with DC), and that's cool. The usual price is $2, which is not a fantastic discount for material I already own.
And how do you keep retailers in the equation? Comics Alliance says they're just going to have to accept it and stay afloat however they can... with a comparison that nobody worries about Netflix affecting retail movie sales. Of course, "buying movies" is not adrift in the same cultural morass that surrounds "buying comics."
What if the publishers started syncing up their customers (buyers of actual, physical comics) with accounts on the ComiXology app. Like, DC knows that I buy Green Lantern every month. So my ComiXology account gets a credit for the digital version... not for free, but for something nominal like 50 cents. Or maybe it is free once the system becomes self-supporting.
And DC uses the retailers to communicate this. Based on what they actually sell to me, they kick that info back to DC and ComiXology. The retailers are the trusted watchdog gatekeeper on this. It means adding a customer database infrastructure, which I'm sure is another publisher headache and retailer nightmare to manage. But what if that becomes the natural evolution of the business? You'd just do it, right? Just like adding credit card scanners back in the '80s.
Now take it a step further. DC starts adding more and more selections from their near-century back catalog. My local comic shop visually verifies that I own the entirety of Crisis on Infinite Earths and that gets added to my ComiXology account. Again, for a price. $4 for all twelve issues. $3 goes to DC, and the retailer and ComiXology split the rest.
DC (and the rest) want to think that I'd pay $24 for that set of Crisis. Or, if I'm being written off because I already own it, that new readers would pay that price.
I don't know. Something has to change for comics to stay viable. The industry supports itself on licensing, something that used to be a sidebar business. Lots of people out there would like to read comics, but are put off by the high price tag... when you're comparing media as non-fans would, $3 for a comic just does not seem to measure up to a $1 blockbuster movie rental. A $15 trade doesn't carry the same perceived value as a $15 DVD purchase. The pricing is all wrong to bring new people in, except for one-off novelty purchases.
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