Digital Comics: Good for the Industry or Bad for the Industry?

[Anubis]

Not as much control as they used to but I was only joking around anyway...

Yeah, as was I....hence the robot hookers. I mean robot hookers are a gift from God.

 

[Max J Power]

I'll read digital, but I have to be able to get the comics for a lower price than the print versions. DC's $1.99 per issue is a good deal, but when a lot of its trades are $10 online, I'd rather have the trade because I like print copies better, as a physical thing to read.

I'm planning on subscribing to Marvel Digital Unlimited instead of Marvel's mailorder (Marvel just raised the price again on those subscriptions). The reader is good enough; I have a desktop with a 19-inch screen, which is big enough to read the issues in fullscreen mode, and I don't mind zooming in to read on my laptop. Yeah, I won't feel like I really own the comics, but I don't need to. I check out more trades from the library every year than I buy, so there's already a lot of stuff I love but don't own.

 

[Dark Raven]

Just started getting into digital comics, at least on a smart phone. It certainly is a different experience reading things panel by panel instead of page by page. On a tablet it still looks like a normal comic but I suppose it can't really be done that way for a phone.

From the sound of this thread, it seems like people aren't as fond of the Marvel site compared to Comixology. But does Comixology have Marvel comics there or is it just DC?

 

[747]

As a person living in a country where comic stores barely exist, digital comics is a gift from heaven. I don't get why it would be a bad thing?

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I bought an iPad and now I read a ton of digital comics. It's kind of ridiculous. I've bought whole series on Comixology. I just finished reading the entire Astounding Wolf-Man series digitally. In one day. It's so easy to just keep reading when there's a link to the next issue right at the end of the current one and my iPad can have a couple hundred issues on it at any given time. I'm like a crack fiend.

 

[runawayboulder]

I hear a lot of good things about Comixology. They seem to run some insane deals all the time.

 

[JewishHobbit]

So what are your guys' opinions on selling the digital codes that come in $4 Marvel comics? I was talking to a guy the other day and his opinion was that it was wrong, taking money out of Marvel's pocket. Personally, I think it's fine. I bought the comic... if I sell the code that's inside I don't really see it as being any different than selling the comic to someone or to Half Priced Books, etc. As long as you aren't overpricing the digital code.

And did I hear that Marvel frowns on that as well? Someone mentioned it in passing and I really don't get it.


As for digital comics... it's not really for me. I'm too old school. I enjoy reading the comics. If it's on a computer screen I don't feel like I own it and I certainly don't want to spend money on something I "don't own." I gotta have the floppies. I'm not even a fan of trades. Originals all the way.

 

[SpideyForPrez]

I don't know about selling them. Never been a fan of selling something that comes free with a purchase, regardless of the company and product. But hey, if people are willing to pay that's their business.

Personally, I enjoy redeeming my digital comic codes so I can build a nice cloud library for my Comixology account. I, of course, prefer paper comics but having digital back-ups is nice for when I travel, want to show someone something, or want to reread a comic without digging through my boxes.

A few weeks ago I got a Lenovo Yoga laptop/tablet (great computer) that folds into a tablet. Since then, I've been buying a TON of digital comics of books I was hesitant to buy in print, because it's actually pretty fun to read comics in tablet mode. For example, they had the first issue of the new IDW TMNT book up for free. After reading that I decided to buy the first collection, then the second, and so on.

 

[Anubis]

Well, it's not free if you're paying that extra dollar for it. That's supposed to be their reason behind pushing their s**t up to 4 bucks.

 

[SpideyForPrez]

That may be their reasoning now, but all the $3.99 titles I buy were that price before they started including digital codes. So they're free as far as I'm concerned. Now if they started charging $4 for every book they sold that would be another thing. But as long as they're including free codes with books that were already $4, I don't see the point in complaining.

Unless you're talking about DC, they charge an extra dollar on top of their $4 books for the digital code combo packs.

 

[Anubis]

Except they also give you an extra 5 to 10 pages for that 4 dollar price tag.

Also, no double shipping.

 

[SpideyForPrez]

Yeah, the double shipping is lame. But my point was that I enjoy having the digital copies in addition to print. Steep prices and double shipping were problems before digital codes.

Thing about DC including the extra 5-10 pages (which I do like) is that they often don't progress or relate to the main story. At least they don't with Batman, which is the only $3.99 DC title I'm currently buying but maybe others do.

 

[Anubis]

Yeah, they're back ups.

Which is still way better than having a digital copy of the same thing you just bought.

 

[JewishHobbit]

I'll agree to that.

Essentially, Marvel's just giving you two of the same thing for an extra dollar, one of them a form of the comic that I have zero interest in. DC is giving you a new story. Justice League's Shazam back up has been fantastic. Batman's haven't been quite as good but they do relate to the story (especially during the Death of the Family arc). I still don't like the $4 price tag at DC but at least they're giving you something more for it.

My biggest deal is that I feel $4 is just the limit of overpriced comicbooks. I can accept it up to $3 but that extra $1 push is just too much. I complained about it, yeah, but now Marvel's double shipping a lot of those $4 comics to make monthly buying even less affordable and beyond rediculous if you buy your limit a month in comics. If I can sell off the codes for $1 then that makes up for some of the extra expenses of their overpriced double-shipping and I don't have to drop as many books to make up for the cost of my favorite titles.

I already sell the codes to 3 or 4 comics to a regular "customer" and I'm thinking about hitting ebay for the rest and for all the back issues I have that have the codes. Financially, it makes sense and I don't think there's any crime it. It's not like illegal downloading where people are just getting it for free (which I guess would count if I were just giving them away). I see it as no different than when we hit $1 bins.

 

[Thwip!]

Cant beat the smell of an old comic collection...if your tablet starts smelling like that, then something's probably fried