I feel betrayed. I went in with Marvel on their whole Digital Comics Unlimited. I felt that it could be a great tool to get people reading more comics. Letting them read some older stories that now tie into current storylines. Read the first issue of a trade that is coming out soon. Huge possibilities. Then the iPad came. And I still saw the same possibilities.
But yesterday they announced that they are going to release Invincible Iron man Annual #1 online the same day as they release it in stores. They are pricing it oddly, so that it actually costs more digitally than the print version. And they are calling it a test. But my big fear is that no matter the result, they will announce it as a huge success and will go forward with releasing digital content the same day as print sales across the board.
Was this inevitable? Yes, probably. But I don’t understand the big jump into the lake. They didn’t even bother to get their feet wet first. IDW, who has been doing online sales for the PSP for a while now, started with a one month delay between print and digital release. Fair enough. But Marvel decided to throw caution to the wind and do same day, because that’s what the internet wants.
Here are my problems with this:
1. I buy my books from Marvel non-returnable. If a book sucks, I am stuck with it. I have no more information about an issue that you do from the info in Previews or the internet. Now, I am going to have to compete with Marvel directly for sales. How much of an impact will this have on my sales? I have no idea. If my Marvel sales drop 10%, not only do I lose those sales, but I am also stuck with more books than I need because Marvel cannibalized those sales. Do I start cutting my orders now as a preemptive strike? Probably.
2. Marvel has the largest percentage of the new comics sales in the industry right now. Cutting that country-wide will have a very negative effect. Stores that are just hanging on will close. And if this proves not to be the be all and end all of the comic future, there is no way to bring those stores back. Comic stores are not great money makers. No one does this to get rich. We do it because we love the products and the medium. Chasing those people away is a bad idea.
3. Does Marvel even have a plan? I don’t know. My biggest problem with this is that Marvel didn’t tell us. We learned about it the same way as everyone else. No press release to stores. No mention even on the Marvel Retailer Resource Center, that I have to pay for to get Marvel information. I have a question on the retailer forum there as to how soon they expect to got full-line digital. I am very interested in how it is answered.
4. The iPad has only been out for 2 months. That really is not enough time for Marvel to have been able to really see how their digital download system is working. Its still so new and a fad. I was interested in seeing how it was going in month 6. To see if it was really viable for comic reading. My fear is that Marvel is jumping too fast and doijg irreparable harm to the industry with out getting the necessary data first. Kind of like they did in the 90s with heroes World. That didn’t work out too well for everyone (Marvel went into bankruptcy after that I recall, Diamond became a monopoly). Its disappointing to see them making the same kind of leap again.
Digital distribution has been hanging over our heads for a while now. No one knows what impact it will have. Same day distribution cannot be a good thing for us. I can’t compete with cheaper. Marvel sets the price on the books and I get a discount off that price. It has already be shown that the iPad has a built in mechanism to allow the copying and distribution of files online, so not only will I lose sales, but the pirates are now going to have nice digital files rather than scans to get. I get the impression that Marvel is expecting to get a large percentage of illegal downloaders to now suddenly pay for them. Good luck with that, guys.
And while this may be well and good for Marvel, I think it will really be bad for the industry as a whole. I bet that everybody has bought something they did not expect either through a recommendation or just by seeing something in the store and flipping through it. Now imagine looking at hundreds of covers on and iPad and trying to determine what is good. I also think that trades will suffer a huge hit with fewer comic book stores. Go look at the selection in a book store. They don’t carry 1/10th of what I have here in the store. Amazon? Great if you know what you are looking for. But not so good for browsing.
It is going to be a very interesting summer for comics. I will be glued to the news wires, since that seems to be the only place I can find out what is going on.
2 years ago
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