Digital Distribution Dilemmas
It's an issue that the comics industry has been grappling with for years now, and most fans would agree that there is simply no clear solution in sight. Shakespeare's made the transition to the Kindle rather snugly, but neither of the major comic powerhouses have come up with a satisfactory digital analogue, and the smaller publishers falter with their own applications which haven't captured a fraction of the print audience. Maybe comic fans are too stubborn or adapt, or maybe DC and Marvel are too reluctant to shake things up in an unstable economy. But the simple fact is that digital distribution will surely, in due time, become the preferred media vector. Preferably not the sole vector, but at the least more prominent than we find it today. So who's taking the initiative to get us there? Turns out it's probably Apple, though not necessarily as you'd expect it to.
The two most popular options today for your downloadable funnies fix both come by way of the Jesus phone, with the comixology and iVerse media apps. The problem in their distribution comes from the App Store, which Apple would like to treat with a religious carefulness. The apps, which only act as online comic shops from whom you can purchase digital comics, originally cost 99¢, simply because Apple wouldn't allow app developers to distribute an app for free if you had to buy further products from within the app. This has since been amended with the release of 3.0 software, but only marks one of Apple's blunders in the name of greed.
Case 2 comes in the form of the Spider-Woman motion comic. Though an entire side rant could come up discussing the relatively fresh medium of motion comics, (and indeed, I would hope many opinions on digital distribution as a whole are yet to be discussed on this blog) it's fairly evident that motion comics as a medium are still learning to fly. This fresh take has been relegated to sloppy commercial management hell. The Watchmen Motion Comic, for example, was sold on DVD and through iTunes with limited consumer enthusiasm, seen as a fanservice supplement to the movie. Yet still, Marvel decided to take the same route with their motion adapation of "Spider-Woman: Agent of Shield." While the 99¢ per episode price tag can be dismissed as a minor annoyance, it came as a further disservice to the fans when all the episodes appeared on Hulu, free except for the "The More You Know" commercial which might precede it.
Neither of these examples entirely discredit Apple as a reliable future-comics distributor, but they do illustrate the frustration that can come from having a money-hungry middle-man trying to sell you comics. The solution (or at least what your humble narrator hopes to be a solution) may come in next month's release of the Longbox Digital Comics Platform. If the prerelease information is to be believed, it should act as file reader that will work directly with the bigwigs and self-publishers to reliably deliver the digital goods to your desktop. But to validate this rant as a news item, LongBox CEO Rantz Hosely has made some cryptic suggestions as to the future of the platform:
Referring to a future strategic partnership with an unnamed company, Rantz said "It seems like everything is going to go through as planned." He identified the company only as one that "all of a sudden leaves us with a multinational launch with literally millions of installed users."
So it would appear that iTunes integration, like it or not, is nearly a certainty to LongBox's expansion. Though it is far too early to tell if the platform will get far, it appears at present to be the only distributor with a workable plan and large user potential. Only time will tell. Until then, I don't plan on disrupting my ritualistic Wednesday commute.
Source: Longbox digital comics store adds to Apple tablet frenzy|Chicago Sun-Times
Rubber Justice
Posted to editorial on 21 October 2009
· Comments (1)
Other stuff like this: apple, digital distribution, iphone, longbox, motion comics, spider-woman
This is one of those areas where I find myself a staunch technophobe. I read plenty of webcomics without thinking twice about it but when it comes to what I think of when I think "comics," I can't fathom not having a paper copy. There's texture and smell and the way the image changes when they're read in natural light, a whole list of properties the experience has that I don't trust a digital version to recreate.
Still, you're right. The business of comics is going to seek a digital distribution method that cuts costs. No publisher is a non-profit and no creators eat for free. I don't want to see them tied to a business model that isn't sustainable in twenty years but I am not ready for them to take my dead trees away.