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angelophile
Third panel of Saturday was the one on digital comics and the industry's reactions to them, described thus:Digital Comics
With the release this month of the iPad, we ask how are publishers, creators and retailers adapting to the growing number of digital devices able to carry comics? What is the impact of piracy on the industry, and will it force publishers to finally seek a more sustainable digital business model?
On the panel for this discussion: Alex Fitch (Panel Borders podcast), Kieron Gillen (Phonogram), Kevin Mann (Co-founder of app developer Graphic.ly), Eddie Deighton (co-founder of Com.x) and Martin ‘Biff’ Averre (Owner of Colchester's Ace Comics). Hosted by REDEYE MAGAZINE's Barry Renshaw.
There was a good mix on this panel for the discussion, from publisher Eddie Deighton, who is developing a number of versions of Com.x titles for release on the iPad, to Biff Averre, who, as a comic store owner, admitted they'd "only just got to grips with email" and was a stranger to the digital medium.
The panel started with the talk of iPad and how the panel thought it would affect the comics industry. With the (possible) exception of Biff Averre, who said simply that none of his customers had ever brought up digital comics, the panel seemed very positive about the development and said that it was definitely an interesting time for the publishing industry, although most were adopting a "wait and see" approach as to how much it impacted the industry.
Deighton mentioned that it would be interesting to see how Marvel and DC handled digital releases. He mentioned that all their creators got a percentage of digital sales, as if they were hard sales. It was noted other publishers don't always include digital releases in contracts and creators aren't paid for any back issues being released online or for download, although it would be "interesting" how publishers like Marvel retroactively handled creators rights for their archives.
There was mention of the digital revolution pushing comics to a wider audience and debate about how much crossover there was between the games and the comics industries. It was suggested that the games industry now is what the comics industry was some years ago - that the audience for games now would have picked up comics previously. Kieron Gillen disagreed that it was the same market but conceded there was some definite crossover that could be monopolized on and that tech-savvy teenagers could boost the comics market.
Deighton explained how they use Comixology as they found it to be the most responsive to developing delivery to match the material and in terms of the aesthetics (page turning animations were mentioned as a particular annoyance), which led to some discussion of how viable multiplatform comics were, with Marvel using one app for their comics, other publishers using others, etc. With a range of non-interchangeable platforms, there are barriers to effective mass market usage, but it was mentioned that was balanced by the concern that if a single platform gained dominance, then a monopoly situation could occur where that distributor could ‘name their price’, squeezing a greater cut out of publishers reliant on them for distribution.
However, the benefits of digital comics to the publisher were considered, with the idea that lower printing costs would lead to greater creator investment, although that wasn't entirely agreed with. The idea was then floated by Alex Finch that in the future , those who wanted physical comics could get them with a "print on demand" service in stores. In terms of placing a call in the morning for the comics you wanted, and the store would print them and they'd be available for collection later in the day. Thus cutting printing costs for publishers, but meaning that stores could still sell to the end user.
The idea that stores would not be viable if the majority of comics were digital didn't get a lot of thought, although a number of comments, from Averre and others, suggested that the panel believed that most readers would continue to purchase physical comics and collections and the digital medium was more valuable hitting an audience that comic stores don't. There was agreement that there were a lot of people who probably would read comics that simply hadn't stepped foot in a comic store, either because they found it daunting, or simply that there wasn't a specialist store in their area.
There was a leaning from the panel that, in some cases, digital comics could replace individual issues, which don't appear to be most publisher's main focus, and then collected in printed trade volumes.
The panel then talked about how to sell digital comics in a way that made them more attractive than pirated versions. Kieron Gillen and other members of the panel considered piracy to be a "fact of life" and talked about how to use piracy as a tool or offer something in official releases that pirated versions couldn't offer, such as soundtracks (with Gillen mentioning Phonogram and how a digital release could play the song associated with a particular section of the book as you were reading it), sketches or seeing the page through different stages in the production process, such as clicking to see the original pencils of a page, etc.
The iTunes model of convenience was mentioned, with the panel in agreement that most people would pay for digital releases if it was made easy : if downloading legally is substantially easier than downloading illegally, and relatively cheap, the public will probably mostly go with that. Alex Fitch mentioned a friend who'd recently bought an iPad who'd occasionally go into the local comic store and spend £30. But in one evening since buying the ipad he'd spent £200, simply because it was easy to do so.
The panel moved back towards piracy specifically and cited an example where a production company had released the first three episodes of a television series through torrent sites to get people talking before it aired. (Which, after research, appears to be a common practice now, with Chuck, Weeds, The Sarah Connor Chonicles, Pushing Daisies, Californication, Brotherhood and Dexter all apparently deliberately leaked to torrent sites in advance.)
This led onto the idea of releasing entire digital comics for free as a promotional tool. Deighton mentioned that with those titles where they've released the first issue as a free download, they've then seen a bump in sales for subsequent issues and apparently Neil Gaiman has recently spoken about the same thing. Kieron Gillen agreed that previews, at the very least, certainly aided sales.
He mentioned that Jamie McKelvie had actually downloaded a scanned version of Phonogram to see what pirates were getting in terms of quality. Asked whether McKelvie was unhappy, Kieron said that he was probably annoyed more by poor, low resolution previews, as they gave a flawed impression of the final product.
Averre then brought up the Warren Ellis title Freakangels, which is available for free online as a webcomic and then printed in trade form. He noted that it's one of their biggest sellers in terms of independent trade collections and outsells a lot of Ellis' other titles and they know to order at least 25 copies of each trade, knowing they'll sell well. Apparently there's a certain readership that can read things for free but would either prefer to read a physical comic or are collectors.
Kieron Gillen then talked about piracy again and mentioned one developer in the games industry, who, recognizing in advance that their game was likely to be pirated, deliberately leaked a version onto torrent sites. However, they'd built into the version that it used a certain server for all online peer-to-peer multiplayer games. So every now and again, they'd simply turn off that server, frustrating the users enough that they'd then go out and buy the legal version of the game, then after a while, turn on P2P play again.
The panel wound down as certain members had to leave, but it was an interesting insight. The general view seemed to be that piracy is a fact of life and trying to use it as a promotional tool in some way is far more effective than attempting to combat it. There was also a strong leaning towards comics getting a multiplatform release at the same time, so it would be available in stores at the same time as online digitally, which, in combination with an easy "pay for and read" model could do a lot to combat illegal downloading where legal versions of releases are often not available until six months after they've been in stores.
The panel agreed that digital comics will probably play an important factor in the future of the industry, but that it was still too early to predict exactly how.
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KG
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KG
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