Publishers Look to Digital Comics
This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on November 21, 2006 Sign up now!
by Trevor Soponis, PW Comics Week -- Publishers Weekly, 11/21/2006
In an effort to push the commercial boundaries of online comics, some publishers are beginning to charge fees for digital access to their comics material. So far, this emerging business model has taken two main forms: subscription services and single-issue purchases. The possibilities and problems inherent in both models are relevant to an industry looking for new audiences and new revenue.
Subscription services, like those offered by Joey Manley's ModernTales family of Web sites, present an one potential model of comics distribution and consumption. In less than five years, Manley has set up five online comics portals: ModernTales.com, Serializer.net, Girlamatic.com, GraphicSmash.com and WebComicsNation.com, by far the largest site of them all. The smaller sites offer unlimited access to around 30 comics series for $1.95 a month while ComicsNation has nearly 500 comics series for $9.90 a month.
"There were a lot of artists who were not thinking through their business opportunities," explained Manley, when asked about the beginnings of his operation. "For a small press used to selling 2,000 copies of an issue, they only get 40% of [the revenue from] that. It's a huge win if they can keep all the money." Instead of publishers incurring all the printing expenses and settling for the profit structure of the comics shop market (also known as the direct market), Manley offers an online portal directly presenting the work of a group of artists. Using this model, production costs are minimized, returns are nonexistent and profit is split more evenly. While this system has made stars out of up-and-coming cartoonists like Shaenon K. Garrity and her Narbonic series, it has also attracted better-known comics artists like Jay Stephens, Lea Hernandez and James Kochalka.
Adopting a different method to distribute its comics online, Slave Labor Graphics has been at the forefront of selling single-issue purchases, and is currently offering digital downloads for most of its catalogue. "I have gotten a lot of positive feedback from the consumer end. People are really excited about being able to buy comics as downloadables, especially as low as we have priced some of the titles," said Dan Vado, president and publisher of Slave Labor Graphics. The pricing for books is simple: 89 cents for new releases and 69 cents for all back issues, all offered as either PDF or CBZ files. While he acknowledges problems, like the time-consuming digital transfer process and the cost of providing consumer support, he is confident enough in the model that he is opening a dedicated download site called Eyemelt.com later this month.
Picking an electronic file type is a significant concern when a publisher is using the single-issue purchase model. First, all file types need some kind of software in order to view them. While the vast majority of computers can read PDF files, fewer can readily read CBZ files, which many digital professionals argue provide a better reading experience. While software for both file types is available for free, publishers are wondering whether consumers might be willing to download different comics reading software in order to view their purchase.
The next most pressing issue for the single-issue distribution model is piracy. It is a reality of digital distribution that once the consumer has purchased and downloaded the digital content, there is no way to stop the unauthorized reproduction of the downloaded file. While smaller publishers and emerging self-publishers have less to lose—so-called online piracy can often actually function more like promotion and marketing—and subsequently have embraced the model, larger publishers like Marvel and DC have not yet offered on-line sales, most likely out of fear of piracy. Marvel and DC declined to discuss their digital comics initiatives with PWCW. While e-book-style encryption, or Digital Rights Management, is usually offered as one way to control online piracy, some publishers and digital distributors take a different view of the situation.
"The cold reality of the situation is, if the comic exists, somebody has a pirate copy available somewhere," says Todd Allen, a leading academic on the subject of digital comic commerce at Columbia College Chicago. "You might as well accept it and move on. If your product is any good, this ends up being free marketing, and it will come back to you in print edition or merchandising sales."
Technological and piracy issues aside, most see the potential for a viable business distributing digital comics via the Web. "Digital [distribution] will still be there to support print, but it will replace the serialized comic book as a revenue stream and distribution method for many comic book creators," argued Vado. Allen is even more optimistic. "Remember when Marvel took the campus by storm in the '60s? It's happening with digital comics now."
