Now I know how DC rewards failure.

~

Coat

2) “Creator gets money” is always a good thing.

3) I disagree. As long as there are living relatives of the creators, I believe the rights should go to them.

The digital realm isn’t unpoliceable. It’s just more difficult to monitor.

As usual, the answer is somewhere in the middle. However to reach the middle, the major players needs to move away from the extremes toward compromise.

I don’t think that 3d printing is going to herald a phase change as dramatic as has happened in media with the physical world, at least not anytime soon, as that is a much, much more complex problem.

I take your point though - if everything is easily pirateable, what then?

My answer is, I don’t know. But I don’t ever see any useful wisdom coming out of endless online discussion of digital vs. print comics. Will digital save the industry? No, it won’t. The industry as constituted is doomed.

The truth is, there needs to be a whole new media industry built according to the new reality of unpoliceable digital availability. I doubt it will be organized around objects like comic books or graphic novels. I imagine the artform of comics will be used in storytelling in the new industry, but I doubt there will be whole massive corporations devoted to producing that one art form in any physical way.

Also, you said: “There will be artists who do things for free, that’s true, but I don’t think that’s where we want to let things degenerate to if as a society we can help it.”

Personally, I don’t see that as a degeneration and I don’t see why we as a society should care. Are our cultural needs more well served by the slick output of massive companies, or by the beautiful, weird things our friends make out of passion?

Before the internet, you could say that it would result in an impoverishment, as most people in the world would have no way of being exposed to the variety of beautiful weirdness, but now that problem has been solved.

So, very few people will be able to make a living doing exclusively comics (or other art/entertainment)… so what? Very few do so now. No industry is owed immortality (not even Wall Street or Detroit, but that’s another can of worms).

You are right the “property” model is failing and won’t work in the future for creative work.

If I had to throw in my opinion on how things should be done, it would be something like this:

1) All creative output is available free online
2) The creator has an exclusive lifetime license to control any profits from any physical manifestation of their work. So, for comics, any bound collections printed as special edition keepsakes generate profit for the creator, or whoever the creator foolishly rents his/her license to.
3) Upon the deaths of all the original creators, the creative output automatically and irreversibly enters the public domain.

I can see several problems with what I’ve just suggested, but I think in it’s general outline it more closely follows the reality of unpoliceable digital availability, and however all of this shakes out, it will probably be something like that.

Print vs. Digital does matter, because that’s diversifying how you make your money. Plenty of documentation that your hard core audience will want that print collection, so it’s _still_ a way you can make money, even if you’re digital first. You just need to adjust your business set-up around which medium you hit first. You really do need to be in both though.

If network television has finally come to grips with the need of having their content online in a reasonable amount of time, how far behind the curve does that leave comics?

Some thoughts I’ll to add:

The physical world is going to be able to be pirated just as easy soon (2d and 3d printers). So what then?

And to have 1,000 true fans, you’re going to need an actual following of 1,000,000.

There will be artists who do things for free, that’s true, but I don’t think that’s where we want to let things degenerate to if as a society we can help it.

I have indy creator friends (one of which is linked to in my name) working on dealing with these same issues. From watching what they deal with, and another friend producing indy games, one thing is for sure the whole concept of IP is going to have to be based on a different model than property. What that new model is, I have no idea.

I don’t know what the answers are, but I think it’s going to have to be some sort of new social contract that we all abide by.

It’s great to see conversations like this where people are seriously grappling with these concepts. Most of the above have been great replies to read.

Nothing anybody says matters, nothing anybody thinks of can save the old ways. The ways people derive their entertainment have always changed and are changing again, and nobody knows how it will end, and it isn’t possible to forsee a correct formula.

Music, movies, tv, print, all of it is just bits now and bits are impossible to police. It is all free already, and all of the top heavy industries as currently constituted to profit from them are in various stages of collapse. Nothing will stop that. They are all doomed. Comics, as we know it, is further along the doom decline, as it got a massive head start.

But the thing about art is, frankly, people will make it regardless of whether they get paid. It isn’t going away. The tools that add polish to it are always getting cheaper. There will be a brief transition where the slick, big budget items like an out-of-the-blue Matrix movie or a Whedon/Cassaday X-Men comic won’t be feasible - but pretty soon large numbers of unfunded artists will be able to produce things of that caliber, and they will.

Some will put it out there for free. Some will charge and be pirated. Some who get pirated will make enough money off their 1000 true fans anyway. Some will be spotted by larger entities who will see an opportunity to make some cash out of some other distribution scheme, and deals will be made, and money will be made or lost.

Everything will change and nothing will.

It’s such a waste of air to speculate. The only things that seem obvious to me are:

1) Own your inventions (this is why people like Scott Kurtz or Gabe & Tycho are unlikely to be hired to do Batman or X-Men… why would they bother? The huge effort would pull them off of work on their own, incredibly lucrative, wholly independent IP. I can’t imagine either Marvel or DC have the ability to pay either of them anywhere near enough to do that.)

2) Don’t worry about pirates (it’s going to happen whether you try to prevent it or not. If your plan for a living can be destroyed by piracy, it’s already dead.)

3) Care about your work (people can smell authenticity, and it seems to be only authenticity that encourages true-fans and financial return. Authenticity isn’t an assurance, plenty of heartfelt work fails, but no cold hackwork can succeed in this new environment.)

Beyond that, medium, physical or conceptual, doesn’t matter in the least. Paper, digital, who cares? It just doesn’t matter. Maybe you’ll find an audience, maybe you won’t. There’s no road map. There’s no answer. You just have to take your chances.

And it’s always better to gamble with your own property. That way, if despite absurdly terrible odds, you win, you get to keep the whole pot yourself. Nothing sucks more than to win big against all odds and have to hand it all over to someone else.

For example, you could spend lots of money, time and resources trying to come up with an advanced pen that writes in the extreme conditions of space for NASA.

Or you could just use a pencil.

I’ve done it right, and I still prefer print.

“The future of comics MIGHT lie in one of the three possible following solutions”

I dislike all of your possibilities. The future of comics lies in variety and accessibility.

Spurgeon is funny.

“Promote literacy, and a love of literature…Until then, you’re just pissing into the wind.”

I agree. Ranting on message boards is basically digital “pissing into the wind.” Everyone who cares about comics should be giving comics to people and telling them to have an open mind. I’ve done it. Who’s next?

Couldn’t agree more, and that’s a problem. I appreciate that Marvel allows free reads of some of their digital offerings, but looking at them just discourages me from shelling out the money for a digital comics subscription. I want to have that option, and I’m in the target audience. I just think their interface is lousy.

I would want the digital version to supplement my single issues and TPBs though, rather than replace them.

Exactly! I would go for .cbr’s and then buy the collections in dead tree format. They don’t have to stop making the pamphlets, just get the damn online thing happening already.

This is a case where the Radiohead model is relevant, b/c the fans _are_ rabid. Paying the insane amounts for pamphlets with ads as they do now is proof to me that the pie can be grown. $3.00 for a 32 page comic? That’s insane.

Also, the love and dedication of the comics scanners means that most of the Silver Age has already been archived! If DC hosted it, they could find out how many fans want to read this stuff on laptops.

Please no more of these newstand type arguments. Print is decreasing everywhere. Why would they want to waste a bunch of money trying to increase printings so that they can get on magazine racks in stores?Magazine racks in stores just keep people occupied. Thats all comics would be in any of those places. Thats an awful idea and would surely sink Marvel and DC into deep trouble.

1. Combining a group of related comic series (4 to 6 different series) and publishing them in a line of over sized line of monthly anthology magazines. Unlike other past anthology comic book magazines, these magazines WILL NOT have rotating series and/or characters, but will feature the same series and/or characters every month. Each series would also be a full comic story (22 to 32 pages). These magazines would also have lot’s of adds in order to cut down on the price. These magazines will not only be sold in comic shops but would also be targeted at venues outside of the comic book shops.

2. Putting individual issues out each month on DVD with ANIMATED cinema scenes. Basically, I’m talking about a format similar to the Crossgen DVD’s from a few years ago, except these DVD’s would (a) contain single issues (b) have fully animated CGI or cell animation cinema scenes (which was something that Crossgen was planning on adding to their DVD’s but went bankrupt before they had a chance to do it) (c) contain sound effects and background music and (d) would have options for either voice over or just word balloons/caption boxes.

3. Abandon the whole comic book format all together and start putting out fully animated (CGI or traditional cell animation) monthly mini episodes (about 12-15 minutes long) on DVD. There would and should also be adds at the beginning of each episode to help cut down on the cost of this animated DVD’s. These DVD’s could be sold in both comic shops and other mass market venues outside comic shops. This is nothing but evolution. Comics replaced the pulp magazines, and eventually monthly animated DVD series MIGHT replace comics.

But really, don’t we all know that already by now? It’s just frustrating waiting for reality to catch up, I guess.

Bob, you’re doing it wrong. Now, I don’t know how your computer is set up, but I strongly suspect that your screen isn’t set up to use its proper resolution and/or you’re looking at the rather poor efforts at digital reproduction that have been made by the big two, rather than the often superior efforts of the pirates.

The file format that the pirates use (.CBR or .CBZ, basically a bunch of jpeg files in a zip file) and reader software are also substantially easier to read and navigate than the various technologies that the official digital efforts have come up with.

The scanners have basically been working longer from poorer sources, but they really do know how to get good results from their work.

I really don’t understand the attachment to paper. I’ve got dozens of long boxes that I haven’t done anything with since I filled them. Some of them are 20 years old. I don’t actually want to think about how much of my rent is due to my comic storage needs.

On the other side, I have computer files. They’re organized nicely in folders. Even if they weren’t, I can search and find any one that I want in seconds. All of them might fit on a disk drive that weighs about a pound and is slightly larger than two packs of cigarettes. I can read them on a computer screen up to the size of my TV, meaning that I often notice details I might not have seen in the printed copies (particularly rewarding for something like Top 10). The only thing I’m giving up, in my mind, is the collector mentality. Oh well.

Want to increase publishing sales, across all formats? Promote literacy, and a love of literature, across the entire culture. Until then, you’re just pissing into the wind.

I’d seriously love to know how they made up the other 90% if that’s accurate. Are they including them in collector versions of the games?

My god, laptops and mobile phones! Of course!

If there was a wide consensus that both delivered excellent reading experiences for comics and books, and comics are defined as traditional pages rather than strip formats, this discussion would be pretty moot.

The latter is an especially terrible example. Not everybody wants to read comics on an iPhone or cellphone. Some people, but it would be a small niche. This was covered over at Wired and someone even brought up how Steve Jobs isn’t aggressively hyping ereaders because it just isn’t a priority as far as numbers go.

And if your laptop is powered by Sony recall fire hazard batteries, you’re probably going to be wondering why the Human Torch seems so damn real as you peruse some classic FF.

Sure Kindle sales spike when Oprah hypes it but it’s not perfect and arguably overpriced. Maybe get Oprah starting a comics club. If that doesn’t bring people into stores, I don’t know what else to say except I hope Oprah would be disappointed and punish her army for not obeying her commands.

And you could probably add some more heads on the beast too. And divide and refine the heads already referred to.

There seems to be a degree of convergence happening as much within comics as across other media as well so it seems the heads of hydra are frequently taking bits and pieces from each other.

For some reason, I feel a need to play some God of War…

I don’t see print going away anytime soon for several reasons. Everybody hypes digital as a replacement for everything else when it appears more to be supplemental like an extra tool in a toolbox that has uses that other tools don’t have but also limitations that the existing tools are better able to cover.

Or maybe we’ll all be wearing DigitalTron3000 Helmets for all of our entertainment, communication, and life-sustaining needs within 5 years.

Also the global economy is in the toilet with US automakers talking bankruptcy.
I think you can only say that you’re recession-proof to a point before you have to acknowledge that impact at some point.

I’d hate to see floppies go entirely because the format allows you to do self-contained stories within a certain page count that can be just as good and satisfying as any extended storyarc. I guess anthology collections can do short stories too but I still think the pamphlet has strengths that people shouldn’t dismiss quite so easily.

Sounds great, DJ.