A Few Notes On Marvel Comics’ Digital Strategy

June 30th, 2011 | comics talk

Marvel Comics’ digital-comics strategy is that… they don’t seem to have one, really. Full disclosure — I’m on work-for-hire exclusive to them until the end of the year. But they’re all used to me moaning at them anyway.

Marvel may now be owned by Disney, but you can be damned sure attention is still paid to their quarterly reports. And it’s hard to keep your lines buoyant when everything else in your business is a constant fight against diminishing returns. I personally believe that taking much of the print line to a sales point of $3.99 will defeat growth in the print sector. I know they’re doing it to protect themselves, but I think it’s going to hurt in the long run.

Are they then, like DC, looking to digital as a way to increase reach? Well… not yet. I believe they have done some original digital comics. (By which I mean company-owned Marvel comics created for digital-first release.) But I’m not sure there was any great plan to their release. One of the things I like about Marvel is that they move pretty fast and are capable of an entirely random “hey, let’s do this thing for five minutes” move. The whole Marvel Architects cascade-of-events structure they do these days are frankly as organised as Marvel’s ever been on the macro-scale.

Their digital store, then, is a big back-issue bin, with the occasional experiment in day-and-date simultaneous release in print and digital. They’re unlikely to go line-wide day-and-date like DC unless DC’s numbers are explosively successful and stay that way for six months — in digital AND print. Right now, Marvel own the comics stores in terms of dollar sales and market share, and probably see no compelling reason to risk a dilution of those figures. Those figures look good on quarterly reports. And that’s not a knock against Marvel, just an observation of the reality of their business life.

All that said: I can conceive of a point where there’s pressure on them to do something more with their digital store. And also, pressure to do less. I recently noted that if I, say, wanted to buy the first part of Walt Simonson’s THOR run (in my case, because I wanted to remind myself of some of Simonson’s tricks in page design), I couldn’t buy a digital edition of the collection in question. I had to buy it as single issues in digital form. Which suggests to me that, somewhere, someone decided they didn’t want Marvel Digital to be seen as affecting bookstore sales. That would seem to me to be a cautious shuffle too far, and possibly indicative of conflicts ahead.

I am looking to Marvel to do more original material for digital. They’ve done it before, there’s obviously a system in place to make it happen, they can reprint in trade paperback, and it’ll make a good business narrative. It’s the march they can steal on DC, it doesn’t screw with their print market share, and it fits Marvel’s profile better.

It could make for interesting times in the commercial medium.

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June 30th, 2011 | photography


Ellen Rogers

more

Post #13008   

Vessel

June 29th, 2011 | music

First single off Zola Jesus’ new record, CONATUS, should appear below.  “Vessel”:

Zola Jesus – Vessel by sacredbones

Post #13006   

June 29th, 2011 | brainjuice

“I am fucking JAMES BOND!”

Post #13004   

DC And Digital Comics Strategies

June 29th, 2011 | comics talk

To understand DC Comics’ move to day-and-date with digital editions of their print comics, you have to understand the intent behind their relaunch.

One crucial thing hasn’t changed. For as long as I’ve known him, Dan Didio has believed the key to a resurgent DC is reclaiming all the readers the commercial medium lost in the 90s. On the DC Retailer Roadshow, he’s been hammering this home. Recent statements about how commercial comics have gotten boring and that there should be more visual punch in the mode of 90s comics movements like the early Image Comics work and (unspoken, but certainly associated) the Marvel style of that general period… have made their mark, but have also misled a bit. It’s all about accessing that hypothetical lost fan base. The impression the recent statements have left is Dan saying “comics used to sell loads back then, let’s do that again.” And that can’t happen in print.

Comics used to sell loads back then, yes. But a big part of that — and this is the part he isn’t mentioning — is that there were ten thousand comics shops back then. And now there are, optimistically and rounding up, about two thousand. There simply aren’t the number of outlets left to sell the kind of volume comics could shift in the 90s.

The gamble here is this: that hypothetical lost fan base is older, has credit cards and disposable income, and an internet connection that can bring the DC Comics section of a notional comics store right to their desks. That, in fact, digital comics services will do the work of those eight thousand stores that don’t exist anymore.

It was in DC’s core DNA to protect and serve physical comics stores. To the point where every 18 months or so they’d pay for a hundred comics retailers to attend a special DC conference, where the retailers could moan at them for two days and then go home and order more Marvel comics. (In broad and crude terms, DC were the attentive suitor, while Marvel Comics treated retailers mean to keep them keen.) Now, there is a fascinating situation where DC will polybag special issues of JUSTICE LEAGUE #1 with a digital-comic download code, a book that will cost an extra dollar. Comics are done on firm sale. Which means, as far as I can see, that the retailer is being charged extra money on each copy of that edition too. Maybe I’m wrong, and comics retailers aren’t being offered a reacharound while getting an mild yet unwelcome pegging. But it’s an interesting kind of support. DC are offering support to retailers in other ways and are making sympathetic noises, but other quotes from this roadshow — one from Bob Wayne, DC’s head of sales, boiled down to “if you’re not selling enough of our comics you’re not doing your job” — tend to suggest that someone at the company has realised that the comics retailers already have a girlfriend and never liked DC anyway.

(Also, Dan and Jim? I love you guys, and I’m greatly enjoying watching you start some shit. But you can’t keep talking about how the old comics were boring when you in fact were the old management too. Someone’s eventually going to call you on it, and you’re not going to have a good answer. That said: keep starting fires. It’s good.)

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On The Magic Of Press Release Writing

June 28th, 2011 | Work

So I came across this press release for the Marvel Anime stuff I wrote series outlines for.  I didn’t write scripts, just outlines that were adapted and expanded into scripts by Japanese writers.  From what little I’ve seen of the end result, there’s pretty much nothing of my work in them, and I’m not actually screen-credited in the Japanese releases.  Which is fair enough.  I got paid, and if they didn’t use the work, there’s no reason to give me a credit, right?

What struck me as odd was this, buried in the press release:

G4 is the exclusive U.S. television home of the four brand-new anime series, guided by New York Times best-selling author Warren Ellis

New York Times best-selling author?  I don’t think so.  When the hell did that happen?  I think I would have heard about that, right?  I’m already confused about my name being used in press releases when I’m not credited on the screen, but making shit up?  I presume this is the magic of PR that I hear about.

EDITED TO ADD: apparently the New York Times has a best-selling hardcover graphic novel list.  And Greg Pak has informed me that I appeared on it just once, with the $75 oversized hardcover ABSOLUTE PLANETARY 2 book.  One presumes it’s a dollar-number calculation rather than a unit-number count.  So I take it back, anonymous Marvel PR flack.  I did note on Twitter that I was surprised the NYT did such a thing, because I’ve seen book top the Diamond best-selling GNs list with 6000 sales, at which point Bendis said “don’t pull that string. The entirety of our world will unravel.”

And no, of course DC never mentioned anything about it to me.  Heh.

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Picture Of The Day

June 28th, 2011 | photography

(from BMEnews)

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Post #12988   

Phantom Circuit: 76

June 28th, 2011 | music

Post #12985   

Magnolia blossom after heavy rainstorm, New Orleans

June 28th, 2011 | photography

CONSTANT SIEGE

Magnolia blossom after heavy rainstorm, New Orleans

Sent with Reeder

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Post #12984   

The Economist | Neutrinos: Delta force (testing something!)

June 28th, 2011 | photography

The Economist

Neutrinos
A study of neutrinos may explain why things are made of matter, not antimatter

EVEN by the elevated standards of particle physics neutrinos are weird beasts. They travel within a whisker of the speed of light, have no electric charge, practically no mass and precious little will to interact with anything else. Billions penetrate every square centimetre of the Earth’s surface every second without so much as a quiver. This makes them rather hard to detect. So hard that Wolfgang Pauli, the Austrian physicist who postulated their existence in 1930, wagered a case of champagne that no one would ever do so. He lost the bet in 1956. Since then, neutrinos (of which there are now known to be three fundamentally different sorts) have allowed researchers to glimpse inside the sun, study exploding stars and examine the universe’s distant past.

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Post #12983   

PENNY RED

June 28th, 2011 | Work, people I know

I have written the foreword for Laurie Penny’s new book PENNY RED, which is out in October from Pluto Press.  Here’s the book’s page.  It’s pre-orderable in the usual places.

In the space of a year, Laurie Penny has become one of the most prominent voices of the new left. This book brings together her diverse writings, showing what it is to be young, angry and progressive in the face of an increasingly violent and oppressive UK government.

All kinds of good stuff in there, including her interview with China Mieville.

 

Laurie Penny is a journalist, feminist, and political activist from London. She is a regular writer for the New Statesman and the Guardian, and has also contributed to the Independent, Red Pepper and the Evening Standard. She is the author of Meat Market: Female Flesh Under Capitalism (2011). She has presented Channel 4′s Dispatches and been on the panel of the BBC’s Any Questions. Her blog, ‘Penny Red’, was shortlisted for the Orwell prize in 2010.

Post #12982   

June 27th, 2011 | brainjuice

Why Britain is crap: one day, ONE DAY of 90-degree heat, and the railway system is MELTING.

Post #12981   

A Collection Of Rambling On The Subject Of Digital Comics

June 27th, 2011 | comics talk

Some more disconnected rambling about digital comics:

The FREAKANGELS method did work for us. I don’t have numbers to hand, because I’m currently in the garden writing on my iPad and getting pissed on Bodiam Harvest organic white wine, but it goes something like this. Somewhere around 40K people read FREAKANGELS every week. 25% of those people buy each new collection within a few months of its release. So we break even and go into profit. And the collections keep selling. Simple as that.

I’m reading the first ARTESIA collection on the iPad via Graphicly. Or trying to. Graphicly doesn’t automatically remember where I stopped reading, so when I reopen the book I have to start from the beginning again. I’m assuming this is stupidity on my part, and there must be a bookmarking function I keep missing that I should apply manually. But the function of transparent user interfaces is in part to protect the idiot with the iPad from his own stupidity. So, while this annoyance is very probably on me, Graphicly might want to consider this for the future.

(I like Graphicly’s breadth of available work, but the app itself isn’t doing it for me yet. I had problems with it as notes earlier, and the “tiling” effect with each page turn — which I think is an aspect of their page commenting/”social reading” system — really isn’t as elegant as the page refreshes in other comics reading apps.)

I’m talking with various publishers about digital right now — mostly in a conversational, advisory way — and the one thing I’m trying to impress on everyone is that digital comics revenues are going to stay small for as long as everyone treats digital comics stores as back issue bins. While day-and-date digital releases of print comics is going to help with that, it won’t help enough on its own. It’s going to be the combination of day-and-date AND original digital material that drives the use of these services. (And remember that digital comics aren’t tablet-bound, all these services have web ends too.) And, further, original digital material should not and probably CANNOT be bound to the old model. Forget monthly release patterns. Original Digital Comics — Digital Original? — I need an acronym like my OGN, Original Graphic Novel — could drive people to these services fortnightly or even weekly. And they don’t have to be 22 pages or 20 pages or whatever the current print standard shakes out at. And the price, so far as I know, only has to end with a 9. I’m okay with, say, 10 or 11 pages a fortnight at USD 0.99. Or maybe even 8 pages a week at USD 0.79.

From which point, one might follow the FREAKANGELS model — serialise on digital, collect in print.

(Also, of course, subscription models will soon apply in digital — commit to a number of episodes, get a couple of points knocked off the price, get the comic automagically sideloaded to your bookshelf/app on release day.)

This all seems to surround my basic thinking on the mechanics of the thing. I’ll build on this at a later date.

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Post #12979   

Vitamins – “The Disappearance of David Lee Powell”

June 25th, 2011 | music

Big slow guitars, soaring voice, windchime and thunder percussion. Delighted to find that the video was in fact made by a current musical favourite of mine, Motion Sickness Of Time Travel.

Vitamins – The Disappearance of David Lee Powell from Motion Sickness of Time Travel on Vimeo.

Post #12976   

American Comics Reader Facing Criminal Charges In Canada

June 24th, 2011 | comics talk

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Charles Brownstein
charles.brownstein@cbldf.org

CBLDF Forms Coalition to Defend
American Comics Reader Facing Criminal Charges In Canada

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund today announces that it is forming a coalition to support the legal defense of an American citizen who is facing criminal charges in Canada that could result in a mandatory minimum sentence of one year in prison for comics brought into the country on his laptop.  This incident is the most serious in a trend the CBLDF has been tracking involving the search and seizure of the print and electronic comic books carried by travelers crossing borders.

CBLDF Executive Director Charles Brownstein says, "Although the CBLDF can’t protect comic fans everywhere in every situation, we want to join this effort to protect an American comic fan being prosecuted literally as he stood on the border of our country for behavior the First Amendment protects here, and its analogues in Canadian law should protect there."

The CBLDF has agreed to assist in the case by contributing funds towards the defense, which has been estimated to cost $150,000 CDN.  The CBLDF will also provide access to experts and assistance on legal strategy.  The CBLDF’s efforts are joined by the recently re-formed Comic Legends Legal Defense Fund, a Canadian organization that will contribute to the fundraising effort.  Please contribute to this endeavor by making a tax deductible contribution here.

The facts of the case involve an American citizen, computer programmer, and comic book enthusiast in his mid-twenties who was flying from his home in the United States to Canada to visit a friend.  Upon arrival at Canadian Customs a customs officer conducted a search of the American and his personal belongings, including his laptop, iPad, and iPhone. The customs officer discovered manga on the laptop and considered it to be child pornography.  The client’s name is being withheld on the request of counsel for reasons relating to legal strategy.

The images at issue are all comics in the manga style.  No photographic evidence of criminal behavior is at issue.  Nevertheless, a warrant was issued and the laptop was turned over to police.  Consequently, the American has been charged with both the possession of child pornography as well as its importation into Canada. As a result, if convicted at trial, the American faces a minimum of one year in prison. This case could have far reaching implications for comic books and manga in North America.

The CBLDF’s Board of Directors voted unanimously to aid the case by raising funds to contribute to the defense and to help the defense with strategy and expert resources.

Brownstein says, “This is an important case that impacts the rights of everyone who reads, publishes, and makes comics and manga in North America. It underscores the dangers facing everyone traveling with comics, and it can establish important precedents regarding travelers rights.  It also relates to the increasingly urgent issue of authorities prosecuting art as child pornography.  While this case won’t set a US precedent, it can inform whatever precedent is eventually set.  This case is also important with respect to artistic merit in the Canadian courts, and a good decision could bring Canadian law closer to US law in that respect.  With the help of our supporters, we hope to raise the funds to wage a fight that yields good decisions and to create tools to help prevent these sorts of cases from continuing to spread."

Find out more on the case here. To help support the case, you can make a monetary contribution here.

About CBLDF
The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund was founded in 1986 as a 501 (c) 3 nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of First Amendment rights for members of the comics community. They have defended dozens of Free Expression cases in courts across the United States, and led important education initiatives promoting comics literacy and free expression. For additional information, donations, and other inquiries call 800-99-CBLDF or visit them online at www.cbldf.org.

About CLLDF
The Comic Legends Legal Defense Fund was founded in 1987 to raise money for the defense of a Calgary, Alberta comic shop whose owners were charged with selling obscene materials. The CLLDF has since been maintained on an ad hoc basis to provide financial relief for Canadian comics retailers, publishers, professionals, or readers whose right to free speech has been infringed by civil authorities.  Largely dormant since the early 1990s, the CLLDF is reforming to provide support for this case, and reorganizing to ensure that help will be readily available for future cases involving Canadian citizens or authorities.  To help the CLLDF in this mission, please go to www.clldf.ca.

Post #12973   

The Progression Of The SVK Logo And Brands

June 23rd, 2011 | Work

From BERG, of course.

 

(#SVK sadly includes football results, damnit)

Post #12972   

More Fun With Drugs

June 23rd, 2011 | researchmaterial

“Doctors say the cocaine hitting the streets in New York and Los Angeles is now cut with a drug that veterinarians use to de-worm livestock, causing cokeheads’ skin to rot off.“

(thanks to Paul Di Filippo for this)

Post #12971   

June 23rd, 2011 | comics talk

This will mean nothing to 99% of you beyond being an obscure cultural curiosity, but I have just discovered this gallery of covers from British small press comics of the 1980s, and now I seem to have something in my eye

Post #12970   

Here Comes The Summer

June 23rd, 2011 | photography

Photo

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Post #12969   

June 22nd, 2011 | comics talk

Correction to a previous post: the first ARTESIA graphic novel is in fact on digital, at Graphicly.  I remember the later ones being the better ones, and hope they’re digitised soon.

(I have attempted to buy said book through the iPad app.  The app first told me the payment had succeeded, and then that the payment had not succeeded.  I discovered that I could access the book through their web end, but it doesn’t seem to be accessible through the app.  Oops, no, there you go, killing the app in the multi-tasking bar and then re-starting it seems to have made the book appear.  It just has the Download button greyed out so I can’t, ha ha, download it.  Correction! The book was downloading in the background and decided not to tell me!  Oh god.)

This does seem to raise a peculiarity of digital: although many publishers seem to be distributing through more than one service, their offerings aren’t uniform across services.  ARTESIA was published by Archaia, but Archaia offer only the DAYS MISSING books through Comixology.

(I have next to no idea what’s offered through iVerse: I find their iPad app almost entirely unnavigable.)

It’s nice for me to be able to replace old books and catch up on missed books through these digital comics apps.  Dark Horse’s offering is especially nice.  But, sooner rather than later, these services are going to have to become more than back issue bins.  I’ve only had this iPad a few weeks, and I’m already getting tired of opening a comics app and having (for example) twelve issues of SQUADRON SUPREME from nineteen eighty fucking five thrown at me.

If I were planning more comics work right now, I’d be looking very hard at going digital-first.

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WARREN ELLIS is a graphic novelist, author and columnist. His new novel, GUN MACHINE, available now from Mulholland Books, is being developed for television by Chernin Entertainment and FOX. His first non-fiction book, from FSG, is due in 2014. RED 2, the sequel to the Bruce Willis-Helen Mirren film RED based on his book of the same name, will be released in August 2013.

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