For Sale: Print
Marvel Comics on iPad
I have seen the future…and I am selling all of my books.
Okay, not all of them, but an awful lot of them. Books, comic books, magazines, and just about everything print. Y’see, I’ve had an Amazon Kindle 2 for over a year now. And don’t get me wrong, it’s an amazing little machine.
But then I saw the iPad, and it changed the way I thought about books, particularly comic books.
Tablets have been around for quite a while. In fact, at work, we run tablet PCs with Microsoft Windows. It’s a nice technology, but for whatever reason, it just didn’t lend itself to reading full novels. Even comics were a little awkward, since you had to use a little stylus to turn the pages of a digital comic.
Apple’s iPad interface is amazing. It’s intuitive, pleasant, and fades quickly into the background. Admittedly, it’s not quite as good as the Kindle when it comes to reading plain text books. But it’s terrific for reading comics. And if they get that screen just a tiny bit larger on the next version — without increasing the total size of the device — it’ll be about a darn near perfect comic book reading experience.
Lots of comic book friends think this is just crazy, but I happen to think that it’s the way I’ll be consuming comics in the future. Sure, part of the comic book hobby is bagging, boarding, and saving your comics. But if you think about it, that’s just a tradition rooted in print and distribution.
Back in the early days, comic books were distributed on the news stand. If you wanted comics when you were a kid, you went to the nearest news stand, pharmacy, or convenience store and got your issues. The problem was that there were very few comic book stores, so it was difficult, and often very expensive, to find back issues of comic books. Scarcity increases price, so that’s the short version of why some old comics are expensive. More people want them than there are comics to buy, and suddenly, people are paying a million dollars for a single issue of Superman.
Because of this relative scarcity of back issues — and the fact that some comic book stories are one long serialized saga — people learned to buy and collect comics. A supporting industry sprung up that supplies bags, boards, boxes, and just about ever variation in between. Multiply that by a few decades of my personal collecting fervor, and I have a room that’s seemingly overrun with white boxes.
As I stare at the iPad, I wonder how many comics will fit on this device? Better yet, how many will fit on my Mac, which I can transfer over to an iPad or whatever device? How many boxes can I possibly clear out of my collection, and how much of my man cave will I be able to reclaim?
One by one, I have been getting rid of my regular books. I’ve donated them to book sales, shared them with friends, and have basically just purged many of my bookshelves. There are still keepers, but the vast majority have found a second life somewhere else.
High quality digital content is easier than ever to find. You can even do it legally through Amazon and Apple, which means that you’re not stealing from the pockets of your favorite writers or artists. The only thing that is changing is the distribution channel, and bookstores, comic stores, and newsstands are scrambling to adapt to this new profit model. Some will survive, but many will not.
In the meantime, I’m trying to figure out what to do with my comic book collection. It’ll be a few years before everything in my current collection is ready in the digital format. It’ll start with the mainstream publishers like Marvel and DC Comics, but it will move quickly to independent publishers. I’m a traditionalist, so if publishers offer comics on DVDs
The way content — including ebooks — is popping into the Apple iTunes store, I think the future is happening sooner rather than later. And that’s just fine by me.
In the meantime, does anyone want to buy some classic comics? Cheap.
Amazing 600
Amazing Spider-Man #181
In June, 1978, I went to Collector’s Comics in New Jersey and bought a copy of Amazing Spider-Man #181. On that day, I promised myself that I would buy every issue of this comic for the rest of my life. (Taking an oath at 11 years old is a quaint notion, but bear with me, this story goes somewhere.)
Flash forward to 2009, when I recently bought a copy of Amazing Spider-Man #600.
Let’s consider a few things about the comic series Amazing Spider-Man, which was originally launched March, 1963.
- The original comic (cover price 12 cents – March, 1963) is now worth an estimated $40,000.
- Issue #600 was cover price $4.99 (in 2009) and can probably be purchased for about $4.99 today.
- Both Stan Lee (writer) and Steve Ditko (interior artist) of Amazing Spider-Man #1 are still alive today. (In fact, I recently saw Stan Lee at the Long Beach Comicon.)
- Despite a few starts and stops, Amazing Spider-Man has been running one consecutive story line about the same cast of characters. Amazing Spider-Man #600 featured characters and situations that were originally started in the 1960s.
Amazing Spider-Man #1
And here’s the point I have been working toward. For the most part, Amazing Spider-Man was published as a monthly print magazine. Recently, Marvel Comics has accelerated that schedule, but the majority of the issues in this series were monthly.
From the year of my personal oath to buy every issue of Amazing Spider-Man (starting with #181) until roughly now (#600), approximately 31 years have passed. On a monthly schedule, it takes Marvel Comics around 8 years to reach a 100th issue milestone. Looking forward, it would take Marvel Comics until around 2017 to release Amazing Spider-Man #700.
And that makes me wonder…
- In what format will I buy Amazing Spider-Man #700? Will it be a print publication? Or will it be an eBook? An eComic? Or something else entirely new and unique?
- Considering the ages of Stan Lee (born 1922) and Steve Ditko (1927), is it possible they will be alive to celebrate issue #700 in 2017? With modern medicine, this is no longer unimaginable, right?
- If the first issue was 12 cents and the 600th issue was $4.99, how much will I pay for the 700th?
- If it’s an eBook, will it be less expensive, since there’s no printing and distribution cost?
- Will Marvel Comics print an electronic version and a print version for nostalgic purposes? Certain musicians still release vinyl albums, despite the fact that most people buy CDs or just downloads of their music.
Amazing Spider-Man #600
When you consider this accomplishment, it’s amazing (pun intended) that the mainstream media didn’t make a bigger deal about issue #600.There were a few news stories and articles, but not much, considering how much impact the Spider-Man character has had on popular culture.
From a pop culture perspective, Amazing Spider-Man #600 was a pretty impressive milestone that probably should have made the cover of Entertainment Weekly. Speaking of Entertainment Weekly, the July 24, 2009 cover featured the cast of the Iron Man 2 movie. Iron Man is yet another Stan Lee creation that was published by Marvel Comics. Also published in March 1963, the same month as Amazing Spider-Man #1.
To make it even more significant (and newsworthy), Stan Lee even wrote a short Spider-Man story for the 600th anniversary issue. Not bad for an 87-year-old guy.
If you’ve made it this far in this post, you may be wondering if I kept my personal promise to buy every issue. The short answer is “no,” I did not. I stopped reading comics for many, many years and rediscovered them in college. I’d missed a lot of those comics when they first came out, but went back and bought them as back issues.
It would be silly of me to try to estimate the impact Stan Lee’s Spider-Man has had on pop culture, and what sort of significance the character will have in coming years. From comics to movies to television to toys, Spider-Man is just about everywhere in pop culture.
Flash forward. And in 8 years, I’ll be buying a copy of Amazing Spider-Man #700. The issue will probably be an eBook. Hopefully there’s a print version for nostalgia buffs like me. But either way, no matter what it costs, no matter how it’s delivered, no matter how it’s written, I’ll buy it.
I promise.
Old Videos from Wizard World
Back when I was at Wizard Entertainment, we produced a bunch of videos to promote the Wizard World Chicago Comicon, which the company had purchased. It was a great experience to produce these videos. Here are two that I uploaded to my Flickr.
Wizard World Chicago 1999
Wizard World Chicago 2000
See more stuff at http://www.buddyscalera.com
Tumor on Kindle – Comics as eBooks
As ebooks grow in popularity, we’re starting to see more ebook exclusive releases. What’s impressive is the recent announcement by Amazon and Archaia, a comic book publisher based here in New Jersey, (disclosure: I know the people at Archaia personally) to release a comic book on the Kindle before the print release.
The Kindle 2 handles images pretty well, but it’s still black and white and, well, pretty small. So most people who create comic books (including me) are trying to understand how to best format their existing comics for ebook readers.
What makes the Archaia deal so interesting is that their comic book will be formatted specifically for the Kindle a full six months before it is released in print. That gives the publisher plenty of time to decide how to package the print edition.
According to Publisher’s Weekly, the first issue of the comic book “Tumor” will be free and then the next seven issues will be 99 cents, bringing the total to $7.92 for the whole series. The print edition will sell for $14.95.
When you consider that many new comic books retail each week for $3.99, you have to wonder what’s going to happen to that core business. And when high-quality color ebook devices become available, will many people still be willing to pay $3.99 for a print comic when a 99 cent version is available?
Now that comics are going to the Kindle, get ready for even more interesting changes in the comic book publishing industry.
McCloud Talks Tech on TED
Scott McCloud is a comic book creator who wrote a brilliant book called “Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art
A few years back, McCloud gave a talk at TED (Technology Entertainment Design), which is an annual conference in California. Not only is McCloud a smart guy who knows a lot about comics, technology, and science…he’s a terrific presenter.
Check out this video as he discusses how comic books and computers are evolving to leverage new technology. Good stuff. It’s especially compelling considering the implosion of traditional print publishing.
Batman Isn’t a Comic Anymore?
In “Why Comics Are Doomed,” I argued that for comics to survive, we need to stop marketing them as “children’s entertainment.” We need to position comics as entertainment for adults.
Here’s proof why. In the newspaper, there are “movie capsules” that encapsulate the movie. Here, dear friends, is the description for:
“The Dark Knight”
Batman isn’t a comic book anymore. Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” is a haunted film that leaps beyond its origins and becomes and engrossing tragedy. It creates characters we care about. That’s because of the performances, because of the direction, because of the writing, and because of the superlative technical quality of the entire production. The key performance in the movie is by the late Heath Ledger, as the Joker.
The first sentence reveals a preconceived notion shared by many people. They expect comics to be campy, mindless entertainment for kids.
The second sentence goes further when it notes it is “a haunted film that leaps beyond its origins and becomes and engrossing tragedy.” Correct me if I’m wrong, but hasn’t Batman always been an engrossing tragedy? Not every issue, sure, but some of them, right?
To this writer, “The Dark Knight” and “Iron Man” are simply grown up versions of comics. Storytelling flukes created by sophisticated master filmmakers. Nothing in traditional comic books can come close.
For all of you 40-year-old virgins, this is how many people think about comics.
How many people saw “The Dark Knight” and then went to the comic book store to buy Detective Comics? Probably not many, since the assumption is that the movie is for adults…and the comic books are for the kids.
If we keep marketing comics as children’s entertainment, the medium is doomed. Even Hollywood cant save us from ourselves.
Why Comic Book Publishing is Doomed
Here’s why comic book publishing is doomed…
Stopped at the local library today and thought it would be fun to see what comics and graphic novels they had on the shelves. And for some reason, I made the mistake of asking the aging librarians where to find…well, let me just tell you how it went.
ME: Hi, I’m looking for comics and graphic novels.
LIBRARIAN: What?
ME: Comic books, graphic novels. Do you have a section for them?
LIBRARIAN: (loudly to other librarian) He wants to know if we have “comic books”?
And in that moment, I regretted even asking. I could feel their harsh literary judgment scalding me, and I wished that I’d asked if they had a porn section.
LIBRARIAN #2: Graphic novels? YA.
ME: Thanks. I see it…
LIBRARIAN: Go over to that section marked “YA.” That’s for “Young Adults and Teens.” That’s where we keep graphic novels.
ME: Thanks.
LIBRARIAN: Teen section.
ME: Thanks.
Okay. Back to the “doomed” part.
Comic book publishing is doomed if the industry continues to market comics and graphic novels to kids. Kids don’t buy comics like they used to. By and large, adults are buying comics. Don’t believe me? Go to the comic store and observe who is going up to the register to buy comics.
And let’s face it, what adult wants to be shopping or even browsing in the “teen” section of a bookstore or library.
Stop marketing comics as teen literature and make it easier for adults to shop for comics.
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