Comics On The Net - A Business Primer

Snotty Pippen writes "There's a new article/report/white paper called Comics on the Internet: A Primer in 7 Parts that's showing up in all the right places. It's currently being cited over at Heath Row's Media Diet and The Comics Journal's Journalista blog. Media Diet says thinks it's the first report of its kind. The Comics Journal says it's how to migrate comic books from print to web and make it work. I think it's a somewhat comprehensive overview, and the bit about print-on-demand comics is interesting."

Comments

Speaking of which

[mao che minh]

I got a subscription to Comics on the Web. It is all Crossgen comics, a pretty good publisher with a lot of good ex-Marvel and DC talent. They have a lot of free comics there with some pretty nifty image and veiwing controls. Check out "The Way of the Rat" - righteous oriental-myth inspired stuff.

One thing I've noticed recently

[Anonymous Coward]

Is an increase in comics piracy, in particular over BitTorrent. Maybe I wasn't looking in the right places before, but you can download scans of most the major books.

Re:One thing I've noticed recently

[jesse.k]

The comics i've gotten off bit torrent have all been either comics i own or comics that are impossible to find in real life.

An example would be miracleman, of which the back issues are prohibitivly expensive due to the collectors market. There can't be any new printings of them due to the legal quagmire that is the ownership. If it wasn't for bit torrent, i'd never have been able to read this quality series.

Where have all the comic books gone?

[psxndc]

I realize the article talks about moving comic books onto the internet, but it touches on an interesting topic: the state of the modern day comic store.

When I retire, I think I'd like to own a comic book store (I fall into the hobbyist subsidizng their habit group). But what will be the state of comic books and stores in 30+ years? Will we still have them as they are (but at $10 a pop at the current rate of comic inflation) plus internet distribution? Will they be only downloadable issues that go into an eBook-like device? Straight into your head? What is the future of the modern day comic book and thus the comic book store? On top of that, what happens to the collectibility of the digital comic book? Comments, please.

psxndc

Re:Where have all the comic books gone?

[gmhowell]

I've spoken a fair bit with the dude who co-owns the better of two local shops. In short, unless you dearly, dearly love comics, don't plan on doing much better than breaking even. I think all successful shops are highly into various gaming activities as well. Hope you like 'em. Shrinkage is a major issue. And it seems to be a fairly cutthroat business.

But, I wish you well. If I were a bit more into anything other than DC, it might make for a bit of fun.

Comics on the web just aren't the same thing

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

how to migrate comic books from print to web and make it work

I used to read comic books. I still do on occasion, as well as comics on the web. I notice one thing : comics that work well on the web are shorter, simpler in drawing and text and quicker-paced than paper comics. In short, web comics have their own style, quite distinguishable from paper comics. I reckon that's merely due to current screen resolutions : 75dpi, even 100 dpi isn't much to display nice graphics, complex actions or texts, while paper can bear (near-)infinitely complex details.

Once, I started to scan my old paper copy of Art Spiegelman's Maus, which is my all-time favorite comic, because the poor book was getting worn out and I wanted to preserve it. Well, after 2 or 3 pages, the digital result turned out to be awful and I reckon took away much of the atmosphere of the book, so I gave up and ended up buying another, recent hardback.

So is it such a good idea to migrate printed comics to the web ? I'm not that sure. It would certainly give an idea of what the original work is, but I think many comics deserve to be read on the media they were designed for originally. Maybe web comics could be considered as a wholly separate subform of comics in general, with its own style and talented authors ?

Finally, as a side note, there's another reason to prefer printed comics over web ones : have you noticed, on cheap comics, that sometimes you can see through the paper and have a look at what's on the next page, in reverse ? if that next page is colorful, or packed in action, you can see something's going to happen in the story and it makes you anticipate the rest with great pleasure. Web-based comics don't do that, and in a way that can take some of the reading experience away.

Re:Online comic strips still somewhat iffy.

[mog]

Piro (of megatokyo) has been doing MT full-time for a while now. Recently, they have become so busy that Seraphim, his fiance, has quit her job and is helping Piro do MT full-time as well. I'd say it's doing quite well for the two of them :).

Good o'l fashion detective comic

[Anonymous Coward]

If you ever miss them, or have no idea what they are you got to check out She's a Nightmare. It's high quality, fully colored comic that's updated 3 times a week. It's completely free to read.

Re:manga scanlations

[DynamiteNeon]

Old Slashdot Article

Not too long ago, /. posted an article by Lessig regarding japanese dojinshi.

If you read that article, you might understand that the Japanese don't really have a problem with fansubbers and scanslators here in the US because we are actually doing them a favor by building interest for their works. Japanese manga and anime would not be nearly as popular as it is now if it weren't for the work of the fans that have been translating stuff for years.

Basically, there is an unwritten rule that if a title is unlicensed here, it's fair game. Most respectable fan groups will stop distributing works once they become licensed, and some even talk directly to the American companies when these things occur. It's not as underground as you might think.

Also keep in mind that probably about 95% of the stuff that comes out of japan is not ever going to get picked up by American companies, so the fansubbers and translators are just exposing people to stuff they might not ever get to see otherwise.

Nobody wants to read comics on a monitor

[jasko]

I am a co-creator of an original indie comic. When we were first getting started, the idea of web publishing was very attractive, and we gave it a lot of thought and discussion. We rejected it because primarily, we wanted to make comics. It was my opinion that what we are selling is more than content, it is an experience. Seriously. There's a lot that goes on in your head about paper. Just think about how the act of turning pages controls pacing. We set the reader up with something exciting, the page gets turned quickly. Something dreadful, the page gets dragged over slowly. That's just one example, there are others.

Our decision has largely been vindicated. Nobody we've ever spoken to wants to read comic books on a computer. Strips are another matter, they fit neatly on a screen and once one has loaded you can decide whether you want to read the rest or not. They're like M&Ms. But a comic book is different. Even if you reformatted the standard page to fit a monitor's aspect ratio, you still have problems. No 2 page spreads, for example.

The lack of micropayments is another problem. And yes, I'm on Peppercoin's mailing list. Not a peep since the announcement.

We've got a website obviously, where we try to keep in touch with our readers, promote ourselves to the unsupecting masses, and allow people who don't live where we do to buy our books. We've tried both online pictures and downloadable samples in PDF. Neither one has exactly gone gangbusters.

I'd love to know what you guys think -- would anyone pay to read these (or other comic books) online? How many subscribers does Crossgen have? Try to keep in mind that we have four people who work at other jobs and that we lack Crossgen's millionaire benefactor before comparing us.

Thanks.

Re:Nobody wants to read comics on a monitor

[sleeplesseye]

I would qualify that statement to the following...

"Hardly anyone wants to read comic *books* on a monitor."

This is an important distinction, because it's worth pointing out that millions of people read comics (strips or single panels) every day through visiting websites, email, web-based syndication, etc. Also, millions of people view Flash animations, which are in many cases just another form of comics, made appropriate for the media.

The fact of the matter is that standard sized "pages" do not translate well onto the web, and people resist reading documents presented in such a manner. You'd think that PDFs would fix this problem, but unfortunately not. We can talk all day about how PDFs allow people to put up photo-quality artwork on the web, but the basic fact is that half the time, PDFs crash my browser, and even when they don't, they don't feel like a "normal" reading experience. I understand why they're used sometime, but more often than not, I just think of PDFs as "the lazy man's way to put print content on the web". I get a bit resentful that they didn't create the content for the web, thereby making it far more useful (and usable) for me.

If you want to get readers on the web, you need to make sure your content fits the media. In other words, design for the web or scale the size of your creations so that they fix in a browser better... not much compromise is needed.

A good case in point here is MegaTokyo. They are getting plenty of regular readers, feeding people a page at a time, and producing what is effectively a comic book, without the book. Of course, they also benefit by having a storyline that works very well on the Internet, too.

Also, there are creations by Scott McCloud and friends which are designed specifically for the web and make use of scrolling, etc. These are also good, and also tend to get a fair amount of readers.

Now, assuming you have a comic that is well-suited for the web, you have to deal with the issue of how you distribute it. Frankly, when it comes to the internet, the widest audience is always the audience who wants something for free... and why shouldn't they? After all, if you won't give them something for free, someone else will.

Free is actually not a bad business model, however... there are lots of people who give something away for free (Sinfest, Red Meat, Megatokyo, etc.) who get a lot of readers, a dedicated fan base, and who use that as a platform for making and selling books, merchandise, collecting donations, etc.

Sure, you can try to lock up your creations and sell them, but you have to realize that if you do that, your work will be exposed to fewer people overall. So, if you are trying to make a name for yourself, locking up your creation isn't the best way to do it.

The ultimate truth, however, is that you have to give the people what they want (or didn't know that they wanted...), in the way they want it. Do that, and you should do fine. Just don't expect fame and riches overnight, because it can take years of hard work to build an audience for anything, and once you have an audience, you have to maintain a "relationship" with them and keep them coming back.

Some people, like the Bill Wattersons and the Charles Schultzes of this world, can create that simple, humanistic bond with their audience in four panels. You, however, might have to work harder...

Scott McCloud

[sbszine]

It's a pisstake of Scott McCloud of Understanding Comics fame, for those who were wondering.