Making the Move to Digital

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anarky
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Diamond Digital

Post by anarky »

http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/20 ... -your-lcs/

Wow.

This is mind-blowingly stupid. I read about a scheme like this, and I think, "Man, Snigtad Flornbi must be in charge of Diamond Distributors."
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Re: Diamond Digital

Post by Rollo Tomassi »

I had read earlier reports of what they were doing and it made no sense to me. The whole point of digital media is to NOT have to trudge to a brick'n'mortar to buy ANYTHING. Be it movies, or music, or comic books. You download it from the comfort of your couch.

FAIL.
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Re: Diamond Digital

Post by anarky »

I'm convinced of three things:

1) The only way to get new readers is to either go digital, go back into stores other than comic shops, or both;

2) Given the market saturation of the top five or six publishers and the (frankly monopolistic) practices of Diamond, an independent publisher would have to be suicidal or just want to not make money to even bother with print at this point;

and 3) Diamond, Marvel, the retailers, and possibly DC want digital to fail, and, like the major music labels before them, don't realize it's not in their hands anymore.
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Making the Move to Digital

Post by jjreason »

So yes, this will be intertwined with the DC reboot discussion I'm sure, but I figured it warranted a "thoughts, feelings & experiences" area for us to populate with our thoughts, feelings & experiences :roll: regarding digital comics.

Today I went ahead & created a comixology account so that I could at least poke around & see what was available. Since I was considering a run of Batman & Robin I decided to purchase #1 in digital format for $1.99. The issue was fine, but this isn't about the comic per se, so I'll leave that alone.

I read the book using my regular PC, not a tablet as I don't own one. I really enjoyed the presentation. I found it easy to read and manipulate. Once I realized that if I stopped moving my mouse around, the little UI thingy would disappear I was much happier. I didn't need to magnify & drag the book around much, it was perfectly easy for me to read on my square 19" monitor. There were no adds in the book - not even house adds - not even at the end. It included the 2 variant covers.

Next step will be to download the app onto Jodi's Ipod touch & test it out in that format.

In all honesty it was VERY easy to read the book in this format. No taping, no fuss, no muss, no lifting of heavy boxes. For someone who enjoys sitting at the computer like I do..... this will make keeping up to date with comics a lot less work. I'm by no means "cured" of buying paper copies, but I will say this: I enjoy convenience very much, and this was extremely convenient.

EDITED: Upon checking around my computer later it strongly bears mentioning that you DO NOT "get" a digital copy of the comic like you do when you buy an mp3 from itunes for example. You're actually paying to see "what's behind door #1" if you will at comixology.com - no internet connection = no access to the books you've paid to access.
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Re: Making the Move to Digital

Post by Rollo Tomassi »

I don't think I'll ever get behind buying digital. I'm all for the publishers jumping into the pool, and if that somehow sets a chain event in motion that causes print books to cease somewhere down the road, than I guess so be it. But I don't think it will happen anytime soon. And so far, all the publishers are scared to even try digital because their presupposing all these things that MIGHT happen. But until they get their feet dirty in the mud, they can't say for sure. It will be a learning process whether you start now, or start next year, or ten years from now. But, personally, I like having the book in my hand. I like to hunt for back issues. I like to read the ENTIRE book, with the ads and the In House pages, and the smell of newsprint from 30 years ago. Each issue is like a vey small time machine back to the month it came out. Digital can never be like that.

I wasn't clear on the comixology "rules". Somebody referred to it as "leasing" a digital version, as opposed to "owning" a floppy print. I don't think I'd be down with that. If it was more in line with iTunes, I thnk more people would get behind it. Especially when you're paying the same price as you would for an actual copy. But again, I think all of that will work itself out as time goes on. It's like VHS tapes were $99 when they first came out. DVDs were $30. As more time passes, the equivalent will happen with digital comics, both in terms of price and availibility. Who knows, eventually, the "in store" comics might just be disposable USB drives with single issues on them.
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Re: Making the Move to Digital

Post by jjreason »

I wasn't clear on the whole leasing concept when I put my credit card number in - but I'm fine with it. I grabbed B&R 2 and 3 to finish the first arc, bladdy blah it was ok.
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Re: Making the Move to Digital

Post by Diabolical »

Fuck digital comics.
I'm leery of paying for anything digital.

I won't bite on anything digital until the publishers do something like audible.com does, where you pay for the audiobook once and you can redownload it as many times as you want (even burnable copies). Mp3 player stolen or destroyed? Just redownload it.
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Re: Making the Move to Digital

Post by jjreason »

I think itunes has that - once you've got it on your account you can download it over & over.. don't they? Sony's playstation 3 thingy works like that for sure, I know as I've had to redownload a ton of stuff when my first deck went tits up.
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Re: Making the Move to Digital

Post by anarky »

jjreason wrote:I think itunes has that - once you've got it on your account you can download it over & over.. don't they
Nope. Unfortunately, if you buy it and lose it, it's gone. They even warn you with a periodic pop-up to back up purchases.
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Re: Making the Move to Digital

Post by jjreason »

Huh, did not know that.

Apparently I was wrong about not "getting" the book - the mobile apps actually store the copies. If you can get to the website great, but if not & you have them on your mobile you can access them. Not sure how to get that file onto my pc in case I need to read them during an internet outage, but that's a stretch anyhow.
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Re: Making the Move to Digital

Post by vynsane »

Rollo Tomassi wrote:I'm all for the publishers jumping into the pool, and if that somehow sets a chain event in motion that causes print books to cease somewhere down the road, than I guess so be it. But I don't think it will happen anytime soon. And so far, all the publishers are scared to even try digital because their presupposing all these things that MIGHT happen. But until they get their feet dirty in the mud, they can't say for sure. It will be a learning process whether you start now, or start next year, or ten years from now. But, personally, I like having the book in my hand. I like to hunt for back issues. I like to read the ENTIRE book, with the ads and the In House pages, and the smell of newsprint from 30 years ago.
unfortunately, it's the inexorable march of technology - and those that it leaves behind. i'm sure there were people who complained about having to dial a phone number themselves instead of ringing the operator and asking for "wilson's farm". but the dialing technology wasn't for those people, it was for the next generation who found it clumsy and kinda retarded to have to ask the operator when you could just patch yourself through.

my father in law hates call waiting, he'd rather get a 'busy' signal than have it ring and ring until someone can switch calls (or not). he also hates the internet, except for the porn. these things weren't invented for him, though, they were invented for the next generation who would see and use the benefits inherent to them.

such will be the same with comics, and basically all other printed media. eventually there will be a paperless society - not the 90's, like some people predicted (unless it's the 2090's - but maybe not even by then) but eventually we won't feel the need to print things out - hell, i'm already there, i don't really use paper unless it's for someone else - aside from buying comics ;)

beyond paper, ultimately, we're heading towards a post-ownership society. there are already people out there who will never own a house or a car, only leasing, renting or joining zipcar when they need that particular mode of transportation. as more corporations begin to replace independent landlords as owners of rental properties, that type of ownership dwindles, passing from the hands of individuals to corporate entities. obviously this model doesn't really pertain to EVERYTHING - we'll own certain things, but mostly those will be ancillary to the essentials of every-day living, like wall decorations, toys, etc. then again, i've been building with virtual LEGO via LEGO Digital Designer more often than i have with real bricks recently.

this is where the type of service like comixology comes in - it's basically no different than neflix on-demand: you pay for a service and have access to stuff that you wouldn't normally be able to access (somewhat) but don't own anything. frankly, we watch SO much more netflix via the wii than we do on physical disks. getting the disks in the mail becomes a hassle, oh, we have to watch THIS now, since we got it in the mail. i don't feel like watching that, what's on netflix on-demand? this JUST HAPPENED last night - we got "the king's speech" in the mail - yeah, we want to watch it, but we didn't want to last night. after only a year of not having cable, my daughter is perplexed by it when we go to my mom's house. we just helped them move to a new house and they hadn't had the cable connected yet. my daughter wanted to watch something but we said the only thing that was available was DVDs, to whit she said "oh, they don't have their netflix connected yet?" i still buy DVDs but a lot less than i used to - whether that's because most of the movies are tripe or i just have access to so many of them for the same amount of money that buying one movie a month would cost remains to be seen - probably a combination of the two.

that said, the pricing is WAY out of line for comixology - $1.99 per book? when i can watch all the movies i could possibly watch in a month for $12? that's just retarded. that price makes more sense as an ownership price than it does an on-demand price, and that's how the publishers are accidentally shooting themselves in the foot while they're trying to draw their pistols and aim to kill the digital market.
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Re: Making the Move to Digital

Post by anarky »

I've said before, and will say again, my biggest qualm with digital anything is the pricing. I find it asinine that a physical copy of something is the same price or only slightly more (or, in some cases, cheaper) than a digital file. A $7.99 paperback novel should be no more than $3 digitally. Think of the costs that are saved--printing, distribution, storage, several layers and types of middlemen, store placement marketing, etc. A comic should be no more than $1.50, given the length, and likely even less than that.

Hell, yesterday I was at Borders and knew that if I spent $26 by the end of the day I'd get a $5 credit later in the month. I bought a copy of Wyclef's greatest hits for about $3.50 to put me over that level. Digitally, that same album would cost $10. That's insane. Whether it's selling or not, that physical copy likely cost ten times as much as the digital copy.

Other than that (and, well, the competing and sometimes proprietary formats on eBooks and comics), I'm cool with it. Though I am worried that Comixology seems poised to become a new Diamond in the digital realm.
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Re: Making the Move to Digital

Post by jjreason »

I do not believe now, and will not be convinced regardless of the evidence you show me that DC, Marvel OR Diamond don't own, in full or in large part, Comixology.
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Re: Making the Move to Digital

Post by jjreason »

I've kinda decided that there is a difference between comics I want to read and comics I want to own. This is the convenience talking again. I think I'm going to buy the collected volumes of Atomic Robo for 3.99 each - that's either 5 or 6 comics depending on which volume you're getting - fair in my mind. I get to feel good for supporting the smaller company & read the books without having to worry about filing them. IF they choose to amend the pricing a wee bit, I can honestly see myself moving further & further away from buying the paper.

EDITED: Final total 16 digital comics (collected volumes 1-3 of Atomic Robo) for $11.97. Sold.
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Re: Making the Move to Digital

Post by vynsane »

jjreason wrote:EDITED: Final total 16 digital comics (collected volumes 1-3 of Atomic Robo) for $11.97. Sold.
sweet. enjoy them, it's a fantastic read. easily the most fun i've had reading comics ever. the comparisons to hellboy (average joe, albeit non-human, fights otherworldly threats) still persist, though it's not bogged down in nearly as much gravitas. not that i don't enjoy the gravitas in hellboy, just that i'm glad i have something else to read when i'm not in the mood for it.
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