Hi everyone... Just wanted to get input on digital comics. Was wondering how everyone felt about them. I just got an iPhone and I downloaded the Archie app, just not sure I am going to enjoy reading them digitally, I like having the actual book. What is everyone elses thoughts on this??

I like reading digital, but I collect paper.  So I have pretty much switched all my non-collectible reading to digital (books), but still buy my collectibles (comics) on paper.

I'm in full on revolt against the entire mobile device thing.  Seems like a real good waste of money.  I don't ride the subway or anything, so I don't need that junk.

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However, digital is the way to go. With printing becming more and more uneconomical everyday, it makes more snese to create one master copy and then create as many copies as you wish for free.

Personally, I feel it's putting the cart in front of the horse.  It's more like a bunch of people in business suit sitting around asking, "How can we completely slash overhead and fool people into thinking it's cool?"  Newspapers aren't the same deal as magazines and comic books imo, because the 24 hour news cycle destroyed it.  There was no way for them to keep up.  There's no such thing as a 24 hour comic book cycle.  Personally, I find the idea of reading something that's in a page size format on a tiny screen to be annoying at best.

Not really into the de-evolution of entertainment.  I also think at some point there will be a backlash.  It's starting to occur now actually.  You know what the sales of went up a very big amount this year?  Vinyl records.  Yup, vinyl is cool now, and it's just not old fogs that are buying it.

Well, in the end it's the business types who drive everything, including Archie.

There may not be a 24-hour comics cycle yet but given the way social media is growing, I would not put it a long way off. The RPGs of yore can very well become the serial comics of the near future where people all over the globe collaborate in creating comics. These stories could be based on certain events or regions, be one shots like xkcd or be endless sagas.

I don't agree with the tiny screen line. I have tried the Kindle and Galaxy and both of them give a great reading experience ( although it will never be the same as a real book ). I think it boils down to finding the size you are most comfortable with. The Galaxy Note is perfect for people who want a tablet but find an iPad or Galaxy Tab too much to lug around.

There can be a backlash but the key question is whether it would persist. The critics of the printing press would have thumped their noses at Gutenberg too saying that it's all a fad and everyone will go back to manuscripts soon.

Which brings me to the most important point, the generation gap. People of my age group grew up with books. People who are still in school may be more comfortable with reading stuff off a screen.

I'm not a fan of digital comic books either...I mean, I suppose one plus is that it's a space saver by keeping your favourite comic books in one handheld device.  But, I just can't get used to it.  I'm not really a fan of cell phones and hand held devices anyways, and I am one who actually thinks that such devices are making people DUMBER (though not all people) than anything...but that's another rant altogether.

I say keep the print copies.

I agree with the fact that too much information and too less processing time translates into not much smarts over those who read books but then probably that's how the world will work in the years to come. Collaboration between a large number of average people than a few smart people.

Quote from: aamrun on January 07, 2012, 06:12:21 AM

Quote from: Ghidra on January 06, 2012, 06:34:47 PM

I'm in full on revolt against the entire mobile device thing.  Seems like a real good waste of money.  I don't ride the subway or anything, so I don't need that junk.

Quote

However, digital is the way to go. With printing becming more and more uneconomical everyday, it makes more snese to create one master copy and then create as many copies as you wish for free.

Personally, I feel it's putting the cart in front of the horse.  It's more like a bunch of people in business suit sitting around asking, "How can we completely slash overhead and fool people into thinking it's cool?"  Newspapers aren't the same deal as magazines and comic books imo, because the 24 hour news cycle destroyed it.  There was no way for them to keep up.  There's no such thing as a 24 hour comic book cycle.  Personally, I find the idea of reading something that's in a page size format on a tiny screen to be annoying at best.

Not really into the de-evolution of entertainment.  I also think at some point there will be a backlash.  It's starting to occur now actually.  You know what the sales of went up a very big amount this year?  Vinyl records.  Yup, vinyl is cool now, and it's just not old fogs that are buying it.

Well, in the end it's the business types who drive everything, including Archie.

There may not be a 24-hour comics cycle yet but given the way social media is growing, I would not put it a long way off. The RPGs of yore can very well become the serial comics of the near future where people all over the globe collaborate in creating comics. These stories could be based on certain events or regions, be one shots like xkcd or be endless sagas.

I don't agree with the tiny screen line. I have tried the Kindle and Galaxy and both of them give a great reading experience ( although it will never be the same as a real book ). I think it boils down to finding the size you are most comfortable with. The Galaxy Note is perfect for people who want a tablet but find an iPad or Galaxy Tab too much to lug around.

There can be a backlash but the key question is whether it would persist. The critics of the printing press would have thumped their noses at Gutenberg too saying that it's all a fad and everyone will go back to manuscripts soon.

Which brings me to the most important point, the generation gap. People of my age group grew up with books. People who are still in school may be more comfortable with reading stuff off a screen.

I also think it works in reverse.  Taking away the physical lowers people's moral obligations not to steal.  I buy my CDs, comics, but I admit certain programs I download from rapidshare instead of paying 100 bucks for.  If you take away the physical aspect of reading comic books, piracy will go up.

This will result in razor thin profit margins, also because no one is going to pay as much for a download as they do for an actual comic.  People in the pipeline, printers, comic book stores, and others will lose their jobs.  It will have a devastating effect in essence. 

People are not really aware of how much work goes into a good looking comic book.  If it all goes digital, some of those comic artists are going to choose to quit their jobs and do something else because the companies won't have the money to pay for the ridiculous hours of hard work they put in in this new industry environment.  So what we will be left with is a bunch of comics that look like crap like Homestuck or something.  And who would want to pay for some garbage like that when you can look at similar stuff for free?

So yeah, I think for comic books as we know and love them to continue existing, we will need to find ways to move physical products.  Going all digital I think is akin to the industry slitting its wrists for a slow bleed out.

That's why the media industry at large is so gung-ho about anti-piracy laws. Also industry is coming up with better and better ways of stopping illegal copying. This can involve watermarking the pages or garbling the content if the document detects that the copy is unauthorised. Sounds sci-fi but it is already in the prototype stage.

As far as jobs go, I don't think corporations of today give a damn about jobs. The motto is always to satisfy the customer and get the job done at the lowest rates possible. If previously jobs were 'Bangalored', the day is not far when they would be 'Cairoed' or 'Nairobied'. Africa is even more low cost than China or India and very soon products and services would be sourced from the Dark Continent.

The answer to razor thin profit margins is to sell in high volumes. Economies of scale can offset marginal gains from individual copies.

As for the artists, oh well, the world is still spinning without Da Vinci, Rafael or De Carlo.

I wanted to thank everyone for there resoponses
I will be continuing to buy my comics
Reading them digitally is not for me.

You can always print them out

Well.  Like I said - I collect paper comics, but I think I also should point out some of the benefits I do like about digital comics.  Now, I should note - I only read on my iPad and my computer - so no cell-phone reading for me.

There are benefits to Digital.

1) I can carry several dozen comics (or hundred actually) at once.  So I can read many stories no matter where I am
2) I can switch reading to suit my mood, or even to understand a story better by reading back-story
3) I can get "collector" comics without the collector price.  A digital copy of Spider-man #1 is cheap.  Physical... not as cheap
4) If the company doing the digital readers wants to - they can begin augmenting the experience of reading digitally - for example, a link button to push to social media about what you are reading, your opinions and thoughts, the ability to zoom in and out of images, very nice colors, and many other integrated features related to the reading experience.  For example, it wouldn't be inconceivable to think that they could hyper-link characters so that if you clicked on an image of Cheryl you would be given a list of her appearances with download links to read them.

The biggest challenge with digital used to be the devices size, but the tablets have eliminated some of that.  The next biggest hurdle was mental.  People have a problem with the concept of "buying" things that they only "own" in the sense of having access to, rather than physically holding.

My nostalgic self wants paper.

My hope-for-the-future self knows that digital is more likely to bring more new readers into the hobby.  Archie (the company) also makes zero money on the sale of a collectors comic.  However, they have literally hundreds of thousands of stories in their "vaults".  They have always re-purposed these by printing digests and slapping a new story into each one - but the bulk of digests are reprint material.  Imagine if they made every single Archie comic ever printed available for 99 cents.  How many would people buy?

Of course, piracy is always an issue, but there are ways to prevent that as well.

So digital may be a matter of choice, but it's not always evil.  It's also not just an electronic copy of something - it can be an enhanced copy that brings new experiences.  (for example, imagine an Archie young-reader comic series that reads audio as it highlights each word).

Another idea.  Imagine the next-generation of forum software like this forum.  Wouldn't it be cool if you were reading a comic, linked a panel or story to a forum topic and created and interactive discussion on the ideas you had about the characters and situations.  People often think about the Internet as being the end-point of some great IT revolution.  It's not - it is the beginning - we are still in the "radio" days of the Internet - not the "television" days.  Things like fiber to the home and extremely fast mobile networks will change everything.

For many people, they would love to buy and "Archie pass" and just have access to every Archie story ever produced for a period of time.  Others want to "collect" digital copies they can enjoy forever, and some want paper, some want to share the experience with others.  By addressing all these groups, the readership increases - good for everyone!

Well, I think I have some issues with these ideas. 

If you had every comic accessible, it would only be a matter of time before all those comics are looted and then made available elsewhere in a torrent or whatever.  People's motivation to pay for the entrance fee would be greatly diminished.  This is pretty much what has happened in another not family friendly internet industry I think.  lol

And about the idea of reading a digital comic that links you to comments/discussions on it.  I think that's just really bad for creators.  Sure we have forums and stuff where we discuss these things, but the fans shouldn't literally become part of the work.  If I wrote something, I honestly would not like having some loud mouth given a soap box to stand on about how this story sucks, this character sucks, etc. If he wants to do that on his own independently, ok.  But I just don't think it should literally be part of the work.