Not bad. This I can handle.

Now they're starting to get the picture, $3.99 is way too high a price for a comic as it is but to expect to charge more to include a digital version is absurd. At least this way they come across as adding some more value to something already over priced.

The real key to reviving the comic industry though is for them to get comics back into reasonable price ranges. Something they can only really pull off in the digital realm because lets face it, it costs more to produce physical products vs digital ones. Add the overhead that distribution puts on top of that and it's pretty much impossible to put physical books out in a price range that will produce sales like they used to see.

They need to get comics back into the $1 range, then you will see more purchases and people trying out more books. Obviously they can't do that with print, so digital really is there only hope.

It's not to say they should stop printing books, there'll always be someone who's ok with paying $4 a book but the industry isn't going to be revived by that route.

The 99 cent song essentially saved the music industry when mp3 players killed the cd, and the 99 cent comic is not out of the question as tablets kill the printing press. Eventually they'll adjust their distribution methods and realize it's actually more profitable than jacking up the price at the cost of sales.

Personally these days I'd prefer to just buy a 99 cent digital copy, I have a decent device to read it on. I don't want the book anymore because they only go down in value. Unless of course it's a variant or something with some actual collectibility to it, Then it might be worth the investment.

It's about freakin time !!! It would be better if it was across the entire line no matter the price but eh hopefully some day.

@tonis said:

The 99 cent song essentially saved the music industry when mp3 players killed the cd, and the 99 cent comic is not out of the question as tablets kill the printing press. Eventually they'll adjust their distribution methods and realize it's actually more profitable than jacking up the price at the cost of sales.

Personally these days I'd prefer to just buy a 99 cent digital copy, I have a decent device to read it on.

It is taking way too long for comic publishers to figure this out, more then just comic publishers though, print publishers in general. The price decrease really could save the print world and give the digital print world a foothold. I would be way more likely to buy actual book books if they included a digital copy.

@pikahyper said:

It's about freakin time !!! It would be better if it was across the entire line no matter the price but eh hopefully some day.

@tonis said:

The 99 cent song essentially saved the music industry when mp3 players killed the cd, and the 99 cent comic is not out of the question as tablets kill the printing press. Eventually they'll adjust their distribution methods and realize it's actually more profitable than jacking up the price at the cost of sales.

Personally these days I'd prefer to just buy a 99 cent digital copy, I have a decent device to read it on.

It is taking way too long for comic publishers to figure this out, more then just comic publishers though, print publishers in general. The price decrease really could save the print world and give the digital print world a foothold. I would be way more likely to buy actual book books if they included a digital copy.

yes, without a doubt they have procrastinated even worse than the music or movie industry but face the same inevitable business decisions. Had they been smart they would have begun these moves in 2001-02 when it was evident the books were going to be scanned and distributed electronically no matter what. At least they could have proactively offset the massive piracy they've seen surface for the past decade rather than react now in desperation.

The reality is they can never totally stop piracy, but with a good business model and fair pricing structure they can alleviate a large enough percentage that it doesn't affect their bottom line. Music saw this with services like rhapsody, movies are seeing the same effect with netflix, basically there is little need or desire for most to pirate when the pricing structure is reasonable and subscription based. Why waste gigs of storage space when you can get instant access to the same media for $10-$20 a month.

This is what the comic market is still missing, although I suspect it's only a matter of time before you see much of the same thing. Personally I would find a HUGE value in a Comic Vine subscription if it included access to a library of media that was tied to their wikis and say the occasional new release.

It stands to reason that not only would the publishers benefit but also Vine as a distributor would be an ideal outlet for such a market.

(hint hint Whiskey Media/CBS - invent ComicBox and pioneer the future ;)

@tonis: For a while I thought having all the different online digital comic retailers was what was holding the digital print industry back but the more I thought about it it really isn't, it just seems like it since there is very little publisher crossover other then places like Comixology and Wowio, music and movies have the same set up and it hasn't hurt them any they just work harder to compete against each other. Marvel Digital Comic Unlimited has the right idea though and I wish more people would use it but the steep monthly cost seems to drive people away, $10 a month is a lot compared to what a lot of people are used to for subscription based online entertainment.

I've always wondered why Comicvine didn't utilize the internet better, Screened has the perfect set up, go to a wiki page for a movie and there are links to related media and other sites, CV could have set up an Amazon store affiliate thing and had links on wiki pages for volumes and story arcs so people could click and buy the trades or whatever, could easily be adapted to point towards Comixology or the publishers digital storefronts and while being extremely helpful it could also be profitable.

@pikahyper: You're right that there is a lot of marketing opportunity not being utilized effectively on here. I go to many pages where I'd love the option of a 'read me now' or 'buy online' button when I'm wanting to read it.

the only thing holding the comic industry back is itself at this point, first it will have to WANT to change, from publisher to distributor down to retailer, before that change actually has a real effect in a digital distributed world.

I believe after it does it will come back stronger than it's ever seen, but until then it's like watching babies who don't want to be potty trained :D

Independents will play a bigger key early on because they have less to lose jumping in, but expect the big guys to follow suit willingly or not eventually simply because they really can't ignore the wave.

For a Comic Vine it's an advantage in the subscription market, it's not tied to a single outlet but rather to the whole. The exclusive Marvel or DC offerings are like Sony or WB offering only their media to subscribers. It can't offer as much as a netflix who can provide access to ALL of those same medias and then some.

Customers will always prefer an option that offers them more than less in that respect.

@tonis: I'm not so sure that it is just the comic industry holding itself back, I think a big part of it may be Diamond Distribution, people tend to forget that they are a monopoly (even though the government doesn't consider it one since they lump comics and books together). Diamond has a lot of power and they have no problem using it plus they have pretty good contracts with the publishers, they aren't like the old exclusivity contracts they signed back in the day but I'm sure they make sure Diamond holds all the cards. I wouldn't be surprised at all if they are doing all kinds of shady things to keep publishers from moving away from print distribution especially with the big two and Diamond already has a lot of power over Marvel since Marvel made the mistake of splitting off from Diamond in '95 and came crawling back in '97.

@pikahyper: actually Diamond was my biggest target in that statement.

yes, they need to either find a way to shift into the brave new world or face the fate of being eaten by their own monster. All that power means they have the most to lose.

They may be able to control the background (to some extent), but they'll never be able to dictate the customer who sits in the foreground or what they'll be willing to pay. ;)

Diamond is essentially the record company in this version, and they'll either adapt or die, their choice. Comics certainly won't go away, but they could if they don't change.

@tonis: If Diamond would get over themselves and get their act together the best thing they could do is buy Comixology so that they can sell both print and digital versions of the same comics, it would make it easier for independents to go digital and because of Diamond's tie's to the industry already they could not only bring in more publishers to the fold but provide a central location for digital purchases like itunes to hopefully minimize the amount of stores with their own applications for reading. Diamond being in multiple countries could also bring the digital comic marketplace to a world market further allowing citizens that don't have an easy source for American comics to legally purchase comics while also landing a devastating blow to comic book piracy (seeing as how a very large percentage of comic book piracy is to people outside the US). To take it even further they could even re-introduce exclusivity contracts where they help publishers convert the print comics to digital content, it would cost them a little more to hire the staff and acquire all the necessary tech but it would pay for itself pretty d@mn quick while solidifying their standing in the industry with a guarantee that Diamond would survive as long as comic books survive in one form or another.

If this happened though Diamond would be a monster monopoly that could never be killed :P

@pikahyper: actually I would hate to see them try to buy Comixology, it would only slow down the revitalization of the market and yes you would witness an archaic mentality try to influence new marketing approaches with old gimmicks.

Comics need to move past the gimmicks at this point, they don't really sell any more comics than good old fashioned solid story telling did. Let's be realistic and admit, there's no collectability anymore (except in the rarer variants) and that is a BIG part of what fueled the market for a long time. Now the only thing they can seriously offer the smart buyer is good entertainment.

If they choose to keep stuffing more ads, less story, and a higher price tag they are flat out going to lose in this day and age. How exactly Diamond will fit into the process in the future is indeed questionable but I'm pretty sure they're level of influence is going to become demoted to middle men who provide the rights management layer to the files that get distributed.

a HUGE part of why comics have gone from 25 cents to 3.99 in my 30 years of reading them is because of Diamond distribution more so than actual cost of material inflation and that is something that is at it's breaking point in reasonable return.

For $3.99 I used to get a LOT more new stories in multiple books that actually did go up in value. Todays overprinted material is only gonna be cheaper if I don't buy it when it comes out and wait till it's cheaper. That's not good mentality for new market growth in comics, they need to get back to basics and ask Diamond why they have to sell their material at $3.99 when there's far cheaper methods with a wider growing audience willing to pay a decent price that worked fine for print before it got greedy.

One last thing on the whole idea that it's people outside of America that primarily pirate material, that's a load of crap fed from people who'd like you to believe that stupid policies like SOPA will solve the whole copyright issues that we face with digital distribution. Americans pirate just as much if not more than anyone else in the world and that will not change unless better options come into place that change that mentality. Again, Netflix is a good example of something that has curbed some of that.

when your happy with what you get from the industry, you support it willingly, when your not, you pirate it.

That's pretty much how it ends up working realistically in this world and no regulation or law is going to change it.

@tonis: Ya I wasn't saying I want to see Diamond buy Comixology, I know them way to well, but it could "possibly" save the industry but that would only happen if they change their current ways from focusing on the money to focusing on providing a form of entertainment that has the capacity to be as big if not bigger then it ever has been in the past while still making a nice profit.

The gimmicks are pretty stupid and publishers needs to get back to the core of what makes comics so great.

I never said people outside of America are the primary source of pirating but they do make up a large percentage when it comes to American comic books, importing US comics is a huge pain and the mark-up is beyond insane usually and foreign retailers can make the prices whatever they want a lot of the time and even more often countries just don't import the US comics or are months to years behind and in those cases I really can't blame people for wanting to download, I really wish they was a legal and viable solution but it will never happen because of how companies handle their intellectual property these days. What makes it more disturbing is that I can import media from Europe or Asia dirt cheap with little to no mark-up other then currency conversions yet it costs so much more to get it in other countries, it's just not right.

At the last comic store I ran we actually had a deal set up where we ordered comics for another comic book store in Mexico and had them shipped to us and once a month the owner of the store would drive the 20 minutes from Mexico to our store near the border and pick them up, we charged them something like our wholesale cost plus 5% for whatever they wanted and then she would drive them over the border and pay a tax on the items which usually came out to around $90-100 each time and then she would sell the comics at her store for double US cover price and it was still like 75% cheaper then buying directly from Diamond and having the comics shipped to him... Her store did extremely well, this deal went on for a little over a year but we eventually ended it cause she was trying to scam us and was slipping in comics she hadn't ordered without paying...

And I am against SOPA and think the policies they come up with are complete BS as is all the propaganda that the companies regurgitate on a regular basis but when you compare the difficulty and cost of importing American comic books versus music, movies, books and other forms of entertainment the argument does hold water, it really is easier for those other forms of entertainment and in response to that non-U.S. citizens would have a greater need for comic book piracy and that doesn't mean they don't support the comic industry they just don't have any viable alternative, not like the average Indonesian citizen can up and move to the US so he can read his comic books legally, maybe 15 years ago but not now.

@pikahyper: wow, that is a dedicated chick who drove all that way to fill comic orders, my hats off to her :)

You actually explained the mentality and reasoning though behind why there is piracy and yes in the non-US market it's sometimes just worth more to go the 'illegal' route rather than deal with the legal bullshit when it comes to some forms of entertainment.

That is the result of unfair, illogical, or just plain abusively priced distribution systems and why people do these things. Once Diamond (and the U.S. to a larger extent) gets that, they'll do what the rest have realized they have to do and 'play nicer'.

It will change no matter what, simply because it has to. They can keep trying to charge more to cover costs but if it results in no sales it's not very effective business practice.

Nor will it be profitable ;)

Obviously this is a step in the right direction for Marvel. Instead of fighting the digital market, they can become a leader in the industry.

*Sigh* Damn it, Marvel. You just don't fraking get it. The point of digital comics is to not have stacks and boxes full of paper comics anymore. You're rewarding the the folks who still want to purchase physical books at their LCS while still ignoring the customers who have gone digital only. I know that myself and many other other would buy a lot more of your books if the vast catalog of monthly titles were discounted by $1.00 after the current issue releases. Until you do that, DC gets my money.

@tonis: Not sure I'd call it dedication, mostly just greed :P

All we need now is a teleporter for inanimate objects and comics could be teleported anywhere in the world for cheaper then they ship for now :P

This is selling digital comics the right way:)