An Assessment of Digital Comics

I’ve been giving this a lot of thought, trying to figure out where I stand. I’m on a precipice; I’ve dabbled, but am I going to really invest in this? I’m going to work through what I’ve come up with, but any ideas that I’ve missed are welcome.

The PSPgo has had almost universally bad press since its largely unheralded release.
I bought one anyway.

And now that ridiculously ill-informed decision has paid dividends, in the form of digital comics. Digital comics, bitches! They’re like comics but they’re digital!

They cost less than actual comics, in some cases about 1/3 of the cost of buying them in a comic store. $10 for the real paper ones becomes $1.95-2.95 for the digital version, depending on the publisher. Marvel is the big fish in this digitally distributed pond, and that apparently justifies a $1 price hike. Having said that, I will happily pay $2.95 for an issue of Runaways, Iron Man or X-Men, but I will think twice about $1.95 for an unproven publisher or franchise.

I must admit though, DC’s absence is noticeable. Will they come on board? Hopefully they’re waiting to see how the whole thing pans out. Personally, I can’t see the problem. Everyone knows digital distribution is blowing up, and the comics are being commissioned to be created in paper form anyway. I would love to get my hands on some digital Green Lantern or Batman. Come on, DC!

What advantages are there, aside from the economic factors, to purchasing your comics digitally? I guess another obvious one would be the reduction of clutter. I still have several boxes in my garage, originally containing reams of paper, stuffed with comics. As well as that I have a large – maybe 30 litre – container half full of graphic novels. With a living space our size, we can’t really afford any more clutter. Similar to how I no longer need an entire wall for my CDs thanks to my iPod, you can now keep your copy paper boxes! Even in the context of digital space these things are small, usually between 20-50MB. Presumably environmentalists can do a little dance about the reduced paper usage as a result of fewer people buying paper issues and buying digital issues instead. Ideally, to facilitate this, publishers would have to simultaneously release digital and paper issues; otherwise it’s like releasing a movie digitally 4 years after the DVD has come out. The fans have long ago bought that DVD.

What really intrigue me about this new idea are the unique features of digital comics that paper comics cannot provide. It is obvious that a lot of consideration has gone into how to engineer the software so that it simulates the actual act of reading a comic. It is not enough to simply show a page at a time on the screen. The wording would be too small, and you can’t appreciate the fine detail of the art. So a bush of the button emulates the scanning process of the eye, sliding from one word balloon to another. It’s amazing how quickly your normal reading habits assert themselves, and how effortless the system becomes. This by no means perfect, and some publishers seem to have a better handle on it than others. One issue of Transformers actually skips some word balloons, making you go back and find them yourself.

A cool little feature that has been added on some issues is screen movement to simulate and enhance what’s happening in a panel, like shaking during a full-page explosion, for example. Note that splash pages do lose some of their effect in digital comics, because of the necessity to zoom out. Decompression, the stylistic use of repeating panels with minor changes and little dialogue, on the other hand, is vastly improved by the necessity to manually advance the story in digital comics.

When I downloaded IDW’s 'Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse', it came with a little bonus that I hadn’t expected: a writer/artist commentary on the making of the issue. There is huge potential here. It’s like a behind the scenes podcast with the benefit of being fully integrated with the content. Because there is no sound in a conventional comic, the integration is seamless. It is in fact possible to take in the issue for the first time while listening to the commentary, something that would be difficult and not at all enjoyable with a DVD movie and its commentary, by comparison. I would love to see more of these, especially by the bigger writers whom I really admire, like Warren Ellis, Mark Waid, Matt Fraction or Joss Whedon, although it is probably naive of me to assume they would have time for that sort of thing.

And, don’t forget it’s backlit, so you can read in the dark! There is something very exciting about this for me, similar to being a child with a torch under the blankets. And if you share your sleeping space with someone it means you can read and they can sleep. Then everyone’s happy!

There are some downsides to these new-fangled digital comics, of course. The most obvious I have already addressed in part, and that’s availability of titles. Obviously it’s not the same depth or volume you would expect at a real comics store. Nothing from DC, and Marvel seems to be throwing all the Iron Man and Avengers they can find at us. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the issues on offer. For instance, despite Joss Whedon being one of the ‘featured writers’ on the PSP comics store, the Runaways series ends at the issue before his run began. X-Men issues are available from 2000-2005, but nothing particularly recent. However, there are no sold-out runs when your product is digital, and presumably a high upper limit to how much can be made available on the network over time. In other words, publishers will keep adding content without removing the old stuff, eventually creating a massive stockpile of potential purchases.

Another area where I think a fresh perspective could be useful is in the rerelease of classic comics. It seems strange to me to ask customers to choose between a comic from the 2000s and a comic from the 1960s and pay the same price for both. Digitally, the first issue of Spider-man is not a collector’s item. They could be sold at a cheaper price, or say given as bonus issues to a customer who purchases a 6-issue run of modern Spider-man, for example.

The most obvious and devastating omission of digital comics is the smell of ink and paper, the richer the older the issue gets. It is evocative. It is a big part of comics as they were. But it does not create a complex, satisfying story and it does not even really add a lot to the art anymore, much of which is digitally inked, coloured and in some cases drawn nowadays.
I think writing this has made my position quite clear, actually. I am a comics fan, and digital distribution will allow me to get more comics for less money. The option to buy paper comics still remains, especially if a series I am keen on does not get released digitally. But only two months in, the situation definitely bears watching.
Look out, iTunes, you have some competition for my micro-transaction dollar! When I, you know, have some.