[...] for free instead of paying me? Sucks. That’s selfish human nature, but it would be nice if people thought through this a little more before getting outraged in public. [...]

“Dan, I’ll concede that it’s $20 for 8 issues (my maths ain’t too good). But it’s still 25% more expensive than a comparable package from DC. Essentially, your Distinguished Competition is giving me more bang for my buck and valuing my dollar more. Thus, they get my money.”

That’s only if you think that value lies only in page/issue count, not in the storylines and art. For my money, DC comics has never put out anything worth even half as much as a good Marvel release (not to say that Marvel hasn’t had their share of terrible stories, but by and large the point still stands). To put things simply by using a low (1) to high (10) scale, Marvel averages out at about a 7 while DC averages at about a 4. Marvel has stories as high as a 10 and as low as a 1, while DC’s range is from 1 to about a 6.
*Shrugs* Now I’ll be the first to admit that I’m totally biased – I’ll even admit to being a bit of a Marvel fanboy. But the point remains that to me at least, Getting a Marvel TPB with 8 issues for $20 is a much better deal than getting a DC TPB with 8 issues for $14.

The second-hand comics market has long helped drive the new comics market, as some customers buy comics with the thought that they will be able to recoup some of their cost (or in some cases actually at a profit) by selling the comic book used. (True, the purchaser often overestimates the money to be gained by eventual reselling.) And the purchase of the second-hand copy removes one more copy from current availability, and that scarcity makes the reorder or purchase of a reprint by the next guy that much more likely.

Standard purchase works towards scarcity, with copies winding up in people’s collections and wear-and-tear reducing availability. File “sharing” works against that — the more copies that are out there, the more sources there are for further copies.

But you’re right. Just because something’s got a price tag doesn’t mean people are willing to pay it. Everyone’s looking for a deal.

You’re right about the expense; it shouldn’t matter… you wanna read the comic, you pay your monies… but it doesn’t really work like that. I am planning to subscribe to a few Marvel titles direct, because after the international shipping and the subscription discount you only end up paying the cover price anyway… which is as fair as you could ask for. But those that I can’t subscribe to, and would have to pay 130% mark-up on the cover price for… well i just wont buy them, but I don’t see a problem in downloading them if it’s the only way I can get it (I’d gladly pay a couple dollars per download… but there isn’t such a store for me to do that yet).

I’ve been downloading a lot of out-of-print titles recently, because, as much as I’d love a physical copy, they’re too hard to get hold of, and would cost far more than I could ever afford (especially when you’re going back to comics that are 40 – 60 yrs old).

In all fairness, the creators should be paid by everyone who views their work, but that just isn’t going to happen until the creators embrace an online, digital store (iComics if you will).

As for current titles; comics are even harder to get hold of in countries outside of the US. You either have to pay inflated prices at one of the (very rare) comic stores, subscribe to them direct from the publisher (best option, but slow, and not available for a lot of titles), or put up with the country’s own produce (which is usually a mish-mash of old stories with no concern for continuity; in story, vintage, or style).

It’s not hard to see why free downloading is seen as the easy option.

I don’t scan new comics, because I am a condition freak… I am the guy you see in your LCS going thru the stack on the shelf, looking for the best condition copy, sometimes asking the shop guy if he has any that haven’t been shelved yet, and who goes to the counter and doesn’t allow the shop guy to touch them, instead I read the price off them for him, and then bag them myself :D

The older books I scan, and can afford to buy, are almost never in top shape, just in the best shape I can afford. One more read won’t hurt them, whereas my new books are pristine, and shall remain that way for the duration of my ownership…

Just wanted to clarify, lest someone take that comment as a moralistic standpoint. It’s not, just me being condition conscious.

And one more thing. I share my comic scans, because they are NOT the actual book. They are mere facsimiles. For me, they are merely a way to show the world just how cool what I dig really is. I imagine it is the same for most scanners. We wish to share our tastes, in the hope that the scan will reach people that can’t, or have never, or would never otherwise, go into a comic shop. I think you, Mr. Slott, are being a bit narrow on your stance, and maybe thinking a bit too little of your own value. If what you do appeals to people, and they can sample the entirety of your output, they will be MORE inclined to buy it, than if you demand that they not be given the opportunity to sample it at all… and no, 6-8 pages is NOT enough to decide if you like or dislike a book. It is enough to decide if you like or dislike the ART, but you’re a writer, right? The story, and direction thereof, takes time, and often multiple issues to show a clear direction. Downloading comics allows people to truly decide what they dig or don’t dig. If your good (and I think you are, for what that’s worth), then the wider your exposure is, the better off you are.

again, just my 2p, for what it’s worth…

Cimm

I currently buy She-Hulk, because I own every other copy of She-Hulk ever printed. I download She-Hulk, because reading scans is easier and less stressful to me than removing my physical copies from their bag. Most of the people I know, both online in the scanning community, and in the downloading community, own at least some of the books they dl, but, like me, would prefer to keep their copies pristine, and just read the scans.

I became a scanner of the older books, because they aren’t available in any form. Sure, you can go out and spend hundreds of dollars for a copy of a book (and I do), but if you do, you probably don’t want to read it much, because every time you read it, you damage it a little more, thus devaluing it a little more. Thru scanning, I basically only read the physical copy once, and then can peruse it, study it (in close-up even), as many times as I want, and it just sits in my box, at the same condition it came off the scanner in, slowly accruing value.

My 2p, for what it’s worth,
Cimm

Lyle, perhaps this is another area in which the direct market is going to be left out of the loop? Read it online, then buy the collection online.

Is it better, from a creator’s standpoint, for a comic to sell 20K per month with no illegal downloads or 21K per month with, say, another 30K of illegal downloads? Yes, financially the second option would pay better, but pride may make that option unpalatable. How much of the anti-downloading ire comes from a place beyond sheer sales, from a sense of one’s work being devalued?

(”It depends on the individual creator,” yes, yes, I know.)

My hunch is yes, based upon what I’ve read from writers, musicians, and such who offer their works for free download. The internet is loaded with accounts of said folks explaining how the free downloads have increased their sales. And this isn’t just for twenty-second song bites or single chapters, but whole songs and books. The great enemy of mass-market artists is obscurity, not piracy. Writers starve when nobody knows their work, not when their works are widely distributed through a black market.

Then again, the world-o-comics tends to be insular, so the equation that works in music and print fiction may not apply to funnybooks. Hm.

Again, my hunch is that it does work the same way, and that the public spread of torrented comics creates sales gains that outweigh the losses it creates, but damned if anyone can prove it one way or the other.

I would kill for an iTunes type of arrangement for comics. Or maybe something like the CrossGen “Comics on the Web” arrangement, where you could read their entire line of comics over the internet for a flat fee, but you couldn’t download them. That was a hoot, and it got me to buy several trades that I never would have considered otherwise. Something like that will arise soon. It makes too much financial sense.

I lived in Kuwait all through middle- and high-school, and the local bakhalah (small store that sells ‘everything’) would only have 1 or 2 Marvel titles at a time (no DC or anything else except Archies, which I really wasn’t into). Therefore, I caught about 12 issues of Captain America before they started receiving only X-Men, which I read until they stopped receiving comics altogether.

Fast-forward a couple years, and I’ve discovered the wonders of Bittorrent and comic book reads. What followed was months of comic book downloading (internet was free) but I couldn’t even pay rent, so nothing was purchased.

Coming out of college, all that has changed. Do I download? Most definitely, and quite obsessively. Do I purchase said comic books? Well, not all (some are not even in print anymore), but I have several titles that I keep up with and I have 2/3’s of my bottom shelf filled with hefty graphic novels or collected trades. I don’t go crazy purchasing comics, but my spend is up more than a 1000% from any other point in my life, and not looking to decline anytime soon.

Truth be told, if I lost every digital file and download, I wouldn’t cry; it’s happened twice to me already. I would return to the library, or standing in the aisle at the comic’s store, but I would miss the obscure indie favorites or lesser advertised major releases that have become some of my favorite works.

Downloading comics for me then, merely puts the onus on creators again, to make quality works that survive, and allows me to catch onto said series (and purchase them) before they get canceled, instead of finding them years later. This comes back at me as well, as I find myself now writing scripts for comics, and thinking through many of the same issues that Dan Slott has.

All the best.

[...] The discussion on comic downloading is far and away the most popular thread ever on this site. Thanks, everyone, for keeping it relatively intelligent and polite. [...]

BTW, if a content owner fought to keep a book out of libraries, and asked people not to share their book with others, then I wouldn’t read it if I didn’t own it. (Of course, I wouldn’t want to buy a book from such an owner.)

There has long been a debate over whether free samples, whether in whole or in part, lead to fewer or more sales. The solution is simple— let the owner decide!

If an indy musician allows free song downloads, or a publisher puts an entire comic on its website for free downloads, then go ahead. But if the owner does not, even if you disagree with the owner’s reasoning, then downloading their content is stealing. Pure and simple. I don’t care how you try to justify it.