Archie Releases iPhone-Only Comic
- Posted by Johanna on November 25, 2009 at 8:02 pm
- Category: Archie Comics
Archie Comics has just announced that “the all-new holiday special Betty & Veronica Christmas Spectacular” will be its first “exclusively digital comic book”. Except they don’t mean digital, which would imply reading on a variety of screens, using a platform non-specific format like PDF or CBR. No, it’s really an iPhone-only comic.
The U.S. population is 300+ million. The number of iPhone users is estimated at 20 million. Once you’ve digitized your comic, why restrict your audience to less than a tenth of the population? Why not sell alternate, more open formats as well?
The answer may be found in the pricing. This issue (no length specified) is $2. Print issues are $2.50. They save all the costs of printing and distribution, and they drop the price only a half dollar? iPhone users may be used to that kind of scale, but online users in other venues expect more reasonable pricing.
I also found this part of the press release interesting:
Betty & Veronica Christmas Spectacular is certain to live up to these expectations, especially in the eyes of fans who have eagerly anticipated this issue since the Betty & Veronica Spectacular title was saved from cancellation by a fan-organized movement on Facebook earlier in the year.
No wonder this is the title they’re experimenting with. They think they have nothing to lose. I do wonder, though, how all the old-school fans, proud of their boxes full of paper issues, will react to an issue they *cannot* collect.
November 25, 2009 at 11:22 PM
>They save all the costs of printing and distribution, and they drop the price only a half dollar?
Printing isn’t a major cost per copy. As for distribution, the problem here is that they actually don’t save any money on distribution… Apple takes its cut as a percentage of the price. Amazon Kindle and Barnes n Noble does the same thing. So basically, they get more money if the item is more expensive, even if the actual operational cost of providing it is the same as a cheaper item.
Until Apple, Amazon, BN etc begin charging a flat rate, they’re the same as brick n mortar distributors. They’re the ones making out like bandits.
November 26, 2009 at 11:32 AM
[...] be pretty small, so I’m not sure who they think this will be reaching. Johanna Draper Carlson questions the logic a bit at Comics Worth [...]
November 28, 2009 at 1:01 PM
[...] Johanna Draper Carlson and Brigid Alverson offer commentary; Draper Carlson wonders why they'd limit it to the iPhone and [...]
March 19, 2010 at 10:32 AM
[...] cancelled. Veronica and Jughead are coming up on special anniversary issues. Spectacular has gone digital-only. Watch for the Betty comic to get some kind of promotional effort in the coming [...]
March 20, 2010 at 9:27 PM
[...] Betty & Veronica Spectacular is now online only, it looks like they’re reusing material designed for that book here, with the simplified art, [...]
June 10, 2010 at 5:14 PM
[...] right now is when publishers try to force you to one format or another, as when Archie released an iPhone-only comic. The changing market should be about more customer choice, not less. (Another downside of digital: [...]
June 20, 2010 at 10:57 AM
[...] I’m still waiting for more digital choices to be legitimately available. Archie is leading with experiments on that front. [...]