[...] it’s not mine. Novelist Chuck Wendig doesn’t like eBooks and online comics for the usual reasons: * lack of general, portable format * proprietary readers * lack of portability * and especially, [...]

How is $1 for something that takes so much labor questionable?

[...] released online, through the “Marvel Comics app” (I assume that’s their branded Comixology application), at the same time it is available in stores, June 30. (Weird — in the time I’ve been [...]

I agree it will be compared to other digital products. I can subscribe to NetFlix for less then $10 a month and stream movies and TV shows. It cost around $2 for an episode on iTunes for a episode that last for around 22 minutes of actual animation or live acting. Songs can be gotten for $.99 and they last just as long as most comics do.

I don’t see the justification in selling digital comics at $2 a pop or more then that. Even $1 is questionable but understandable. That’s the problem with comics for a long time now. The cost doesn’t match the amount of entertainment they provide with compared with other things. For example some physical comics are $4 now. I can buy a paperback novel for $6 or $7. No art of course but 22 pages compared to 300 pages. Even page count in comics can easily be made up of no dialogue just characters in action poses and that can’t at times be counted or compared to setting and action descriptions in novels.

[...] was a frequent commenter here, as well as many other internet sites, and my condolences go to his friends and family. [...]

[...] Johanna Draper Carlson examines the question of what people are willing to pay for online comics. [...]

I prefer digital because I feel it’s just a better experience. I have a 17″ Macbook and the digital comics I read (mostly .cbr) look soooo much better than their print counterparts. The colors are richer and the pages are much, much bigger. Also, storing and transportation is soooooooo much easier. (My collection resides on a portable hard drive I can plug in anywhere.)

As for me, I bought a digital copy of Siglo : Passion in part because I don’t live in the Philippines and because the only volume of the series in a North American library is Siglo : Freedom, so I couldn’t get it through interlibrary loan either.

Nate, I’m fascinated to hear you say that you prefer digital. For me, online comics don’t seem “real”, but I suspect that attitude is going to make me a fogey very quickly. I’d love to hear more about why you prefer them.

I think the statement “Digital costs less to produce” is arguable, from their perspective. They still have to pay the writers, artists, editors, and overhead (accounting, legal, executives, etc. – at least, they still have to be paid from the publisher’s perspective). They don’t have to print or transport or distribute, true, but they do have to code and store. And that discrepancy in what’s considered true costs of production is why publisher and consumer attitudes on pricing differ, I suspect.

I find the onscreen translation of comics originally intended for print to be less than ideal, but I’d deal with it if it meant huge cost savings, which it would for Marvel Digital Comics, which is $60 a year. (As I remember it, I signed up during some Cyber Monday promotion for much less than that.) At $1.99 a pop, I don’t know that I’d be saving enough to make it worthwhile, given the discounts I get from an online retailer.

If i have a digital copy, im paying $50 for the digital, (saying its a 24 issue omnibus) so the only thing im saving is space, and actually i can’t lend it others, and if its restricted wtf? i payed for it, i can do with it what i want. Just like music publishers tried to impose that shit on their music got sued over it.

I really want to support the comic industry i’ve grown really fond of it, and really love it. But paying $50 for a 24issue book i can do whatever with, and $50 for digital thats restricted blows. If i don’t like a book i can always sell it, with digital im stuck with the $50 dollar bill.

I may as well download the torrent comic first, if i like it then pay for it, but if im being restricted on what i own, it really makes me not want one. I can afford a ipad, but will stick to buying books until something is improved.

[...] Marvel has released 60 more comics through its iPad app, the most recent of which dates from 2007. [Comics Worth Reading] Wuvable [...]

A good digital store should offer both, or rather all three: Current mainstream, out-of-print comics and long-tail stuff. One because ideally it helps sell the printed editions, the others because you can’t get them at the store down the street, and offering them will set your store apart from others.

Filtering may be an issue, though. If anybody can offer their self-published crayon-fest on your site, it may tire willing-to-pay customers out before they get to the ‘good’ stuff. But there’s more than one way of focussing visitors. Maybe a special section for larger publishers?