Comments on: How Should Free Comic Book Day Deal With Online Readers? The Books Are Free, Right?

By: Dark Horse Free Comic Book Day Comics Available Digitally Until End of May » Comics Worth Reading

Tue, 08 May 2012 14:55:34 +0000

[...] going, Dark Horse. As they did last year, they’re releasing their Free Comic Book Day issues [...]

By: Adam

Adam — Sat, 14 May 2011 02:51:09 +0000

They should definitely be made available to the public by any means necessary. Just not on FCBD in my opinion.

I have a horrible store here myself so I wasn’t able to get any free comics again this year. I’m sure there’s plenty of other people out there in the same boat.

By: Johanna

Johanna — Thu, 12 May 2011 00:46:35 +0000

I thought that this year, Grant, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised by many of those I’ve flipped through. They were better than I expected.

By: Grant

Grant — Wed, 11 May 2011 18:14:26 +0000

my only complaint with FCBD are the offerings. I don’t think I’ve been to more than one or two of these events where they had a comic that I was remotely interested in.

By: Johanna

Johanna — Wed, 11 May 2011 01:44:33 +0000

It’s a good question whether we will ever have a true iTunes for comics, one program that will allow the user to both organize their digital comics, whatever the source, and buy (not just rent proprietary) files. The way things are going, I suspect not any time soon.

I suspect new digital readers, if they’re introduced by someone or a community (the most common way to bring in someone new), do know that they’re considered second-class citizens, being sold old books at new prices.

By: Thad

Thad — Wed, 11 May 2011 01:06:55 +0000

Realize I’m preaching to the choir here, but not only should publishers make their FCBD offerings free, they should offer them in standard formats.

Will Dark Horse’s reader run on the Linux laptop I read my digital comics on? I doubt it and I’m not about to bother finding out. Will I be able to read them in Comix, the same program I use to read all my OTHER digital comics? Again, doubt it.

Credit where it’s due, though: the publishers have done the right thing in waiting a couple days after FCBD to offer these books online. If they were offered same-day, it would hurt the efficacy of FCBD at getting people into comic shops.

(I would add that the very idea of same-day digital releases is wrongheaded, because the only people who know that new comics come out on Wednesdays are people who go to comic shops every week anyway. With the exception of major we-leaked-spoilers-to-the-press “event” books like the death of Johnny Storm, new readers looking for online comics don’t care if they’re reading the latest issue or not.)