I’m okay with torrenters and “pirates” sharing INSUFFERABLE. Not just because, what the hell, it’s free anyway, Mr. Cynic…my hand to God, even if we were charging for it, I’d still be happy because the exposure and promotion is worth more to me at this point than dollars and cents. But more than that…more than that…after having been hip-deep in the research for the past three years, I have seen zero conclusive evidence that, on the whole, “piracy” removes more money from the system than it adds to it. Are there readers who would be buying my print comics who download them for free instead? Sure. Are there, conversely, potential readers who download one of my print comics, sample it, and then become a paying customer if they have access to ensuing print copies? Absolutely, and I’ve personally sold books to hundreds of them at store signings and conventions. Do the latter outweigh the former? (a) I don’t care, because I can’t stop the former, and (b) I believe, if you build up enough of a loyal fanbase, that potential exists; certainly, every meaningful* study undertaken on how piracy affects CD sales, DVD sales, etc. shows repeatedly that “pirated” content of quality material can actually act as an effective marketing tool and lead to increased sales.

I apologize for quoting so much of his post — although there’s a lot more at the site — but it sums up the current situation so well. Creators can’t stop piracy, and those who accept that and use comic sharing to their advantage are those who are best going to survive in this brave new world.

In a time where there are plenty of free comic reads available as webcomics, from people who are either A) planning to make money in other ways (ads, merchandise, appearances) than old-fashioned publishing or B) haven’t thought it through and are just enjoying having readers, your enemy is not pirates. Your enemy is ignorance, those people who don’t know who you are or what you do or whether your work is worth reading.

Mark Waid took the smart approach — he saw the sharing as an indication that there was an audience that wasn’t being served. That would be the group that wanted to read the comic offline. So he started providing the product they want. He’s now making his comic available both for reading online AND as a downloadable CBZ or PDF that sends readers straight back to his Thrillbent website.

That’s a much smarter response than getting outraged and pissy about “how dare they do something with my work I didn’t allow them to?” I’ve seen creators take their approach and then, even worse, take down their comics, leaving the pirate versions as the only option. That’s ceding the market to the filesharers instead of realizing they indicate a potential new audience.

It nicely contrasts what kids may want and the many options available to comic readers today with the traditional comic market. About the only thing in the strip that’s not typical of attitudes is that the pudgy guy is the one looking for new products while the academic-looking older bearded guy is the one standing up for the way things usually work out. But if we didn’t love comics so much, we wouldn’t kid them this way.

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

If you’re curious to read the Star Wars, Serenity, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or The Guild stories — I liked the Buffy/Guild issue — then you can get them from Dark Horse Digital. These are free downloads available through the end of May.

Today, Marvel Entertainment, one of the world’s most prominent character-based entertainment companies, announced it will exclusively distribute single-issue English-language digital comics worldwide with comiXology, the largest digital comics platform.

I think it’s fair now to call comiXology the new Diamond, since it’s locked up Marvel and DC digital issues. While some publishers — Top Shelf and Archie come immediately to mind — follow a strategy of making their publications available on any and every platform, more seem interested in not dealing with the diversity of formats. (Unless they’re Dark Horse, who’s rolled their own strategy and seems to be doing quite well with it.) Handing those details off to a specialized partner makes sense. I had previously noted that some publishers were backing away from exclusivity, but now I think that digital distributors that aren’t comiXology have tough times ahead. Graphicly already saw the light and left the business.

The press release continued:

“As the industry leader, Marvel is committed to growing the comics market through digital innovation, and bolstering our existing partnership with comiXology continues that,” explained Peter Phillips, SVP & General Manager, Marvel Digital Media.

Marvel fans will enjoy continued access to single-issue digital comics via the Marvel apps available for Apple iOS and Android, as well as the new web-based Marvel Comics Shop, all powered by comiXology. Marvel comics can also be found on the comiXology platform available on Apple iOS, Android, Kindle Fire, and comixology.com. In addition, starting today, Marvel’s digital comics will be available through comiXology’s Digital Storefronts for brick-and-mortar retailers.

Note that this means that retailers participating in Diamond’s official digital comic platform will not be able to offer Marvel any time soon.

• Bakuman
• Death Note
• Dragon Ball Z
• Rosario + Vampire II
• Toriko

On May 14, the discount books will be the first volumes of Absolute Boyfriend, Arata: The Legend, Black Bird, Dengeki Daisy, and Hyde & Closer. Viz is now carrying over 55 series in their online manga apps.

Stewart has the Peanuts-like sensibility of a young Charles Schulz, treating his characters as though they have the neuroses of adults and the interests of children. I adore the way their backpacks look over their costumes. I also like the way the strips are faux-aged, as though clipped from a newspaper weeks ago.

Little Bruce is broody, J’Onn is a foreign exchange student, Hal is loud and blustery, Barry is hyperactive, Karen is starry-eyed, and Clark … well, he’s just right, too. (And that’s the hardest to get right, making him brave and upstanding without being boring or goody-goody.) Of course, their teacher is Mr. Schwartz. Favorite storyline so far: Bruce thinks Diana has cooties ’cause she’s a girl. Although the punchline of this strip really struck me funny.

I am very jealous of anyone in Greensboro, NC, for Free Comic Book Day tomorrow, because Stewart has created this print of his cast for Acme Comics there. I wish I could get one.

Update: A limited number of prints are available via mail order, continental US only.

Skullkickers: Treasure Trove

Jim Zubkavich has posted an enlightening writeup of his experience selling Skullkickers comics after he started putting them online as a webcomic.

There are lots of good details about his audience, based on who bought from him at a recent convention, but here’s the summation:

I’ve effectively created a whole new audience for Skullkickers…. [Our webcomic audience is] about twenty times our monthly issue audience and reaches people in places that don’t have comic shops at all…. Serializing the issues hasn’t negatively affected our sales one bit. Our trade sales through comic and book stores are up, steadily climbing…. The comic shop audience is not the web audience.

In fact, the web audience is a lot bigger. If you think a rising tide lifts all boats, then how can you resist getting a lot more eyeballs on your product? Substantial positive outreach like this from a creator should encourage retailers to get behind the book, although clearly, the web audience is just as comfortable buying direct from the creator.

Graeme McMillan reports that the current issue #13 and next week’s #14 (which he posts teaser images for) should make good starting points for new readers. Or they can browse the online archives, whichever works better for them.

From the press release:

The first Three Thieves volume, Tower of Treasure, the 2011 Shuster Award winner for Best Comic for Kids, will begin weekly serialization on Saturday, May 3rd.

“I got my start in webcomics back in 2000 when the idea was completely new,” says Chantler. “Since then I’ve wanted to return to the idea of having something online for free,” adds the celebrated cartoonist of Two Generals. ”It sure helped launch my career, and hopefully it will also bring a wider readership to Three Thieves.”

“Scott was one of the first people I approached about Saturday Morning Webtoons,” says writer J. Torres, founder of SMW, who collaborated with Chantler on the graphic novels Days Like This and Scandalous for Oni Press. “I’m glad he’s finally joining us, and that he’s got the blessing and support of his publisher.”

Yet another benefit to building up a body of work — you can use the earlier volumes to promote the newer ones. I’m glad more people are getting the chance to read this series for free, although I’m sure it’ll be a nail-biter waiting for more adventure-laden pages to come online.

That Diamond connection is key, because right now, their offerings are only available through established retail accounts with physical storefronts, as Brian explains:

Most of Diamond’s focus has been on a kind of “do you want fries with that?” digital copy upsell in store. Hell, maybe that can even work — though I have a hard time picturing it, and, besides, the physical print market is already niche enough that physical retailers would be, I think, largely foolish to even raise the possibility that customers in their physical stores might migrate to digital (not that I think they WILL, as a mass) [...]

All I know is that I’m sure as hell not going to promote digital within my individual physical sales environment. I think that’s plainly counter-productive to my physical print-based business. The internet, however, is different. I’ll be surprised if even 1% of my regulars read this blog posting, or even an aggregation site’s picking up on the “story”. But there are hundreds, thousands, lots! of readers reading these words who will never set foot in my store for the simple reason that you’re nowhere near me whatsoever. SOME of you are interested in digital comics.

And due to the Diamond connection, those readers can now buy from his review site, but not from mine. If I wanted to sell digital comics through my own links, I can’t. Brian acknowledges the combination: “because I’m one of the very very few people who has both a Diamond account, as well as an internet review site, boom, now we’re selling digital comics.”

There is a market for such an affiliate program, I’m confident, and someone will eventually set one up, although now, it risks raising the ire of store owners who are already very uncertain about digital “competition”. Letting anyone sell digital comics opens the door to divvying up the market among so many potential slices that the cost may not be worth the damage to established outlets and distributors.

Since this effort isn’t through comiXology, the two major comic shop publishers, DC and Marvel, aren’t included. Prices are either cover — making the digital comics cost as much as $3.99 — or a dollar less, in the case of Archie titles. As for potential profit, the business side gives each major player a third of the sale: the retailer, the publisher, and the distributor (Diamond and iVerse together). Which isn’t a balance that I suspect will last, because it’s unclear that all of those people are needed.

I look forward to hearing more about how this effort proceeds, since Brian’s dispatches from the front lines are always educational, and I appreciate his willingness to share.

I recognize Babymouse and that guinea pig PI, plus characters by Raina Telgemeier (Smile) and Faith Erin Hicks (with her ghost) and Vera Brosgol (with her ghost), an Astronaut Academy kid and Jellaby and Bone… but who else? I feel like I should know the big-nosed kid in green in front, but it’s not coming to me. Annotations! I need annotations!

Someday, I will make it to TCAF to see this kind of experience in person, but not this year, sadly.

I tried it out on the iPad, and the book has been faithfully converted, adding a bit of motion and sound to the original drawings while keeping the mood and tone of the story. There are two options, “Read to Me” and “I Can Read”, as well as the ability to access any page directly. The Settings allow you to turn the narration, music, and sound effects on and off separately. If you turn on the hints function, you’ll get help seeing which elements respond to a touch (such as the bird in the tree bobbing and tweeting when you tap it); every screen has several.

There’s also a mini-game, where each page has a hidden magic blue flower to find. That provides additional value, since it gives the reader a reason to spend more time with the app, even after they know the story. I found returning to the pages, with the flowers and forest inhabitants and the music, relaxing.

The only problem I had was that the app forced me to use a particular horizontal configuration of the iPad. I like it with the Home button on the left, but Billie the Unicorn opened upside-down, so that you had to put the button on right. It’s the only app I’ve seen that did that.

Thanks to the publisher Mobad Games, I am able to announce that today (Thursday, April 26) only, for readers of this site, you can get this app for $2.99 instead of the usual $4.99. Spread the word! Here’s a trailer, so you can see more of the art:

As I discovered with the Pearls Before Swine iPad app, comic strips make for great tablet fodder, although the FoxTrot editions don’t have the extras that app did. Strips read well on the iPad, with their bite-size humor. Amend describes each of his ebooks — there are three — as follows:

Each $1.99 book contains 100 strips, some old, some new, some story lines, some stand-alone jokes, some black and white dailies, some color Sundays. The idea is to create mini books that take maybe 20-30 minutes to read and which aren’t bogged down with a ton of outdated references, as happens with my older, chronologically arranged print books.

If these first three do well, Amend plans to put out new collections “every couple of months or so”. iOS only for now, since he’s using the iBooks Author software from Apple.

Barnes & Noble has announced today that purchasers of two digital Avengers graphic novels (from a list of 20 priced from $6.99 to $14.99) will get a $30 discount on a Nook tablet (available for $199 or $249 depending on the amount of memory). The deal is available online or in stores.

Once two eligible Avengers digital graphic novels have been purchased, in-store customers will be able to purchase a new NOOK Tablet in the same transaction for a $30 savings. … [Online] customers will simply go to NOOK.com, click on the Avengers offer, and choose two titles from the 20 available. Within 24 hours they will receive a link that will allow them to purchase their new NOOK Tablet at the discounted price.

The offer is available through May 6. The Nook, based on their online store, offers comics from Marvel, Dark Horse, Archie, Viz Manga, Yen Press, Dynamite, First Second, and IDW. If I manipulated the search engine correctly, there are a total of 1746 comics available in that format — but not DC, since they’re exclusive to Amazon Kindle, which annoyed Barnes & Noble. Another example of how difficult it is to pick just one digital venue for all your comic reading.

I got to check out the Avengers team version, which includes interactive activities. (You can see some of them in the screenshots at the app page.) They’re simple drag or tap actions that make the reader feel more part of the story. My favorite one was dragging to melt the ice Captain America was stuck in! Helping Thor smack bad guys was also pretty neat.

The plot covers how Thor, Iron Man (in red and silver, which looks wrong to me), Giant-Man, and the Wasp fight Namor and the Hulk. It begins with an abandoned Arctic base, where we eventually discover Cap. The storytelling was a bit spotty, as though a couple of pages were left out, and the art was nothing to write home about. It was fun swiping, to see the pages at my own speed, and hearing Stan talking, though. I’m not sure how much of a draw Stan will be to the kid audience, who presumably doesn’t know who he is, but I guess parents can be impressed and tell the child why that’s neat.

There’s a page menu for navigation (44 in all) and a choice of modes: “Read to Me”, with Stan’s narration; Auto-Turn Pages; and Young Reader Mode, with more obvious page navigation help. When you tap or swipe each screen, it animates to the next. Only English is available right now, but other languages are labeled “coming soon”.

The Hulk app tells how Dr. Bruce Banner came to transform into the green-skinned monster with “detailed artwork, cutting-edge animations, and interactive touch-screen activities, including roaring, transforming into the Hulk, and testing the Hulk’s strength by breaking through walls, stopping tanks, and more.”

If your child steals your iPad and you want to prepare her for the upcoming film, this would make a good introduction to the characters, although it will lead to the question “why isn’t the Wasp in the movie?”

Our iPhone, iPad, and Android applications, as well as our Adobe AIR Desktop application, will no longer be available for download…. [T]he apps will still work, but you will no longer be able to purchase titles within them. You can still use the apps to read your library of comics and whatever future titles you purchase on Graphicly.com, which will still have the vast library of publications from more than 400 publishers still available for purchase. Purchased titles can be read on Grapicly.com and through the Graphicly Facebook app.

So now you’re responsible for backing up those applications, or you’ll lose access to the online comics you “bought” using your preferred reader. There’s also the question of how long Graphic.ly will want to maintain support for these titles on their servers. Most of the best-known online comic suppliers don’t actually sell you anything; they’re licensing the ability to read the comics to you. If they turn off their servers, the app can’t check that you’re authorized, and poof! there goes your access.

I’m not surprised to see Graphic.ly changing their business focus. Their announcement goes on to talk about refocusing on helping publishers get their work made available digitally, and no longer wanting to run a store, but it boils down to this: Graphic.ly wasn’t offering anything to differentiate themselves. Their intent to create interactive extras for comics never took off (although Marvel is now planning something similar, without their help). ComiXology had the most publishers and comics available. iVerse is Diamond Distribution’s digital partner, although their offering is way overdue. There are no other major players. It looks like, instead of learning the lessons caused by the problems of a monopoly print comic distributor, the same kind of structure is being recreated in the digital realm.

If you want to know more, company CEO Micah Baldwin answered questions for Comics Alliance.

Now, there’s a print edition. Volume 1 contains the first two storylines (22 strips each), “Employee 0023′s First Day” (introducing the characters, including the alcoholic manager and the requisite obnoxious chef) and “The Social Nightmare” (about a Groupon-like promotion that goes wrong — if you’ve ever had to deal with self-righteous deal-seekers, you’ll appreciate this story).

The print edition includes a guest strip by Cathy Leamy (previously posted on the website), two pinups, some background sketches, and a new digital inking tutorial by Salvi. There’s also a nine-page bonus story in which the chef character demonstrates how to roast a chicken in his usual grumpy style. It all retails for $10; ordering information will be available this coming week.

To her suggestions, I’d also add this, from the selfish perspective of an online journalist. JManga needs a more attractive logo! Every time I write about them, I have no pretty icon to include for visuals.

Leslie describes it as “a funny pulp-adventure/fantasy comic with plenty of sarcasm, an army of skeletons, and lots of dinosaurs.” From what I’ve read, that’s true. It’s posting every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday thorough the end of the month.

Ryan Dow at Introspective Comics posts his visual list of artist stereotypes at independent comic conventions. He doesn’t except himself, either, as shown here.

If you’re looking for more illustrated recipes, two of my favorite comic creators have recently posted some in their webcomics, too. Sarah Becan is making spicy sushi. (Don’t worry, it uses cooked shrimp in the home kitchen.) Lucy Knisley makes delicious-sounding pecan shortbread cookies, while comparing cooking in her mom’s spacious kitchen to her own shoebox city apartment.