Digital Revolution?

Ideally, in the near future, I would like to read a vast majority (if not all) of my comic books in a digital format. Currently the best way to do that is through Comixology's Comics iPad app. While Comixology is by far the best venue for your digital comics fix (in terms of quality and quantity), it leaves much to be desired (a fault with which I would rest the majority of the blame on the publisher's shoulders).

• The price - I know, I know, this has been talked about to death. To me it is the most frustrating part about digital distribution of comics currently. I say this because I believe all of these publishers are missing the point. They say that they are trying to use digital distribution to attempt to entice readership from a more casual market, but the current pricing structure only serves to convert readers who are already buying comics in print. That's not to say that people currently reading in print will switch over, but I can't logically see a casual reader/non-reader deciding to regularly buy comics based on these prices. I think for a majority of the non-comic market, $0.99 will prove to be the cutoff for one's willingness to buy a digital comic book. This especially rings true on an iPad because of the fact that you are able to buy apps that provide a longer period of entertainment than a comic book around that same price point. This needs to be taken into account because the casual market doesn't have the same hunger to read a comic book as the hardcore fans, so the publishers are essential competing for their entertainment dollars. Honestly, hardcore fans will be able to see through the ridiculous pricing also. Marvel and DC are both beginning to put up incredibly old comic books for $1.99 a pop. Are you kidding me? It's nothing but greed and fear of what happens when they start pricing comic books at $0.99. If you're going to stick to the $0.99, $1.99, $2.99 pricing, it should work like this:
  
  
  • $2.99 - New releases
  • $1.99 - 1 month to a year
  • $0.99 - 1 year and older
  • And for bonus points: $0.49 - 5 years and older
    
  
  Even with this pricing structure, I cringe when I see that $2.99 (especially since that's the same price as DC print comics currently), but it would be a good start.


• Availability - I'm hoping that this is a short-term issue seeing as the excitement over digital comics is a fairly new thing (more so for DC than other publishers), but currently it's a crapshoot whether or not you will be able to find a comic book you want. Do you want Wonder Woman? It's not available currently (though in the near future...). Do you want the latest issue of The Walking Dead? Sorry, you'll have to settle for the one from a few months ago. Y: The Last Man? Nope. You get the picture... A lot of this is just an issue of waiting for everything to be converted and made available (I have no idea how time consuming the process is) and another good chunk of the blame can be put on the fact that print is where the money is made currently (though if their cards are played right, I'm sure that can change pretty quickly). My main concern though is this slow process of testing the waters for day-and-date comic books. I want to be able to make the choice of whether or not I want to go down to the comic book store or press a button on my iPad to get my weekly comic book fix. Currently, unless my pull list only consists of Justice League: Generation Lost and an overpriced Iron Man Annual, I'm out of luck.


• Ownership - This may just be a 'me' issue, I'm willing to admit that. I like to own things. I like the idea that nobody will ever be able to take something away from me. Now, in terms of digital, unless I have the ability to download that item on my harddrive and tuck it away forever, I don't really own it. What happens if some company comes in, creates an amazing mind numbingly awesome iPad/iPhone/computer/whatever application and all of the publishers decided to flock over to that application? Well, Comixology may go out of business, I have no idea, but the point is that if Comixology does go out of business for whatever reason, what happens to my comics? Well, I could lose them. Why? Because they aren't on my harddrive. But aren't they online and on my iPad? Well, yeah, but all it takes for that to be ruined is a new OS to come out on my iPad that makes their application crash and their hosting/domain to expire for their site to no longer work and they won't have any money to fix these issues. Like I said, you may not worry about it, but I still am weary when I press the 'buy' button.


• Cross-platform portability - If I buy a comic book digitally, it should work on any platform that supports that publisher. That's about as blunt as I can be on that issue. I shouldn't (and won't) buy a comic book twice unless I want it in print for whatever reason. If DC comics are available on the PSP and are also available on the iPad, once I buy that comic book, I should be able to read it on both platforms without having to re-buy it. And Marvel, if I buy it on the iPad, I should be able to read it online. It doesn't work that way currently, which is a big shame.


• Store cleanliness - This is all about you Comixology. You have done a great job of getting more content in your store than anyone else. From where I am standing, you are the face of digital comics and you deserve it, cheers! But, now's not the time to dwell on that because your store is starting to get very messy. It's becoming hard to find some comic books easily. A good start would to be able to sort by multiple variables, for example: Genre and Ratings. Then I would be able to look at the comic books that people like the most in the genres that I care about. This may be a minor deal for right now, but it is going to be a huge issue as you make more and more comics available.

And there it is, my first post. Expect some more as I start trying to making blogging into a regular habit. I'm leaning towards having a decent range of comic book related topics, but I'm thinking that digital comics will be the focal point as I have a lot of commentary to give on the subject. Hope you enjoy!