The All About Comics Thread 4: Gemini Loves Crappy Variant Covers

The Muppet Show comic from Boom is fantastic fun and highly recommended.
 
I have a few questions for everyone.

1st) Does DC comics have a Digital comic service like marvel?

2nd) Is the marvel one worth the money?

3rd) Can you download the comics off Marvel's service or are you basicly paying to view them on their site?

4th) Do they work on any pc or mac? Or is there a program you need?
 
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SSJmole said:
I have a few questions for everyone.

1st) Does DC comics have a Digital comic service like marvel?

2nd) Is the marvel one worth the money?

3rd) Can you download the comics off Marvel's service or are you basicly paying to view them on their site?

4th) Do they work on any pc or mac? Or is there a program you need?
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Marvel's is Flash-based and on their site, so it works on PC and Mac. You don't and can't download them, and they don't put out new comics (or at least they didn't last time I checked).
 
E said:
Marvel's is Flash-based and on their site, so it works on PC and Mac. You don't and can't download them, and they don't put out new comics (or at least they didn't last time I checked).
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Oh that's a bit crap. That's sounds a bit of a rip-off. Does DC do it
 
Comics are $3.99 in USA.

They are $15.99 in Australia.

And they wonder why people don't buy comics.

In other news, I found Asterios Polyp in my library, which was quite a surprise since I had searched their catalogue to see if they were getting it in and it wasn't listed. It looks amazing.
 
2009 is a great year for the original graphic novel format. So far we've had David Mazzucchelli's Asterios Polyp, Darwyn Cooke's Parker: The Hunter, Jeff Lemire's The Nobody and just this week, the first two entrants in Vertigo's new crime line, Dark Entries and Filthy Rich (and probably a few more I haven't heard about). The OGN is a great format for original comics, I feel, and I wish a lot more of them were produced. These are things you can easily give to new readers and it's quite often these things that are recognized by the public/critics and considered "classics."

Anyone read any of the ones I've mentioned? I've read The Nobody which I thought was really good. I've got Asterios Polyp and Dark Entries waiting for me, and I'm going to try and get a copy of the other two soon.
 
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Jonathan Ross and Tommy Lee Edwards are doing a comic together called Turf, coming out from either Icon or Image. It's supposedly about 1920's gangster warfare with vampires or something.

Might be worth checking out.
 
Heh, he's one of my favourite bloggers and I also follow him on Twitter. He's scared of that Bill guy who keeps randomly commenting on his posts.
 
ProjectX2 said:
Heh, he's one of my favourite bloggers and I also follow him on Twitter. He's scared of that Bill guy who keeps randomly commenting on his posts.
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I just read his blog/article/essay/whatever on Marvel Boy

****ing awesome

I'm printing that out, and buying another copy of Marvel Boy to give to my old English professor
 
Gemini said:
I just read his blog/article/essay/whatever on Marvel Boy

****ing awesome

I'm printing that out, and buying another copy of Marvel Boy to give to my old English professor
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That's pretty cool. I told him this, knowing he would be impressed. His response.

Now you have to do it!
 
So, I was reading an interview with Rich Veitch and I thought this was interesting:

NRAMA: We've all read about Diamond's new policy on minimums with some publishers been cut out of distribution – has this had any effect on what you do as a publisher?

VEITCH: Huge effect. Diamond's new minimums aren't a problem for King Hell, since our titles have always made those numbers. What's going to hurt us, all the small and self-publishers, are Diamond's new restrictions on relists. In my own case, Diamond used to regularly re-offer my backlist in Previews, one title at a time. These listings brought in fairly regular orders since it was the best time for retailers to buy my titles without having to pay the odious reorder penalty. So, under that system I would print enough inventory to feed demand over five years. About half what King Hell brought in each year was from sales of our backlist through Diamond.



Under the current system, a new release from a small publisher might get one relist, if even that. So a large percentage of my market has been lopped off with that one rule change. 

This hurts the consumer too. As small publishers are forced to smaller print runs, their per unit cost is higher and so their cover prices will have to go up.

NRAMA: Before we go, you've gone on record numerous times about the state of the medium and the industry. Right now here in 2009 there's a lot of things going on in comics – where do you think comics is headed?

VEITCH: I guess I am always shooting my mouth off, aren't I?

NRAMA: [laughs] Shoot away, sir.

VEITCH: For starters, I think the Direct Market has pretty much run into the ditch by a lot of bad decision making by the guys at the top of the food chain. Diamond has been putting the squeeze on small publishers since attaining monopoly status in the late 1990's. This year they've further moved to restrict access to market for all but their brokerage deals and exclusives. So the market is essentially denied the grass roots creativity which history teaches is what it needs to reboot itself.

Marvel and DC have been flooding the market with their company-wide crossover events which are designed to appeal to the dwindling mainstream fan-addict audience. These comics are being creatively directed from the top down, so there is very little experimentation or passion coming out of the writers and artists who work for the majors.

I came up during the growth surge of the early Direct Market, and fondly remember the wild creativity and experimentation that made it happen. Today we've essentially got a Comics Cartel; a monopoly distributor in cahoots with the biggest publishers. And they've forgotten the main ingredient that makes our art form great and self renewing.



The future of comics appears to be in the digital environment, but no one's really figured out how to monetize it yet. I'm like everyone else, watching for promising developments in e-readers. Once we've got a low-priced color reader with 3G capability, I expect comics to explode on the net.
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Zombipanda said:
So, I was reading an interview with Rich Veitch and I thought this was interesting:
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People can kick and scream and resist, but every one of these actions is a step closer toward digital distribution (and, I believe, EXCLUSIVE digital distribution). It's not getting any cheaper to print and ship comics. And on top of that, it's a flawed system. No competition = higher prices.

So yeah, go ahead and keep screwing the little guys, Diamond. Your business model is dated and you aren't doing anything to convince people that it should be kept as is.
 
So I've been reading a lot of Legion of Superheroes comics lately. I mean a lot. First I re-read my threeboot trades and remembered why I didn't like them. Nothing like a dose of the 'egion of Super*******s to brighten your day. Still it did get better when Supergirl showed up, I just wish the book had that sense of fun for the first 16 or so issues. Then I got ahold of most of the post-zero hour reboot. I think I'm missing 10 or so issues from the main titles, unfortunatly its from right at the end of LOSH/Legionnairs so I'm missing DnAs fiasrt arc. It was good, and DnA was great, but clearly trunkated at the end for a rather... pointless story from gail Simone. I didn't mind some of the things that a lot of long time fans got bothered about. Snake Sensor is fine, but frycook Tenzil could have done more. Acid spit man!

Anyway, I'm just getting started on the Levitz run. I have right before The Great Darkness Saga until the end of the Baxter series. I'm really looking forward to it.

So, any other legion fans on board?
 
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