Robot 6
Quote of the day | Tom Brevoort on day-and-date digital releases
One of Marvel's day-and-date digital releases
[Reader question:] How far away are we from seeing the entire Marvel line being released digitally day and date? I’m ready. There are a few titles I would still get hard copies of, but a lot of titles I just want to read and not have to deal with storing/saving.
[Brevoort:] It’s in the future–just how far in the future I can’t even guess at this point.
–Marvel Senior Vice President of Publishing Tom Brevoort, on when we might see all of Marvel’s releases debuting digitally on the same day they come out in comic shops. I know this is mixing my fortune-telling-tchotchke metaphors a bit, but it’s kind of like he gazed into his crystal ball and saw the phrase “Reply hazy, ask again later.”
Which reminds me: Digital comics readers, how have your experiences with Marvel’s current day-and-date titles been? I’ve read that these releases — mostly concentrated in Marvel’s Ultimate line — sometimes fail to actually make their digital debuts on the same day that the print versions come out. Has that been your experience, or have things been smooth for you thus far?
6 Comments
Mike
March 1, 2011 at 2:22 pm
Haha. That was my question. Robot 6 has made me famous!
Marc C
March 1, 2011 at 2:44 pm
Everyone gets their 15 mins. My question is this: how can you justify the same cover price for digital and print? Does it cost 2.99-3.99 to scan the book?
MisterSmith
March 1, 2011 at 3:52 pm
@Marc C – I think the digital pricing is more or less a matter of trying not to undercut the retailers, which is where most of the money is being made.
I wonder if this industry will ever be ready for any kind of serious commitment to simultaneous releases.
malonine
March 1, 2011 at 7:06 pm
I still go to my LCS for hardcovers and trades, but I stopped buying floppies. I’d totally be willing to pay a monthly fee for access to day-and-date releases to catch up on my monthly reading. Otherwise i’m content to trade wait.
I don’t want to spend $2.99 for a file that isn’t even mine. Mere access to material isn’t worth a per-item cost.
If they could get a model similar to Netflix i’d totally join.
Ace Fighter
March 2, 2011 at 6:32 am
Riveting.
Earth-2 Chad
March 2, 2011 at 8:06 am
They already have a model similar to Netflix — Digital Comics Unlimited — but in the same way that their Comixology offerings are problematic, pricing-wise, because they’re trying to protect the shops, the Flash-based DCU also has its shop-protecting problems — leaving out the last issue of a miniseries seems pretty common, for example. That said, there are some good complete reads available there, especially for older comics. (And if only Apple had enabled Flash for the iPad, I’d be in heaven.)
As for the day and date thing, there’s no point to it with Marvel, as it’s only in effect for a stray miniseries here and there. The real day and date action is over at Image Comics, where Walking Dead is day and date, and it’s a series I actually want to buy. Savage Dragon is also day and date, and I’m sure there are others I’m forgetting.