Panel Syndicate
Vaughan and Martin’s ‘The Private Eye’ #2 now on sale
About a month and a half after the debut of The Private Eye, the name-your-own-price digital comic from Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin, the duo is back with the second issue of the futuristic detective story.
In case you’re a little late to the game, The Private Eye is set in 2076, “when everyone in the United States has a secret identity. Our protagonist is a member of the paparazzi, outlaw private investigators who dig up the kind of personal dirt no longer readily available through search engines. It’s a mystery with lots of masks, but no superpowers.”
The 32-page second issue is now available on the Panel Syndicate website. As “name-your-own-price” suggests, you can pay whatever you choose, although the Vaughan and Marcos think 99 cents is fair (the writer says $3 seemed to be the most common payment for the first issue).
Quote of the Day | The price is right
“I’m delighted to say that many more people paid us than didn’t. Those who opted to pay something paid at least 99 cents, and I don’t think too many people paid more than $5. Three bucks, the cost of most new paper comics, seemed to be a common payment.”
– writer Brian K. Vaughan, revealing to The New York Times the lowest and highest amounts paid for the first issue of The Private Eye, his digital collaboration with Marcos Martin and Muntsa Vicente. Readers were encouraged to name their own price, with 99 cents as the recommended amount.
Vaughan and Martin launch name-your-price digital comic
I was excited by the teasers for Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin’s creator-owned project — Saga is one of my favorite current reads, and I love anything the artist draws — and now I’m pleased to see the actual announcement doesn’t disappoint.
Rather publish a traditional miniseries, which is what I was expecting, the Doctor Strange: The Oath collaborators have reteamed for Panel Syndicate, a website where they’ll release digital comics in a variety of formats, all DRM-free, which will undoubtedly please those who have been critical the the industry’s predominant digital-delivery methods. What’s more, the creators are allowing readers to name their price, although “we think 99 cents is a pretty fair asking price for our new issues” (hitting upon another hot-button subject in the digital debate, that $2.99 or $3.99 is too expensive for a standard-length comic).