dvandom | So, you want digital comics?

Inspired by

jarodrussell's post on comics being a proudly analog medium in an increasingly digital world.

Thesis: If comics are to go digital, there must be a means of reading these electronic comics that is superior to paper in at least one way that is significant to the reader, and can't be significantly worse in any way.

Edit: I should clarify that I don't assume the art form of comics will remain a mass media product in the future...in all likelihood it will die off as the current readers die. Some new form arising from the digital media will probably take over its niche entirely. I merely speculate below about what I think comic publishers will need to do/have in order to have a chance of transitioning while still remaining identifiably themselves. Which means keeping most of the existing readers, in addition to trying to get new ones.

Okay, I'm going to leave out all the "culture of the past" aspects of the argument here. Yes, worship of nostalgia is a big reason why digital comics haven't caught on. But I contend that there are significant technological reasons that pose a barrier even if we can deal with the social ones.

If you want someone to adopt a new medium, you have to either control things so tightly that you can FORCE it (i.e. declare by fiat that everyone must upgrade to digital television), or you need to convince people that the new way is better in some way. AND that it's not worse than the old way in any fashion that counts, other than price (and you need to at least imply that prices will improve soon too).

Before I get to the purely technical ways in which a digital comics medium needs to be greater than or equal to paper, it's worth taking a moment to tease apart the medium and the artistic form. The form of comics is what makes it distinct from things like comic strips, illustrated text, etc. Much of the form has been influenced by the medium (i.e. the page dimensions), but it is still integral to what makes comics what they are. Some aspects of the medium affect presentation but are not intrinsic to the form. For instance, publishing economies favor certain page counts: if you have a 5 page story you have to collect it together with other stories to make it worth printing, if you have a 145 pages you need to either cut a page or add several pages to bring it up to a multiple of 8. That sort of thing. Going digital will let you abandon some parts of the "way things are done" without sacrificing the essence of comics, but not everything. So, a delivery system that isn't friendly to the artistic forms of comics would count as "doing it worse than paper".

Also, assume that anyone could just buy the occasional digital comic and read it on their computer. A regular computer wouldn't do everything as well as paper, but we're looking at convincing the core audience who consumes enough comics that it'd be worthwhile to them to upgrade.

So. Here's a list of some things that a digital delivery system would need to do in order to be acceptable to existing readers. The bulk of the hardware and software would have to be developed by the mainstream periodicals or publishing industry in general, but a specialty reader for comics would certainly be feasible if a general magazine reader came about.

Portable. Comics you can only read on a regular computer are like songs you can only play on a regular computer. It shouldn't be too much bigger than a comics TPB or a thick magazine.
Inexpensive. Let's call it $50 MSRP, $40 at Wal-Mart. Again, that's expensive for a casual reader, but if you spend $100 a month on paper comics, it's not too bad, especially if the digital comics are cheaper than paper ones (see below). I put the ceiling where I did because this has to be something people are willing to haul around with them and not worry about damaging expensive hardware.
Able to show 10 inches by 14 inches in good resolution. 7 by 10 at the very least, maybe a basic model that can show a single page and an upgunned fold-open screen version for 50% more that can handle two page spreads. Note that regular periodicals often have two page spreads, so there would be enough market for such a thing, it's not comics-exclusive. Anyway, scrolling around a page is annoying, and definitely counts as a "not as good as paper" thing.
Fast loading/displaying speed. It doesn't have to be as fast as turning physical pages, but it can't be too much slower.
Ease of uploading, especially for those without their own computers. A card reader and a USB port for jump drives, probably. People could subscribe (possibly via third party services) and get a card in the mail every so often, loaded with comics, magazines, books, etc. Or they could just plug it into their home computer and transfer that way. Comic shops could "dual boot" for a while, acting as download points for comics for a subscription fee, and selling the reader devices.

Now, in addition to the hardware, the comics themselves need to have some characteristics to avoid being worse than paper.

Copy protection must NOT be onerous. I can read my paper comic anywhere I want (within reason, of course...I probably shouldn't read it while driving), as many times as I want until it physically falls apart. I can loan it to a friend, I can even skim it in the store. This is likely to be a big sticking point at the publisher end...while a few forward-thinking publishers like Jim Baen (rest in peace) recognize that a thief wasn't gonna buy anyway, most assume they'll be robbed blind unless everything's locked under the strongest possible DRM. But if my comic expires, or I can't back it up to a DVD-ROM or other less volatile storage, I'll be inclined to stick with paper.
Price MUST be lower than paper copies. There are existing digital-only comics out there that charge $2.95 for a 22 page story, and that's a bad idea. The target audience knows that most of the cost of a paper comic comes from the middlemen, and digital distribution can be done directly by the publisher. Even if you order them burned to CD or on a memory card, the cost per issue should still be less than a paper comic unless you do stupid things like insist on buying a single comic on an 8M SD card or something.
Special features would be a very good idea. Stuff like the ability to strip away the layer with the speech bubbles so you can see the "virgin" art, or the pages being in higher than necessary resolution so you could zoom in on details (or simply enlarge things if you have bad vision). Here's one of the ways in addition to price and storage that digital comics can be better than paper, not simply no worse. Make some features standard, and others options (increasing price and download size). Maybe let people see scripts, breakdowns, pencils and so forth as an optional extra (Marvel has sold "scriptbook" comics every so often for the process wonks, and they seem to do well enough).

Okay, with all those things in mind, here's what I think might work as a periodical reader for digital comics (and magazines, etc). Not all of the technology is available yet, or it's not available cheaply enough to meet the price considerations of a reader.

I'm envisioning a tablet with a screen 7 inches wide by 10 inches tall. The standard model would just have a flip-open dust cover, the deluxe would have a fold open screen so the whole thing is 14 inches wide. A border at the bottom would be about an inch and a half tall, with controls (a cursor and a few buttons would be enough) and slots for USB and some sort of card. The bottom piece would probably be 1.5 cm to 2 cm thick, and contain battery and memory. At even current tech, you could get a few gig in there pretty cheaply, and by the time the screen is feasible memory would be even cheaper. The screen itself would be 1cm thick, either LCD or "digital paper" in a frame. The standard model might have a page-turn button on either side of the screen, and the dust cover would be half a centimeter thick and flip over the top to let it set up as an easel. The deluxe would have a thicker bottom border and two 1cm thick pages hinged on the left or right side (different for Japan and US?), so when closed it would all be flush. Other flourishes of design optional. The Deluxe would have buttons both for "advance one page" and "turn page", allowing for spreads wider than 2 pages (like deluxe covers or gatefolds scanned in from old comics) to be scrolled one at a time if necessary. The standard would have a "shrink and rotate" button to let you see two page spreads all at once, if smaller than intended.

Basically, the main technical hurdles are the screens, and getting the memory and speed cheap enough (which may already be in reach). The rest is all business plan, and mostly relies on the mainstream periodical industry setting up the standards and doing most of the development. The standard version would probably have a larger screen than necessary for comics, and it may not even be feasible to intentionally produce a smaller one for comics fans, but if the periodicals version doesn't have a deluxe version with two page spreads, that version may end up developed specifically for comics readers (in which case expect a slightly more expensive price range).

I wonder if Playboy would develop a special three-page folding screen version? :)

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Date: 2006-07-03 09:56 pm (UTC)

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