By Michael Moreci, Guest Blogger
In September of this year, Kris Simon left her job at Image Comics, where she had been an editor for six years. The move was bold, but to Simon it made perfect sense. She was ready for her career to evolve, ready to take the next step in her industry – a step that many mainstream publishers have been apprehensive to take.
Simon found herself asking "what's next?" and discovered the answer in Comics Pipeline, a website that combines publishing and social media.
"Comics Pipeline answers the long-time question, 'What is the next step in the evolution of comics in today's digital age?'" Simon told Wired.com. "If you had to reinvent the comic book industry today, how should it be done? Readers nowadays want more than panels on a page.... They want exclusive insights into the creative process, the ability to pull up content on the run."
What Comics Pipeline does is create a sort of Netflix-meets-Facebook method for distributing content. Users register on the site and pay a monthly fee of $5 to gain access to work from the creators of their choice. Like social networking sites, Comics Pipeline – which launches Wednesday – offers users a more direct connection to creators, as well as on-demand content.
Creators can post pages, concepts and sketches, and constantly update their fans with never-before-seen stories as well as insight into their working process. A two-week "open house" lets registrants try Comics Pipeline for the first two weeks of December for free, and then decide if they want to subscribe.
Comics Pipeline's roster isn't too shabby, either, boasting artists and writers such as Ben Templesmith, as well as Jimmie Robinson and Tyler Kirkham.
"Comics Pipeline is not the publisher, the creators are," Simon says. "The creators become publisher, printer and distributor, determining what they produce, when they produce it and how to present it. It's a revolutionary new path for fans to get what they want."
When it comes to digital comics technology, the industry's top publishers have dipped their toes in the water, but are yet to pioneer original, digital content. Marvel Comics' strategy is to utilize digital platforms to give consumers what they want – and, as indicated by sales, consumers want long-established properties: Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, etc. That's why back-issue availability remains integral to Marvel's publishing plan. Simply put, people are more likely to pick up a classic Avengers title than a new superhero series from an upstart publisher.
"We believe that digital distribution can increase sampling and exposure of all books," Ira Rubenstein, executive vice president of Marvel's Global Media Group, told Wired.com. "But at the end of the day, the consumers decide which books succeed and which ones fail."
Leaving out the ease and accessibility that digital comics offer, there is still the dollars-and-cents argument to weigh – printing isn't cheap, as evidenced by DC Comics' and Marvel's recent surge to $4 prices for new serialized titles. The jump was met with such opposition that the companies have lowered some cover prices back to $3. Still, Rubenstein says he doesn't foresee a time when printing costs force Marvel to rely on digital.
"Comics are more than just books or music or movies," Rubenstein says. "The personal experience of holding a book in your hands is something you can never re-create in a digital experience."
While both Marvel and DC sell comics apps for the iPad, the slick offerings more closely resemble the traditional publishing model than a new distribution strategy.
Digital Before Print
California publisher Archaia Comics has seen the flip side of the market, with digital distribution serving as a predecessor to print, most notably with 2009 original graphic novel, Tumor. The book, written by Josh Fialkov and illustrated by Noel Tuazon, was originally released on the Kindle e-reader and was the platform's first original graphic content. While the Kindle itself provided a number of hurdles – namely its size and inability to handle color – the book earned a spot on Amazon's best-seller list.
This decision strikes at the heart of the philosophical difference between Archaia's publishing model and the mainstream, direct-market approach. Stephen Christy, editor in chief at Archaia, says what sets his company apart is a willingness to take risks.
"When it's so ingrained in publishers to make their money off of single comic book issues and the eventual collection, it becomes very difficult in their eyes to spend the money to create something that's exclusively for digital distribution," Christy told Wired.com. "They start to be ruled by thoughts of failure, and they wonder if all the money they spent on the book will just vanish into a black hole if it doesn't find an audience on whatever device or platform they're distributing on."
These concerns over money work both ways, as Comics Pipeline's Simon points out. Creators typically wait five months to get paid after a comic book is published (when not working on a page rate). If a book doesn't sell well out of the gates, there's always the chance its run will be canceled before completion, leaving creators out of work.
Since its Kindle release, Tumor has also been put to print, and it's become one of Archaia's best-sellers. Maybe the book's success is based on it being the beta of its kind. Or, it could be an encouraging trend for comics publishing: Maybe there's a larger audience out there looking for content that isn't provided by the monthly periodical model.
"One of the most important goals of Archaia is that we want more people to be reading comics, period," Christy says. "We continue striving for that goal by making sure that our content is available in as many places as possible and through as many distribution outlets as possible."
To that end, Archaia also offers many of its titles exclusively on the Graphic.ly app for the iPad and iPhone or for download at the Graphic.ly website. Comics Pipeline plans to follow suit in spring 2011, with applications for the iPad and Android platforms.
The truth about comics culture is that it can often be inscrutable to outsiders. A trip to a comic shop can be a daunting experience if you don't know what you're looking for. Archaia has challenged the marketplace by producing self-contained graphic novels. Comics Pipeline confines stories to a single creator or creative team, eliminating crossover confusion while embracing finite story arcs. The end result is a reshaping of the landscape, not just in format, but in content as well.
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