The Future of Trees (& comics)
Hi-Fi — By Kristy Miller on August 26, 2009 5:16 PMSo this week we have several projects coming out that we’ve worked on. Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Batman: Brave & the Bold, Blackest Night-Titans and that’s just from DC.
These DC projects remind me of a conversation several of us were having at Con this summer. In this fast-paced, print-on-demand, instant gratification world where does the tree fit in? I mean specifically paper. Do we need to physically hold things in our hands anymore or can we just download it look at it and be happy?
You can get a Kindle or an iPhone app and read everything from a magazine to your favorite romance novel on-screen. You can get your news from digg.com or CNN’s website. Instead of passing notes in-class or at work you can FB, Link-In, or Tweet.
All the projects I mentioned in the first paragraph are printed on paper, shipped somewhere and purchased. Do they need to be? Can you still enjoy comics if you can’t hold them and smell them?
I know there are several people out there working on this problem and offering various ways (legal & non) to download comics. Is that what we want? I mean on one hand you can save a tree, cut out the middle men (lots of them if you think printing, distribution, shipping, store-fronts, etc.–which will lower prices,) and have the comic the second it is ready, not schlep to your pull box or wait until the weekend when you have time to go to the store.
On the other hand you can’t hold it, smell it, read it outside under a tree (or can you on your mobile device?), and you can’t save it for 20 years and put it on eBay when it has a resurgence.
What about the Pro’s? How will it effect them if we do away with printed comics to save trees? Well for us colorist it won’t matter much, we color in RGB then convert to CMYK for print–one less step for us. But, for pencillers & inkers it could have a financial impact. They keep a percentage of their pages (depending on the publisher & the contract) and then can sell them as original art. BIG dollars there for popular series or artists.
Along those lines what about royalties? (Again, doesn’t effect colorists we very, very, very rarely get royalties–I should probably add another very in there is so scarce!) But if your paycheck is based on how many copies the book sells how do we tell if we don’t print them out and count them? Do we count downloads? Do multiple downloads count? What about those nasty little thieves who download it once then sell it to all there friends and keep the money themselves?
So we have side A: We can all sit around, hold-hands, breathe deeply of the clean air and read our comics on our phones or laptops.
Or we have side B: Print on! We haven’t completely given up on the printed page in any medium that I can think of–sure newspapers are in big trouble but many are still holding on. We’ve had printed words (on a stone tablet mind you) since 2100 BC with the Epic of Gilgamesh, I’m not sure that is something to take lightly. What about the financial side of it? What about the collector side? We can’t abandon those people, can we?
Will saving trees kill comics? Do we want our comics at our fingertips or on our screens?
Kristy Miller
VP, Development
Hi-Fi Design
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4 Comments
Great topic! I personally feel the comic industry should embrace legal downloads while continuing to print weekly comic books as well. Why? For the reasons you stated. There is the consumer who wants to own a physical copy of the comic for one reason or another (collectable, nostalgia, technology impaired/no internet etc.) and then there is a broader untapped audience who may not even know comic books exist. People who regularly download music and movies via itunes, download books and magazines, via Kindle, are most likely not interested in owning a physical copy. This download consumer may outnumber the physical purchase consumer, 10 to 1, 100 to 1, or maybe even 1000 to 1. No one knows for sure yet. There was a time when printed comics sold millions of copies every week. They were inexpensive and widely available. Digital downloads could be the key to once again open the comic book medium to millions. Millions of NEW readers while still offering current readers and collectors the choice of purchasing paper and ink comic books. When it comes to entertainment you have to “go where the eyeballs are” and right now many eyeballs are using computers, set top boxes, and handheld devices to enjoy their entertainment. Why not add comics to the mix?
Its funny how many questions get raised whenever this conversation gets started. Many more questions than answers right now, but I think we can all feel that is going to change rather soon.
I’m a big fan of having the object itself. I like my bookshelves and I like seeing them full. I like having nice books and having them as objects in a room that can be shared socially and as a part of the comfort of home. I’m the same way with my music collection too. I love sharing CDs or albums with friends, displaying them to spark conversation and thought.
And I download a ton of music from the internet through Rhapsody and Itunes. Yet when there are certain great albums (like The National’s Boxer I am listening to right now) that I feel completely compelled to pick up. I want to bring them into my home, because I believe they have a worth that goes beyond just there inner contents.
I can’t imagine that it won’t be more so for more people in the case of comics. They will want both. They could pick up a few downloaded issues and then decide they need to pick up the trade later on. And like Brian said, it will get the work in front of more people, and that may trigger more sales of trades and floppies. At least i hope so as a comics fan, although floppies may suffer in the long run….maybe.
And as for the saving trees question, I am still holding out hope that someone will invent a completely renewable earth-and-tree-friendly paper substitute that will come from so far out of left field that no one but a few MIT grad students will see its potential. Luckily I read comics, so I am prone to imagining such things.
Well, well, looky here:
http://www.newsarama.com/comics/090903-apple-tablet-comics.html
seems that along with everything else in technological advances comics is one of them. Yes it does save us money but then jobs are cut and that doesn’t benefit the economy. I think that keeping original comics is always a benefit cause its always great to read those.