It turns out that Penguin is not the only company pricing e-books higher than print books. The blogosphere is abuzz about Marvel’s decision to release the 80-page Iron Man Annual #1 as a $4.99 print comic and as three $1.99 digital comics for its comic book reader software at the same time.
Techdirt and webcartoonist Scott Kurtz actually got the price wrong in their posts on the matter, thinking that the digital version was three times as expensive as the print when in actuality it’s only 98 cents more. (This misconception actually comes from a comic retailer quoted in the Newsarama story about the decision.) But what’s interesting here is not so much the relative pricing but what comic retailers think about the idea of simultaneous release.
In the Newsarama article, one comic book retailer is upset by the same-day release:
"The next step will be to release books days or weeks before the print versions, driving customers to ‘download’ rather than trek to the comic book store," [Dean Phillips, owner of Krypton Comics in Omaha, Neb.] said. "The step that follows will be to have a minor book released only to digital readers. Then after that success, you may see an X-Men or Spider-Man book exclusive to digital. You know it’s coming! What effect will this have on the comic retailer? Start looking for another job! Perhaps you can work for a comic book news website or something."
But Scott Kurtz, artist of the PvP webcomic strip, writes:
The only problem with that thinking is that Marvel Comics isn’t in the business of keeping retailers solvent. Marvel Comics is in the business of producing and distributing comic books to as many readers as possible. At least it SHOULD be. And if digital distribution has a chance of being more profitable than brick-and-mortar store distribution then Marvel owes it to it’s readers, creators and stock holders to pursue that business without having to worry about someone else’s business for nostalgia’s sake.
Marvel’s comic book app for the iPad sells (presumably DRM-laden) back-issues for $1.99, which as I’ve noted before is a bit expensive for what generally amounts to 22 pages of art. Marvel also offers web-based subscriptions to a 5,000-issue collection for $59.88 per year or $9.99 for an individual month, which is more economical for avid readers.
But there’s no need for comic book fans to pay anything at all if they’re willing to disregard copyright law, given that just about every comic that comes out is immediately scanned, CBR’d, and uploaded to the Internet where it can be downloaded and read with comic book reader apps such as the iPad/iPhone’s Comic Zeal. If comic book stores are troubled by digital comics, they might do better to worry about that sort of availability than Marvel’s pricier offerings.
But whatever they worry about, it may be that the end is nigh for comic book shops in any event. There’s no turning back the clock on digital availability of comics, and as Cory Doctorow has said, information is only going to get easier to copy. No one is guaranteed the right to make money even if his business model becomes obsolete.
