Cognitive Dissonance: Mark Waid on Digital Comics

Sometimes people ask me why Amanda, Trebuchet, Pixiestyx, Lance and I bother to run a comics Web site when not only is there no money in it, but when it takes so much Goddamned time on top of our day jobs that actually pay for the comics (and liquor) it takes on a daily basis to endure said day jobs.

Until recently, I could only briefly stop and consider how I might possibly articulate my 35+ year relationship with comics, shrug my shoulders and thell them to fuck off and mind their business. However, now I can refer them to this recent video by legendary comics writer Mark Waid, who describes what it was like to be a comics fan growing up in the pre and nascent direct market world.

Touching, ain’t it? Particularly when the video of Waid waxing nostalgic about the feel of a physical comic book and the thrill of the hunt for individual issues comes hot on the heels of Waid’s announcement that the reason he is selling his beloved collection is to launch a digital comics imprint.

Wait, what?

I’m a very lucky man. I don’t have to do this because I need a kidney. … I’m just doing this because it’s about the right time to let go of the past and really embrace the future.

Yeah, at last week’s Wondercon in Anaheim CA, Waid announced that he and Leverage showrunner and former Boston comedian John Rogers were throwing in to start a line of digital comics. Pretty soon Waid’s Web site will start showing a countdown to the launch of the new imprint’s site, where he’ll be selling new digital books. And unlike the big publishers and online retailers, he’ll be selling them at 99 cents a whack.

But… what does this mean for the local comic store who’s been stocking and pushing your books for years, Mark?

“[The big publishers] don’t want to undercut the 1,800 Diamond retailers out there in the world, and I get it,” he said. “I don’t want to undercut them either. But we’re playing a different game. The more of us that know how to do this for the Web, the better off the medium is.”

Yes. Because selling comics at a quarter of the going print rate in a forum that local comic stores can’t touch is in no way a threat to guys like my local comic store owner, who knows me by name and asks me to please remember that the only good digital comic is Max Headroom.

Waid’s offering a free sample of what he has in mind for the medium in the form of a free PDF download of a short zombie story he wrote called Luther, with art by Jeremy Rock. It’s a tight little tale that follow the proposed format laid down by Marvel for their Infinite Comics line – the book is laid out so that panels unfold and lay themselves out, which controls pacing and allows for nifty visual effects, like a zombie opening its eyes right on the panel.

It’s a nifty read, particularly for the price, and unlike most print-to-digital “reprints”, it’s laid out in letterbox to make it easy to read on a computer screen. And it’s not all doom and gloom for the print peddlers, since Waid swears he’s looking to make the books available in print versions if they sell well enough on the Web… although if artists become too enamored in stuff like the zombie eye-opening effect, they’ll never translate well. However, if Waid and Rogers include value-added extras like production sketches or extra story pages, it might make the print version worth the purchase along with the digital.

With that said, I like going to the local comic store every Wednesday to pick up my fistful of comics. And I recognize that more and more I am sounding like college town hipsters bemoaning the fate of their local record store back in 1999, or cinephiles screeching about their Netflix DVD subscriptions just a couple of months ago. And it is dawning on me that my railing against the tide is possibly just as doomed as those peoples’ cries against the future were, particularly considering that I am writing this on a tablet PC that is tailor-made for reading comics like these… and further considering that crippling print costs are the reason I publish my foul opinions about comics on the exact same Web.

But there is no online conversation that will match the ones I have at the store on Wednesday nights if only because no one there calls me a nOO8f@& to my face for buying Catwoman. For me, nothing will match the close-up retail comics experience… but digital comics are better than no comics. And considering Mark Waid is involved, I suppose I will keep my eye on this venture.

Yes, I might buy a digital comic. Now fuck off and mind your business.