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scans_dailyAfter missing their projected Fall '09 launch date, digital comics distributor Longbox Digital is finally showing signs of life. The private beta is in progress, and they're making noises that suggest the public beta phase may not be far away. But they already seem to have competition from Graphic.ly. Not much there, but they seem to be going with the same "iTunes for Comics" business model, with a greater focus on community, but also at a higher price-point than Longbox's projected per download cost. Interesting. No word so far on Graphic.ly's DRM or which publishers -- if any -- they have on board.
According to the latest Previews, vocal homophobe Orson Scott Card will be penning the comic-book continuation of Bioware's Dragon Age: Origins RPG. *sigh* Dear IDW: You just lost a good chunk of the goodwill you got for the Bloom County reprints. I will be keeping my four bucks.
And now, a question for the community: what are your comic-buying habits? I was contemplating my own today, and I figured I'd ask. I'm not necessarily talking about what's on your pull-list -- though, by all means, feel free to share -- but more along the lines of if you prefer monthlies or trade-waiting. What does it take to get you to pick up a new comic? What does it take to get you to drop a comic? LCS, Amazon, or eBay? That sort of thing.
I love comics, but I'm also of the opinion that most of them aren't worth the cover price, so I'm not much of a casual browser. It takes a lot to get me to pick up a new monthly title. For a creative team I don't have any experience with, it usually takes multiple positive reviews from sites that are not Newsarama or CBR, interior previews, and one hell of a good hook. Even then, if it's from the Big Two, I'll probably still wait for the trade...and then wait another couple of months so I can pick it up used off of eBay or Amazon. I just don't have that much interest in paying full price for what the company-owned books deliver, even the really good titles. The exceptions to the pattern usually come from this comm and Comics Worth Reading. S_D is bad for me, in that when I'm online and have Amazon open in another tab, it's so easy to impulse-buy trades from merchant vendors when I see something I like. Likewise, most of Johanna's recommended books wind up either on my wishlist or as impulse buys; I've been reading her site long enough to know that a lot of what she recommends so far as manga goes is likely to do it for me.
On the other hand, once a creative team actually does engage me, I am nearly impossible to shake, and I generally go to double-dipping. Every book currently on my pull is pretty much a guaranteed TPB sale, most likely a hardcover sale if that's what comes out first. Having the TPB safely on my shelf means I can start passing the monthlies around to unsuspecting souls, after all.
As for what it takes to get me to drop a book once I'm on board, for creator-owned books, the biggest thing is when it starts feeling like the creator's lost interest in the story being told. Meandering storylines, new characters popping up and eclipsing the established cast, that sort of thing. A change in artist isn't really a big deal for me; the artist certainly contributes a lot to the story, but I can overlook a change in visual style a lot more easily than writing style. For a company book, a change in writer will usually do it, unless I trust the team coming in. Switch out Mike Carey for Gail Simone, for example? Odds are I'm not going anywhere. Greg Rucka for Bruce Jones? Heading for the horizon.
From the above, you've probably already gathered that I do a lot of my shopping online. I do get my pull-list and its associated trades at my LCS, and if they get in something I was going to buy anyway, faboo...but they also don't have a lot of what I want, and often can't get it. Some of it's out of print, and some of it just isn't offered through their distributor. Of the titles on my to-read list right now, my LCS can't get me City of Glass, Asterios Polyp, many of the Krazy and Ignatz reprints, and most volumes of Oishinbo. Really, if I didn't genuinely like the crew at the shop, I'd probably be mail-order and internet buying only instead of splitting my shopping. I know a lot of folks get their geek-bonding time in at the shop, but that never really was much of a draw for me -- I do most of my plugging/discussion/fanwankery online.
And speaking of plugging books...
Title: Age of Reptiles: The Journey #2 (Dark Horse, 2010, 24 pages)
Creator: Ricardo Delgado
Availability: On Shelves Now
I was exposed to Age of Reptiles waaaaaay back on S_D 1.0, and my inner ten-year-old immediately popped up and demanded to know why we were not reading this. Unfortunately, I never managed to track down any of the previous series in trade, but the visuals stuck with me. Now that there's a new series out, I am so very on board.
The Journey follows a mixed herd of dinosaurs on their migration across an arid desert. There are no talking monkeys and no villainized species, just the dangers of predators, terrain, and weather. It's a few-million-years-late nature documentary done in sequential art, essentially, and I'm enjoying it a lot. I can't do the cover scene justice without going over page limit, but here are some moments from the opening sequence of the current issue.
(Out of sequence, but d'aw!)
Worth snagging, I'd say, and I'm hoping Dark Horse will reprint the previous trades.
According to the latest Previews, vocal homophobe Orson Scott Card will be penning the comic-book continuation of Bioware's Dragon Age: Origins RPG. *sigh* Dear IDW: You just lost a good chunk of the goodwill you got for the Bloom County reprints. I will be keeping my four bucks.
And now, a question for the community: what are your comic-buying habits? I was contemplating my own today, and I figured I'd ask. I'm not necessarily talking about what's on your pull-list -- though, by all means, feel free to share -- but more along the lines of if you prefer monthlies or trade-waiting. What does it take to get you to pick up a new comic? What does it take to get you to drop a comic? LCS, Amazon, or eBay? That sort of thing.
I love comics, but I'm also of the opinion that most of them aren't worth the cover price, so I'm not much of a casual browser. It takes a lot to get me to pick up a new monthly title. For a creative team I don't have any experience with, it usually takes multiple positive reviews from sites that are not Newsarama or CBR, interior previews, and one hell of a good hook. Even then, if it's from the Big Two, I'll probably still wait for the trade...and then wait another couple of months so I can pick it up used off of eBay or Amazon. I just don't have that much interest in paying full price for what the company-owned books deliver, even the really good titles. The exceptions to the pattern usually come from this comm and Comics Worth Reading. S_D is bad for me, in that when I'm online and have Amazon open in another tab, it's so easy to impulse-buy trades from merchant vendors when I see something I like. Likewise, most of Johanna's recommended books wind up either on my wishlist or as impulse buys; I've been reading her site long enough to know that a lot of what she recommends so far as manga goes is likely to do it for me.
On the other hand, once a creative team actually does engage me, I am nearly impossible to shake, and I generally go to double-dipping. Every book currently on my pull is pretty much a guaranteed TPB sale, most likely a hardcover sale if that's what comes out first. Having the TPB safely on my shelf means I can start passing the monthlies around to unsuspecting souls, after all.
As for what it takes to get me to drop a book once I'm on board, for creator-owned books, the biggest thing is when it starts feeling like the creator's lost interest in the story being told. Meandering storylines, new characters popping up and eclipsing the established cast, that sort of thing. A change in artist isn't really a big deal for me; the artist certainly contributes a lot to the story, but I can overlook a change in visual style a lot more easily than writing style. For a company book, a change in writer will usually do it, unless I trust the team coming in. Switch out Mike Carey for Gail Simone, for example? Odds are I'm not going anywhere. Greg Rucka for Bruce Jones? Heading for the horizon.
From the above, you've probably already gathered that I do a lot of my shopping online. I do get my pull-list and its associated trades at my LCS, and if they get in something I was going to buy anyway, faboo...but they also don't have a lot of what I want, and often can't get it. Some of it's out of print, and some of it just isn't offered through their distributor. Of the titles on my to-read list right now, my LCS can't get me City of Glass, Asterios Polyp, many of the Krazy and Ignatz reprints, and most volumes of Oishinbo. Really, if I didn't genuinely like the crew at the shop, I'd probably be mail-order and internet buying only instead of splitting my shopping. I know a lot of folks get their geek-bonding time in at the shop, but that never really was much of a draw for me -- I do most of my plugging/discussion/fanwankery online.
And speaking of plugging books...
Title: Age of Reptiles: The Journey #2 (Dark Horse, 2010, 24 pages)
Creator: Ricardo Delgado
Availability: On Shelves Now
I was exposed to Age of Reptiles waaaaaay back on S_D 1.0, and my inner ten-year-old immediately popped up and demanded to know why we were not reading this. Unfortunately, I never managed to track down any of the previous series in trade, but the visuals stuck with me. Now that there's a new series out, I am so very on board.
The Journey follows a mixed herd of dinosaurs on their migration across an arid desert. There are no talking monkeys and no villainized species, just the dangers of predators, terrain, and weather. It's a few-million-years-late nature documentary done in sequential art, essentially, and I'm enjoying it a lot. I can't do the cover scene justice without going over page limit, but here are some moments from the opening sequence of the current issue.
(Out of sequence, but d'aw!)
Worth snagging, I'd say, and I'm hoping Dark Horse will reprint the previous trades.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-17 12:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-17 12:52 am (UTC)The fail isn't OSC getting his hands on established bisexual characters, it's that Bioware's had a good track record with lesbian/bi characters in their games and spin-off material (David Gaider deserves a cookie for "The Calling", IMO), and dropping Card into the mix is like adding two cups of cow chips to a recipe that called for chocolate chips.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-17 01:00 am (UTC)I didn't get that from the epilogue. It just gives you a compass direction. She could be anywhere; she might even have looped around back to the Wilds, just to throw you off (provided she doesn't go back to Flemeth's hut specifically, it's not like your PC could ever find her there even if s/he goes looking).
The fail isn't OSC getting his hands on established bisexual characters...
The fail is that anyone, anywhere, is hiring OSC for anything. His invective should make him toxic. That any sane people at all are still willing to work with him even in the face of what he's written and put his money behind, much less theoretically forward-thinking people like the Bioware folks (or PAD, as long as we're talking OSC gaming clusterfucks), is depressing beyond reason.