I think digital could be a useful tool, but I’m increasingly concerned for friends in retail that they’re going to get shafted here. I really think day and date release is a disastrous idea and makes no economic sense at all to comics as a business. It’s potentially ruinous for comic stores, and in the long term it’s not going to do publishers any favors either. I see the attraction on a very superficial level. They think they’re cutting out the middle men and all the guys taking a piece of their gross, but there’s an equivalent number of hidden costs in digital too, and it’s short term thinking to obliterate the life-blood of the medium. Retailers are as big a part of comics now as the characters or the creators. They’re not just an outlet. These are carefully crafted communities and owned and staffed by people with a genuine passion for what they’re doing in a way that the ‘Amazon Also Recommends’ box isn’t quite going to match. I’ve got an awful lot of friends on the retail side and so many of them are hanging on by their finger-nails right now. Even a five or ten percent dip could be enough to put huge numbers of comic stores out of business. I know two huge American retailers, like really famous stores, in this position, and once they’re gone these guys are gone forever. Retailers stuck with us through the ’70s collapse and the ’90s post-speculator boom. Shouldn’t we be showing them a little loyalty now? Everything from the chair I’m sitting in to the keyboard I’m typing on has been paid for by royalties that retailers have made me, so I feel quite passionately about this.
Mark Millar (talking about digital comics vs. print comics and the danger of comic book shops closing. jesus.)
Sunday, November 27th, 2011
