October 17, 2013
Assembled, Zipped, Transferred And Downloaded: Digital News
By Tom Spurgeon
* the cartoonist Katie Skelly
will apparently be doing a regular comic for the site
Slutist called
Agent 8 within a section -- a section that may or may not eventually include other cartoonists -- called
Comic Strip(tease). Skelly contributed similarly-oriented work to the first
Thickness anthology. The new work will be monthly.
* Kevin Melrose has a thorough piece
here on the e-book debut of Bill Watterson's
Calvin and Hobbes, as Andrews McMeel continues it relatively reserved roll-out of digital options. That could be a big deal. I'm not sure if the audience for that work is clamoring for it in digital form, but the strip remains popular, particularly with an emerging adult generation of consumers.
* someone sent along
a link to the comiXology jobs page wondering if "product development" meant that the digital comics leader was going to start making comics of their own. Even a cursory glance of that position's requirements and duties suggests this is not the case. The only thing that struck me reading that one, is again: this is a very serious entertainment company looking to hire top-notch talent that they hope are also into comics. This isn't a scramble to find a position for comics industry regulars looking for the next gig -- although I'm sure some comics industry regulars have and will find work there.
* I checked with Allison Baker if it was only my imagining
Monkeybrain Comics was publishing more books than usual right now, and her response indicated they'd still prefer to keep the number of comics lower when that's possible. I think that's a good strategy for the initial years of a from-the-ether company like that. Sometimes I wonder if digital comics more broadly isn't suffering a bit from that thing where all the Three Stooges hit a door frame at once.
* the happiest digital comics customers I talk to on a regular basis are my two friends that do that
Marvel Digital Unlimited Comics plan where you get access to loads and loads of comics at a significant but cumulatively bargain price. They don't mind that they're older books because they're disengaged from following such books closely enough where this would matter, the same way my 72-year-old mother doesn't care from which season of
Law & Order comes the re-run with which she eats an early dinner on Tuesday night. This is about as scientific an observation as might be had at a faith-healing session during a tent revival, but I wanted to make note of it for my own consumption later on. Also, I don't know that I was aware of a new plan option, and it's interesting to see what they put together as desirable incentives.
* finally, Heidi MacDonald's
The Beat reminds of that Neil Gaiman download that funnels the money raised into charity.
posted 9:00 pm PST |
Permalink
Daily Blog Archives
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
Full Archives