Three Digital Notes: Marvel, Indy Efforts, B&N Criticized

* according to a post at Johanna Draper Carlson's Comics Worth Reading, Marvel has ended one of its exclusives in terms of digital content and a specific platform in a way that may make the publisher's content more generally available. My hunch is that the best way to see that one is as part of the inexorable march towards a standard work being made as widely available and on as many platforms as these publishers -- a standard that will be manipulated by publishers seeking temporary advantages and the like, but the general standard nonetheless.

* we're starting to see more independent comics work come to deals for various digital opportunities. Jackie Estrada sent out a press release this week that said five issues of Batton Lash's self-published Wolff & Byrd, Counselors Of The Macabre are now available for download to mobile digital devices through iVerse. That's work from 1994-1995. PW has a nice piece up here about an enhanced, supported and in-color (!) digital version of Eric Shanower's sprawling Age Of Bronze effort being made available on the occasion of this year's New York Comic-Con. I imagine these efforts will continue, just as I bet someone could find themselves a fruitful position working with some of the indy/alt major players in terms of a digital initiative that encompassed current works and the libraries of affiliated cartoonists.

* Michael Cavna at Comic Riffs rounds up creator reaction to Barnes and Noble's move to take the physical product off shelves that matched ttitles DC offered to the new Amazon e-reader with an exclusive. They're generally not happy with B&N. That's news in and of itself, although I don't see any of the respondents formulating an oh-yeah-that-makes-total-sense theory as to why this gets put at the feet of the bookseller's reaction as opposed to the publisher's action. But if that's the way creators are going to react to this move and others like it, that's a story in and of itself. I still think this is more of a shot across the bow of publishers thinking about doing this with current work that would be hit more deeply by a removal from store shelves, but Cavna's assertions in a couple of places that B&N is scrambling a bit when it comes to formulating competitive digital polices certainly puts some oomph behind series that B&N is just reacting without a grander strategy in mind.
 
posted 4:30 am PST | Permalink
 

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