Digital comics part umpteenth: Longbox

Fysh

As per this article on CBR, an upcoming digital comics venture called Longbox has been announced. Windows, Mac and Linux clients are expected to be launched as free downloads, with a suggested retail price of $0.99 per issue for comics purcashed through the service. Top Cow and Boom! Studios are currently on board to provide content.

This looks like the closest thing I've seen yet to a viable digital comics venture. I'll be trying it out once it goes live, and will very probably set aside a bit of cash every month to spend specifically on stuff that I wouldn't otherwise buy on paper due to either price or being unwilling to take a gamble on unknown creators. It won't replace buying paper comics for me, but it could well replace plenty of instances of buying physical copies of single issues.

On another note, I've recently started playing with the idea of packaging up my existing singles into collected editions due to the price increases over the last year or so, because it costs way more than I'm willing to pay to read a series in single issues and then buy a softcover collection once it's released, even if you manage to sell the single issues onto someone else. If the price is right, I'll happily buy digital copies of the single issues and then pay for a physical collection when it's released (effectively the webcomics model).

Any thoughts on this? Aside from how nice it is to finally see an article about digital comics that doesn't ejaculate all over itself at the notion of motion comics, that is...

halite

Looks pretty interesting, and the article puts forward a good case for it. The issue I have is whether or not you get the full experience from a comic when reading it on a screen. I have downloaded some digital comics, but found the need to zoom and scroll to be a bit of a headache and ultimately took away from the experience. Similar to views around digital books, I think there is no alternative to having the real thing in paper format.

Having said all that I think that you are right in that it would be a good way to look at single issues, or dip your toe in the water with a new ongoing series. Also as the guy from Longbox says in the article it would be a good way to keep abreast of non-core off shoots from major events (i.e. Batman RIP). Would be intereested in trying it out once it launches, and I am sure that the publishers who sign up will offer some free content upfront for people to try out.

Fysh

I know what you mean about zooming issues, etc - I've seen this issue even with comics put together specifically to be viewed in the CDisplay viewer and it's a bit of a pain. I get the impression from the screenshots that their plan is to integrate some sort of panel-zoom function which will be fine but still doesn't resolve the two-page spread issue. (Mind you, they're not that common, issue 11 of Nextwave aside...)

Ideally this will be treated as another way of enjoying comics instead of as a way of replacing paper comics. For starters it would potentially allow for a much wider audience by making comics available to those who don't have a Direct Market comic shop nearby (or who don't even know what the Direct Market is for that matter). I'm curious to see what sort of publishers line up for this - if they've got any sense in them the crowd behind this will start talking to manga publishers to get them on board; given the popularity of manga designed to be read on mobile phones in Japan I would imagine there's plenty of content waiting to be licenced there...