Comic Books Evolve, from Ink to Internet

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Movie Franchise Tie-Ins

Rival comic book powerhouse DC Comics and parent company Warner Bros. are jumping into the deep end when it comes to motion comics, releasing two high-profile properties, Watchmen and Batman Adventures: Mad Love, as motion comics. Watchmen, which will promote the upcoming feature film version, made its debut exclusively on iTunes, with episodes costing $1.99 a pop, while Batman Adventures is available on Microsoft's Xbox Live Marketplace (in high-definition) for roughly $1.75 per episode and on Verizon VCast as part of a subscriber's plan.

Both digital and motion comics could help companies monetize their rich back catalogs for a relatively low cost or promote upcoming film properties and printed collected works of a particular title. But in a time when consumers can watch ad-supported TV and movies for free online, will people pony up for digital comics?

Neither Marvel nor DC would provide any sales or subscription numbers. Marvel offers some digital comics online for free, but says it's proceeding cautiously. "We're still quibbling about what the primary form of revenue will be," Buckley said when asked about ad-supported offerings. Marvel is also concerned about the impact of the move on niche retailers such as hobby shops that still sell comic books. "We don't want to do anything to hurt anybody in the short term," said Buckley.

Embracing the Digital

But James Sime, owner of the Isotope comic book store in San Francisco, isn't too worried about the impact of digital comics on his business. He says he believes there's a great opportunity for comics retailers and publishers to learn from the mistakes of the ailing music industry.

According to ICV2, a trade publisher that monitors the business of comics and pop culture, trade paperbacks (collections of single issues in one book) generated $375 million in 2007 and single issues did $330 million that same year. Although Sime doesn't think single-issue sales will go away, he envisions a scenario in which they are moved from print to online as promotion for the trade paperback. "I'm all about it," said Sime. "People are excited about comics. The more people get them into their hands, the more they read them—the Internet is a great facilitator for that."

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