Tired of bagging and boarding comics...

[Rene A.]

...iPad, here I come. As I sit here and bag'n'board my latest pulls, I am faced with the 12 short comic boxes and 2 long boxes that are slowly encroaching in on me and my studio space. So, is anyone else here reading comics on a tablet?

[ReggieR3mote]

Even tho my closet is annoyingly filled with six longs a few shorts and i have a huge storage container of comics waiting to be read, boarded and filed, i'll never leave the print comics behind.

[spidey976]

...iPad, here I come. As I sit here and bag'n'board my latest pulls, I am faced with the 12 short comic boxes and 2 long boxes that are slowly encroaching in on me and my studio space. So, is anyone else here reading comics on a tablet?

I havE had an iPad since last December, and I have probably 100 comics on it. I really enjoy reading comics on it. It is easy, convenient, and I don't have to put up with the jerk who runs the local comic shop. This will be the way the next generation gets into comics, and it may be what saves the medium from completely flagging in 20 years. PlUs if you are patient it is just cheaper then GNs too.

[PTX40]

Then don't bag them.

I just put my comics on a bookshelf as they are.

[ReggieR3mote]

"I don't have to put up with the jerk who runs the local comic shop."

See i love my comic book guy. He used to run a deal where if i bought all my subscriptions when they came in he would gimme free back issues every 4 subscriptions and i can grab 2 backs. And he also saves a lot of promo posters for me with characters he knows i dig on. I like going to the shop because i'm kinda of a shut in and i like to interact with people of similar interests even if it is for 20 minutes once a week.

[sirandal]

I think it's probably safe to say that there are some jerky comic shop guys and some cool ones. :)

[Dann]

I put my comics on a 6 foot book shelf...stand them up and it's easy access. Doesn't take a lot of room and not an eyesore. I got rid of the longboxes years ago. I can see boarding older, more valuable comics, but doing it for newer stuff seems a waste to me.

[The P.R. Man]

I think it's probably safe to say that there are some jerky comic shop guys and some cool ones. :)

Thats for sure... back before i had kids and was spendind $30-40 a week on comics, the guy who ran the store i went to was a real tool, wanted me out of there as soon as possible, was constantly forgetting to put books in my hold box, and always having to remind him who i was every week. Now that im blowing all my money on the kids, ive got a guy whos a real gem, never forgets an issue, knows which writers/artists/genres i like and holds back stuff i may like, never too busy to chat,. But ive only got $20 a month for him.

As for tablets, ive got a nook, but i havent really bought any books for it yet, been getting by onwebcomics and whatever free stuff i can find on sites like WOWEO. Dont think theres a comicreader app for it anyhow yet.

[spidey976]

Well the local guy here is a REAL TOOL, and though there are a lot of shops in the Toronto area the nearest one to me (other then SENIOR MCDOUCHE) is about 30 Miles away. PR Man your experience is EXACTLY what I get from this guy.

The thing is right now my iPad has almost 120 books on it (downloaded Crisis for less then $12, and Blackest Night for $8 this morning), and not only can I take them ANYWHERE I can usually get them in 1 min tops. That and with DC going Date and Day digitally, and you will see a lot more people get their comics this way. Also, it puts them out there to a broader market, and kids don't have to endure what some of us have to, and simply pull them up on their parents iPad. Different experience, but the message is getting out there.

Also, I have to say I think that digital releases are going to become the independent comic professionals BIGGEST friend very soon. You get to skip the middle guy, pull in your profit, and you just have to either GET a person to come up with the App for your book or I am sure the software will come out soon enough to do it. Hell if I can make a webspace, and get a podcast going on movies, ANYONE can do it.

Just to kid of prove my point a bit about the middle man ... I think it was Cold Play who put out an album on their own personal site a few years back where they offered "Pay what you feel this album is worth" to their fans. Even though about 80% (rough number) paid nothing for the album they STILL made MILLIONS and in the end cleared more then they would have if they had been with their label. It just shows HOW much the middle guys can take of the profits.

[pen2inkpress]

Thats good to hear because I'll be putting out 4 graphic novels out next year on digital format for 1.00 each. But I will have hard covers coming out a month before that.

[Zippy]

I'll stick to paper. My local comic book retailer is amazingly awesome. He and his wife are both super-friendly to both me and my wife when we go and they set aside stuff they think we may like without trying to pressure us to spend money on it if we don't think we'll like it. They've actually turned me on to a few good books that I otherwise would have never noticed and so on and so forth..

Pretty much will continue to collect the floppies and buy from the local shop just because of the people who run the shop here.

It really sucks to hear that all comic shops aren't as cool as the one here. The experience of going in the shop, chatting with people, browsing the trades, etc... is a big part of why I enjoy reading comics.

[NickRocks]

i dont buy pamphlets anymore seriously for that reason. If i do buy a floppy i flip through it then give it to the kids who live next door and pick up the GN if its any good.

when i moved to where i lived now i had to move 4 absolute editions, the battlechasers hardcover, and all my GNS...heavy as ****

[Jel]

F*** digital. F*** Ipads. F*** Itools.
Just a way to be even more reliant on technology, reduce social interaction, and just have a crappier product (I don't see how you can do a book in a better way than an actual book).
And some of you seem so happy to cut out the middleman, don't be sad or surprised if there is an even higher unemployement rate in the near future, you contributed to it.
That's all I have to say about it.

[Chris2.0]

Same here - and try moving 3 times in 3 years with 25 boxes of comics...

So started down the eComix route & haven't really looked back!

Only thing is, would've liked to keep the comics for the kids to read, but some of the stuff they'll only be ready for in a decade (Vertigo, etc) and I'm going to move to another continent before then!

So here's hoping we'll get 12" colour eInk comic book readers - thin enough to weigh next to nothing but still last weeks on 1 charge... And DC/Marvel all-you-can-eat subscription rates... As well as an independent creator comic explosion in quantity (of sufficient quality of course)!

[BullyJack]

I bought85 longboxes for two grand. Theyre all cheap books but I love looking through and picking out runs and organizing and bagging and boarding. I can't get into iPad reading unless it's a full on gn that is über cheap.
And my comic guy is a raging toolbag. I just deal with his elitism and don't tell him Iowan morecomicsthan he does ;)

[InkedT]

I love having physical copies. It's the same for books. There's something about having it in your hands that you get with digital copies. However I have a few digitals that I read in bed on my tablet if my wife wants to sleep. So it's nice that I can read them in the dark or if something came out and I didn't get a chance to pick it up and don't want to wait for a second printing. But overall I'd much prefer actual copies and if they start taki.g over my house and I start running out of room I'll just some to make room.

[Pencilero]

I still buy plenty of creator owned work, but just get digital editions of the Marvel/DC stuff that's piqued my interest. Which isn't really a whole lot.

I mainly use digital for runs and series. It's easier to carry my el cheapo HP Touchpad around than my heavy as heck Simonson Thor Omnibus.

Or I can keep my Kamandi, New Gods, and Marvel Spotlight Ghost Rider issues in a decent condition and read my scans of those books on the touchpad without worrying about damaging the books further.

Right now digital pricing is crap. The only reason these books are still $3-4 is to not piss off the comic shop retailers. Remember, the whole reason a comic cost you and I $3-4 is print and distribution costs. Why in the hell does a digital file cost the same as the dead tree edition?

[Rene A.]

Update: I originally started this thread a while back and I have to report on my own personal experience. My LCS is awesome. The owner is a really nice guy and the guys he has working there are also very nice, friendly and definitely are big into customer service. So, it's all tops for them in my book. So sorry that some of you have to deal with some comic shop owners who fall short in those departments. As for downloading comic books...I have my fair share on my iPad 2. Overall, I enjoy them but I have not fully converted. Part of my problem to a certain extent was the reader. In this case, ComiXology. It works great for the most part, but reading comics on this app is kind of like looking at a movie through a round, cardboard tube where you have to scroll around to see sections of the screen instead of taking in the whole page at once. Then, I recently discovered www.Thrillbent.com. Say what you will about Mark Waid (who started Thrillbent), but I really like how the way those online comics are created in such a way as to take advantage of the digital format. Has anyone here seen the online comics at Thrillbent? I'm looking at this and thinking they might be on to something. In fact, I've created my own test page. It's very short, but I like the way it really pushes the way I as a creator would have to craft my own stories to make use of digital. Here is my tiny sample page: http://reneartink.com/Digital-comics.html

[Johnny Blaque]

I really like digital. And I really like print. If I could drive to the LCS and be able to get any comic that I wanted to get, I'd go to the store more often but I can't so digital for me. I do prefer a physical book/issue. That's part of why I love conventions for having so much variety for new and old things. And I never bag and board. Those things are a nightmare. I never considered myself a comic book collector. Runs of comics have holes in it where I just didn't pick up an issue because it had a artist I didn't like or even some series recently where I got some issues physical and some issues digital. Hell, Invincible is a series I started with trades, then single issues, and now digital.

[crazyjedichicken]

I love reading comics on the ipad! if it wasn't for the ipad i would no longer be reading comics! i love being able to listen to a creator on a podcast or read an interview and then immediately pull up their comic and read it, where as before i would listen to something go into the comic shop and be told they don't have it...i could wait two weeks and get it then? f that! as for the prices most of the collections are 5 to 10 euro cheaper than the physical, also i've gotten dozens of comics for .89 cent!

[Ollivieri.art]

Seems insane to me that people want to eliminate physical copies of comics, while the world is going digital, I would much rather have something that I can do if the power cuts out in my house etc, I will say this however, I do love how experimental web comics can be compared to print comics, but that's just a side effect of physical limits. As for bagging and boarding, I love that, it cools me down sorting my back issues.

[crazyjedichicken]

i still buy tpb and artists sketch books but when it comes to buying single issues i'm digital, for example i bought punk rock jesus individually on digital and will now buy the tpb which has extra pages and art so its a win win.