Happy Thursday Folks,

This week DC comics finally got on board the digital comics train, and since most big name comic book publishers are now viva-ing the digital revolution, I thought that I would rate each publisher on how they are doing with bringing comics into this new medium. Let’s take a look shall we?

Marvel: The house of ideas has really been pushing the envelope since they went digital a few months back. Marvel was the first publisher to have it’s own dedicated comic book app, as well as having a presence on Comixology, iverse, and Panelfly. Marvel runs it’s app on the Comixology engine, which not only allows readers to go page to page, but panel to panel if they so wish.  The app is also very easy to navigate, with a wide variety of search options to help someone find what they are looking for. The quality of the books in the store is spectacular (especially on the high res display of an ipad). Marvel also allows readers to access the largest online catalog of any comic book publisher, giving readers a cornucopia of choices. most of their downloads are a pretty standard $1.99, but the publisher does offer a large number of free titles to get new readers hooked. The only hiccup that Marvel has had was their rather douchey release of the INVINCIBLE IRON MAN annual digitally on the same day that it came out in print (I went on a rant about this a few weeks ago).

GRADE: A– With a huge catalog, great app, and presence on several other digital purveyors, Marvel has really done a great job of not only embracing digital comics, but making easy for Marvel zombies to do the same.

DC: DC just began their digital comics push this past week, so they are a little late to the game. DC has quickly made up for lost time though, releasing a dedicated DC comics app, which also uses the Comixology engine. DC has also released their digital comics onto the Comixology store proper, as well as making titles available for download on the Sony PSP. While the available catalog is fairly small at the moment, Jim Rood (the man behind the DC digital push) assures fans that this is just the tip of the iceberg. Marvel did the same thing when it came onto the scene, so it makes sense. DC prices their comics at $1.99, $.99, and free, but the free comics available at this point are very limited.

GRADE: B+ DC was late to the party but seem to be doing their best to make up for lost time, still the tardiness and current lack of available issues dings their grade. The comics look good, and are reasonably priced, and with over 80 years of comics to choose from, DC could quickly have more digital comics on the market than anyone else if they wanted to. DC also gets kudos for getting comics onto the PSP, something their rival, Marvel has yet to do.

Image: This publisher was one of the first publishers to go digital, but their situation is a messy one. With each book being owned by different creators, royalties are a bit of a problem, so Image comics are strewn across a variety of different digital comic sellers, which the overall brand quality. As an example, Comixology (which, if you can’t tell has become the big papa of the digital comics world) has 29 Image series, including INVINCIBLE, CHEW, and THE WALKING DEAD, but iverse comics only has six Image titles, the most popular of which is PROOF. Image doesn’t have a dedicated app, but their comics are almost all $.99 per download across the board.

GRADE: C– The lack of a dedicated app really puts Image behind a lot of other publishers. With reading quality dependent on the program that readers may be accessing the books, it’s hard to rate readability. Image has done a good job of keeping their prices low, which does count for something, but they need to catch up to the other big boys.

Boom: These guys went balls-out a few weeks ago, releasing their whole catalog digitally, as well as introducing a dedicated app, using (can you guess?) the Comixology engine. Boom doesn’t have a large catalog, so “the whole catalog” sounds more impressive than it is, but no one else has come close to doing that. Boom also paired with Comixology and iverse to have comics on their sites. Comics will run anywhere from $1.99 to free.

GRADE: B– There just aren’t enough Boom comics yet. However, with titles like IREDEEMABLE, it won’t be long before this company pulls a huge digital market share.

Dark Horse: Going a different route than everyone else, Dark Horse allows readers to download their comics directly from the App store. The quality is fine, but the strictly panel to panel reading is a pain. DH recently began putting their books up for sale with the usual suspects as well, with prices again ranging from $1.99 to free.

GRADE: D+ If for no other reason than originality, but for goodness sake DH, get yourself an app!

IDW: These folks were right behind Marvel in releasing their own dedicated app, which actually runs on an engine other than Comixology (it looks like an iverse engine) . It turns out that this is a mistake, as the zoom feature isn’t nearly so intuitive as the panel to panel functionality that the Comixology app allows. IDW also has distribution deals with digital sellers, and has a fairly large collection of books for sale on line. The prices still run $1.99 and lower.

GRADE: B The lack of a Comixology engine has really hurt their app, but the company has been on the forefront of the digital push, and their extensive online catalog sets them apart from a lot of other publishers.

That’s it for me this week folks. Thanks for stopping in, and don’t forget to check in tomorrow for more supernatural awesomeness from Dr. Cellus.

Today is only three days from geek Christmas. That’s right, this Saturday, May 1st is the 9th annual Free Comic Book Day. In honor of this wondrous day of  complimentary 4 color excitement let’s look at the origins of this magical day and see what it means for the comic industry moving forward.

Free Comic Book Day began as the brain child of retailer Joe Field (who owns Flying Colors Comics) back in 2001. The idea was to have a day that could help the industry to attract new fans who might not otherwise pick up a comic, bring back old fans, and reward current comic book aficionados. In 2002 Diamond distribution picked up the idea and ran with coordinating the first FCBD.  Ever since then, the First Saturday in May (with one exception in 2004) has been a day filled with free books.

In the years since FCBD began, over 2000 different retailers across America and 30 other countries have participated in the event, and more than 12 million books have been given away. The publishing initiative has spawned several offshoots and copy cats in a variety of industries as well; Germany is starting their own FCBD, and there is now a Free Magazine Day and a Free Role Playing Game Day (Which sounds interesting and terrifying all at once).

Publishers have used the day to increase awareness of properties and upcoming events. Marvel has used the day to promote upcoming films (the first FCBD was just before Spider-man), as has IDW (with Transformers). DC has set up events like Blackest Night. Smaller publishers like Red 5 have used the day to springboard into the public eye (Atomic Robo was a big hit last FCBD).

Many retailers have turned FCBD into full-on events for shoppers. It’s not just a day to get free swag, at some stores you can meet comic professionals (and collect a signature or two if that what you are looking for), get some free food, and commiserate with like minded funny book enthusiasts.

So has FCBD worked out? Well, it’s hard to tell. Obviously one of the major goals for the day from the retailers’ standpoint was to increase comic readership and comic buyer-ship (yeah, I’m pretty sure I just made that word up).While FCBD has generally provided retailers with a sales spike in May, there is no concrete evidence to show that the free comic books have generated a stronger market for comic books. The same goes for the publishers, there is no data that proves that FCBD helps or hurts publishers.

Despite the lack of evidence one way or another about the effectiveness of FCBD, it does not seem to be in any danger of going away. Every year the event has taken place, more retailers have gotten involved, and the number of free comics available has increased as well. Plus the fans (myself included) love it.

So this Saturday, go find your local FCBD participating retailer (you can find which retailers are involved on the FCBD website) and check out some fun stuff that you wouldn’t normally check out. Oh, and don’t forget to actually buy something while you are there, those retailers still have to pay for the comics even though we don’t. I personally will be going out to 4 Color Fantasies in Rancho Cucamonga to celebrate the day. Thanks for stopping in everyone, and enjoy Free Comic Book Day!

Greetings Semantinkists!

Today I want to take a look at something that has become increasingly important in comics: Promo images. In the last few weeks, all of the Semantink crew has been discussing how best to get people excited about our new upcoming titles. These days (though I suppose this has been true for a while) promotion before a comic is released is integral to it’s survival. If a book doesn’t get a good jump from the get-go, it’s as good as done. This is true for books big and small. Books like Marvel’s S.W.O.R.D. and DC’s BLUE BEETLE suffered premature cancellations due to low initial sales. Diamond wont even pick up small press books if they can’t meet a certain sales plateau. So, it all comes back to getting readers hooked early, and usually before a book is even launched, which brings us back to the importance of promotional images.

Companies have become increasingly savvy about what a promo image should look like, and when to release it for maximum exposure. There seems to be a difference in what kind of promotion a book gets based on what kind of book it will be. Mega crossovers obviously get a much bigger push, as they affect the sales of more books. New series get a particular kind of promotional image, trying to invite readers to try something new. Events within established books target specific audiences (i.e. the people that already read the book(s) involved).

Obviously, the big two have more money and can afford to do a lot more in terms of images. As an example take a look at some of the images that they put together for the latest events, SIEGE and BLACKEST NIGHT:

DC’s BLACKEST NIGHT promotional image shows that while the book might be Green Lantern-centric, a host of recently dead heroes will be involved. SIEGE highlights the re-teaming of Marvel’s big three Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor, while showing who they are fighting against. Both pieces are very dynamic and feature a large cast of characters involved to get more fans drawn to the project. Marvel and DC have really cornered the market on the crossover event promotion, as most other companies do not have a shared universe to draw from. Smaller companies like Wildstorm or Crossgen have tried crossover events, but the promotional material is lacking, often using cover art from the books themselves as promo pieces.

Note how while both of these covers are striking images, neither lead the reader to pick up books that they might not usually go for. There is a reason that only Marvel and DC do the big cross over event, and it’s because they are the only ones that can do it well.

Promotional images for new comics are a little more diverse in how they can bring in new readers. Books that are hoping to gain a niche because of the creator(s) involved will often highlight that (those) creator(s). An excellent example of this would be the promotional image for the new Todd McFarlane series, HAUNT:

This title is banking on the fact that people will buy the book simply for McFarlane. The art itself is dynamic, but the name is the focus. Another tactic that a company might employ when banking on creator owned success is to just leak the name of a creator and give a dynamite picture to get people going nuts. Icon’s NEMESIS is an example:

While this isn’t the only promotional image that NEMESIS produced (they would go for a more HAUNT-like image later), the “leaked image” technique is an effective tool in the battle for sales.

For books that are getting a relaunch or feature established characters, the goal for promotional art is simple: remind fans that their favorite character is back. A great example of this would be the recent relaunch of the AVENGERS titles. For the better part of a month, Marvel would release an image a day showing some of the most well-known and well-loved Avengers back on the team. Take a look at Thor here:

Another route to take when launching a new book is to take a more humorous approach. Image comics, in an attempt to parody the rash of Avengers promos that appeared recently (just about all of them look like the Thor image above), launched a series of promotional images for their upcoming series, GUARDIANS OF THE GLOBE. They were hilarious:

Yes, that’s Harry Potter.

Whatever tactic is used in designing promotional art, the end result is the same: get people hooked. Promotional art can be the difference between success or failure for a book, and is something that we all think a lot about here at Semantink. Thanks  everyone for stopping in, I’ll see you next week.

Happy Almost-weekend!

Several months ago, DC comics announced that it was reorganizing and becoming DC entertainment. When this announcement was made it was also announced that Paul Levitz, the long-time DC publisher and president would be stepping down from his position. In The months since Levitz’s announcement, speculation has been rampant about who would become the new head honcho at DC, with guesses ranging from well thought out (Dan Didio) to crazy (Joe Quesada), to just plain stupid (Batman). All the guessing ended yesterday when DC announced that they had created an executive team to lead DCE consisting of c0-publishers Jim Lee and Dan DiDio, chief creative officer Geoff Johns, executive vice president of sales, marketing and business development John Rood, and Patrick Caldon as the executive vice president of finance and administration.

While just about every comic-centric blog out there has given their commentary on this announcement, this is a pretty big deal so I would feel remiss if I didn’t throw my musings out to the world for consumption as well. I want to look at each of the five people announced in this new management team, and give my thoughts (good and bad) about the hires.

Jim Lee– Co-Publisher: Lee as Publisher makes perfect sense. He is well respected throughout the comic community by both peers and fans, and having started Image comics and Wildstorm, he obviously has a good deal of business savvy. When Marvel hired Joe Quesada as EIC almost a decade ago, he was able to bring top level talent to Marvel because he was an artist and other artists felt that they would be treated well with “One of their own” in charge. The same should be true of Lee. I expect to see a good deal of top level talent shifting towards DCE over the next few years. The only sad part about Lee getting elevated to publisher is that we will see even less of his work than before. We really weren’t seeing much work out of Lee already, and with his new duties, I think we might have seen the last of Jim Lee’s pencils for quite a while.

Dan DiDio– Co-Publisher: DiDio is another great fit for publisher from a creative standpoint. Under DiDio’s leadership the last few years, DC has become far more coherent, and more easily accessible for new readers. While DiDio’s decisions have been polarizing for fans (Identity and Infinite Crises were hated and loved in equal proportion) there is no doubt that he has a clear idea of where the DC universe is going. He also has longstanding relationships with the current DC talent pool, ensuring that DC will be able to keep most of the guys they already have. I have two concerns about Didio though: 1) I have no idea how he and Lee will mesh with one another. I hope that they can co-exist, but they have very different styles and very different backgrounds. 2) DiDio, as I already mentioned, has had a very polarizing effect on fans. His new position might affect readership in the short term for DC.

Geoff Johns– Chief Creative officer: This is the spot that I think fits Johns perfectly. Over the past four or five years, no one has demonstrated a better grasp on the DC universe as a whole than Johns. Under his hand, I think we will see DC become not only a more coherent place (something he and DiDio have been working towards for years), but also a universe with stories that translate readily to film. Johns admitted yesterday in an interview that he would responsible for getting DC characters into other media platforms, and given his background in film, this seems like something that he is ideally suited for.

John Rood– Executive vice president-sales, marketing and business development and Patrick Caldon– executive vice president-finance and administration: I lump these two together because what they are in charge of is more the nuts and bolts of publishing. I think it was a good idea for DC to bring in executives to handle this element of publishing and let the artists be artistic. Being that both of these guys are coming in from outside of comics, it should be interesting to see what they come up with.

All in all, this was a pretty big day for the comic book landscape, and I’m interested to see how this affects DC moving forward. Will this new executive team usher in an era where DC is the preeminent American comic book publisher, or will this team fall flat due to a “to many cooks in the kitchen” scenario? I have no idea, but I can’t wait to find out. Thanks for stopping in folks, have a great weekend, and if you happen to be in Long Beach tomorrow, drop me a line, Semantink will be representing at the Long Beach Comic Expo.

Good Wednesday everyone!

It’s solicitations time again! That’s right, a monthly Christmas for the eyes has again arriven, which means I get to grace you all with my monthly cover of the month picks. Huzzah!

So, for my favorite big boy cover of the month let me present:

This cover is from DC’s ARKHAM REBORN #3 by Frazier Irving. I’m not normally a big fan of Irving, but this piece really sings. I think its mainly that I greatly enjoy any time I see the jigsaw effect in a comic. The yellow on the occasional piece really pops well.

My favorite little guy cover for this month goes to:

This is MATEKI: THE MAGIC FLUTE by Yoshitaka Amano. Amano’s work is always beautiful and this piece is no exception. This is released by the guys over at Radical comics.

Also, only one week until MYTHOI #1 is released! Be still my beating heart!

One more reminder, Semantink is going to be up at the Long Beach Comic Convention October 2nd-4th, so feel free to find us and chat, we love chats!

Thanks for stopping in all, see you tomorrow!