Wednesday, June 23, 2010

DC Goes Digital

This is big news for those who follow comics or do most of their reading on screens (or both): DC Comics is launching its product into the digital market. This was inevitable, of course, based both on the fact that Disney Comics (publisher of X-Men, Amazing Spider-Man, The Avengers, etc) had already done so, and as a result of Jim Lee's promotion several months ago to Co-Publisher with digital comics under his purview.

But what makes this noteworthy, perhaps, are two things: the fact that DC is promising royalty payments to creators (something which, if memory serves, Marvel/Disney has not come through on yet), and the establishment of a fund for promoting/supporting brick-and-mortar comic stores from a portion of the digital proceeds (an acknowledgment of the importance those outlets play in the industry). Those are both very big deals, at least in principle. We'll have to see how it actually plays out, but at least they're starting off on a good footing.

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