A few months ago we told you about Stela, a new line of mobile based comics. The companyhas strong comics-makers behind it – editor Jim Gibbons and creative director Ryan Yount, and many talented people signed up to create original content, including Irene Koh, Stuart Moore, Brian Wood, Andrea Mutti and many many more. And it […]
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Blog: PW -The Beat (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: adam smith, Evan Dorkin, mobile comics, Digital Comics, Top News, Mariah Huehner, Sarah Dyer, ronald wimberly, Jim Gibbons, nichole matthews, stela, jen bartel, jeremy lambert, kelly matthews, rachel weiss, Add a tag

Blog: PW -The Beat (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Comics, Marvel, golden age, new release, Downloadable Comics, Marvel Comics, Mobile Comics, Digital Comics, Top News, Magneto, Scarlet Witch, James Robinson, Top Comics, Amanda Sefton, Vanesa Del Rey, Add a tag
By: Nick Eskey Writer: James Robinson Artist: Vanesa Del Rey Colorist: Jordie Bellaire Letterer: Cory Petit Cover Artist: David Aja Taking place after her stint in the Avengers team, James Robinson’s Scarlet Witch is now as she claims “alone.” The only acquaintance that we’re introduced to is the ghost of her old tutor in witchcraft, Agatha Harkness, who happens to […]

Blog: PW -The Beat (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: World Comics, infographics, mobile comics, Digital Comics, naver, Webtoons, Add a tag
This infographic is also an ad for WEBTOONS, a portal short serialized digital comics that are native on mobile platforms. The site is run by NAVER, the Google of South Korea. Despite the proprietary nature there is still some interesting info on the graph including projected worldwide size of the digital comics market…no idea where that came from, but webtoons are an established entertainment format in South Korea, seemingly more than in the US.

Blog: PW -The Beat (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Webcomics, Downloadable Comics, Mobile Comics, Add a tag
It is coming. And nothing will be the same. At least for bloggers, who will not be able to speculate endlessly about Apple’s expected announcement of an iTablet-like device on Wednesday. The device — a larger, even more readable version of the existing iPhone technology — is expected to have huge ramifications for the print industry — Apple has supposedly already had talks with major publishers and periodicals, including HarperCollins:
A book is like a garden carried in the pocket… or perhaps on a tablet. It appears HarperCollins isn’t the only publishing company being associated with Apple’s upcoming tablet. A BusinessWeek report says that McGraw-Hill and Hachette Book Group are in talks with Apple to bring an assortment of textbooks and trade publications to the tablet in digital format. The availability of educational material could make the tablet a shoo-in for the education market.
John Wiley & Sons titles may also make an appearance as well. “We have had ongoing conversations with Apple about their interest in including educational content,” Peter Balis, director of digital content at Wiley, told BusinessWeek. “We will continue to support their efforts in whatever iteration it takes next week.”
Gizmodo has been following major media canoodling with the Tapplet for a while:
According to the Times (the LA one), the Times (the NY one) has been working on a tablet app in recent weeks. Also: Condé Nast basically admitted to the same in a press release. Familiar? Sure. But intriguing!
In September, we reported through two sources at the paper that the NYT had been approached by Apple to develop content of some sort for the tablet. As the paper of record, they’re the obvious choice for an inaugural app demo—remember the the wave of iPhone commercials, where the floating hands navigate to the NYT homepage?—and they already have tablet-appropriate software available for download. In that sense, the LAT report is just more corroboration; of the NYT’s involvement with Apple; of the tablet’s penchant for the written word; and obviously, of the tablet’s mere existence.
While the tablet could spell salvation for books and print, it may be problematic for some of the existing iPhone distributors, as one tech site points out:
# # Scrollmotion, the biggest current book contributor to the App Store, isn’t part of this deal and Apple is dealing directly with the publishers who are already signed up with Scrollmotion. The deals would cut Scrollmotion out of the loop or as one exec put it: “The smaller outfits are going to get screwed”. We’ve reached out to Scrollmotion for comment and will report back anything we hear. # Apple was looking for content to bring to the event — perhaps one example — but doesn’t expect to have large libraries of material in their book store until “mid 2010 at the very earliest”
How will this affect LongBox, Graphic.ly, comiXology, and other existing digital distributors? Big question. Also, the rumored price is $900, more than a Kindle and a Nook and an iPod touch put together — at that kind of price point, you aren’t going to se

Blog: PW -The Beat (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Downloadable Comics, Mobile Comics, Add a tag
This breathless account of and stolid railing against selling comics on iTunes from May seems rather quaint now, doesn’t it?
Things change pretty fast around here.
ALSO: Something that will probably seem equally dated in six months: Jim Shelley’s rundown of the various tablet rumors out there.

Blog: PW -The Beat (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Mobile Comics, Marvel, Downloadable Comics, Add a tag
A stunned world woke up to the news that now you can read Marvel Comics on your iPhone, via the four platforms best known for their comics offersing: Comixology, iVerse, Panelfly and SCorll motion. A story on Marvel.com talks to EVP, Marvel Digital Media Ira Rubenstien.
Marvel digital comics availability on the iPhone Apps system joins the recently announced venture offering individual classic Marvel comics for download on Sony’s PSP device and, of course, the pioneering Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited subscription service that launched nearly two years ago and features an ever-expanding selection of over 7,000 comics!
“As technology grows, the ways fans can consume our comics must expand as well,” Rubenstein said. “We’re very cognizant of that and will continue to explore avenues to offer the widest variety of fun ways for fans to read Marvel comics. Stay tuned for announcements coming soon regarding not only more iPhones apps, but ways to enjoy Marvel digital comics on other devices!”
Alt what’s available on SctrollMotion wasn’t readily apparent, Bleeding Cool had a rundown of the comics available:
Comixology: (71 issues, $1.99 each)
Age of Apocalypse #1–6
Astonishing X-Men #1–24 (Full Whedon Cassaday run)
Captain America #1–30 (Brubaker, Epting)
Marvel Zombies #1–5
X-23 #1–6
iVerse: (37 issues, $1.99 each)
Age of Apocalypse #1–6
Amazing Spider-Man #519–524
Astonishing X-Men #1–12
Captain America #1–6 (Brubaker, Epting)
Invincible Iron Man #1–6
X-23 #1–6
Panelfly (84 issues, $0.99 each)
Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #1-25 (Lee, Ditko)
Amazing Spider-Man #519-524
Astonishing X-Men #1-24
Invincible Iron Man #1-16
X-23 #1-6
Age Of Apocalypse #1-6
Obviously ther eis some overlap, but also exclusives for each.
Most interesting, if the email we’ve gotten since the announcement is any indication, is the pricing: Comixology and iVerse have priced comics at $1.99, a dollar more than their usual offerings. Panelfly is sticking with 99 cents.


Blog: PW -The Beat (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Marvel, Downloadable Comics, Mobile Comics, Add a tag
Kinda speaks for itself.The old order changeth,

Blog: PW -The Beat (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Mobile Comics, Add a tag
While the iPhone is rapidly becoming the new hotness as a platform for comics distribution, hold on a sec.AT&T still sucks donkey balls and swamp water as their crap network can’t keep up with the demand for bandwidth:
Not only do iPhone owners download applications, stream music and videos and browse the Web at higher rates than the average smartphone user, but the average iPhone owner can also use 10 times the network capacity used by the average smartphone user.
“They don’t even realize how much data they’re using,” said Gene Munster, a senior securities analyst with Piper Jaffray.
The result is dropped calls, spotty service, delayed text and voice messages and glacial download speeds as AT&T’s cellular network strains to meet the demand. Another result is outraged customers.
This explains why our World War game just spins and spins, doesn’t it?

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JacketFlap tags: Mobile Comics, Add a tag
My RomanceStory is a division of Arrow Publishing that has been turning out romance comics for a while now — unspectacularly, but they made it this far, so something must have worked. A check of their website reveals these sorts of storylines, just so you know where we’re coming from:
Volume 101. Surprised By Love
The best surprises come wrapped in love…
Featuring:
Whitewater Rapture
Could Wolf and Annie survive the consequences of one night of wild passionate love in the Canadian wilderness?
Wildfire
David was determined to have Ashley despite her bitterness toward men. But it took a dangerous forest fire and a midnight visit to finally break down her resistance.
A couple of press releases just out from the company. First they have hired Valencia Wood as Director of Media Development to help “spearhead Arrow’s expanding publishing offerings.” Wood has worked with in a variety of multi-media projects in film, music and so on and hope to get MyRomanceStory’s works out into other media.
Wood’s first move, via another press release, is to put their romance graphic novels on iPhones. This is one of the best press releases we’ve read in some time! Instead of the boring story of new content for mobile devices, price points blah blah, it’s a story of frustrated desire, mixed signals and finally…union.
“The iPhone opens up an exciting platform for readers to experience our romance novels,” says Pat White, CEO Arrow Publications, LLC, the publisher of MyRomanceStory.com. “The colors are vibrant and the text is easy to read.”
However, getting these stories up was frustrating.
At times, MyRomanceStory editors suffered the same mixed signals as their fictional heroines since they were never sure what Apple wanted. Form emails would indicate that there was a problem with the submission, but wouldn’t specify the text, image, or even the panel. As White explains, “We present stories of couples falling in love. That involves romantic and necessary intimate scenes. We spent a lot of time editing and re-editing. If only we could have spoken to someone at Apple to understand exactly what changes they wanted.”
“We were sensitive to Apple’s range of readers so we submitted edited versions targeting what we thought was a general audience,” Managing Editor, Tom King, adds. “But although we edited out some of the love scenes and text, we still got rejections.”
Once Apple launched its ratings system and got over the initial bottleneck of submissions, Arrow noticed a faster turnaround for its Apps approval.
It was clear that although Arrow and Apple were experienced in their respective fields, preparing content for worldwide digital delivery was a challenge. Content creators wanted specific feedback while Apple, working with a large, diverse group of developers, often required a one-size-fits-all approach. Through this entire process, Apple, too experienced the pains of becoming a movie distributor, music distributor and bookseller.
Romance fans can go to the iTunes App Store and search by keywords “myromancestory” or “romance story” to find the Arrow titles.
Wasn’t that great? Please, marketing people, let’s put the drama back into press releases!

Blog: PW -The Beat (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: NBM, Mobile Comics, Add a tag
If only someone would put comics on iPhone! How convenient it would be! Wait, they have? NBM is the latest publisher to join the gold rush:
NBM Publishing is proud to announce partnering with Panelfly, the newly launched iPhone app that’s bringing the best graphic novels direct to you… instantly!
Panelfly allows you to read your favorite graphic novels as the creators intended; you get full-page views, automatic panel navigation and more! You can purchase your comics using your iTunes account; tap the screen twice, and you’ll immediately have one of the world’s best graphic novels right in your hands.
NBM titles now available include the sold-out smash BROWNSVILLE by writer Neil Kleid, Jesse Lonergan’s powerful romantic drama FLOWER AND FADE, Swedish sensation Naomi Nowak’s UNHOLY KINSHIP, Rick Geary’s award-winning LINDBERGH CHILD and Shane White’s NORTH COUNTRY. All of these by authors NBM is publishing new titles from this fall. More titles will be added throughout the fall.
Each of these NBM graphic novels is available on your iPhone for $6.95 to $9.95, less than the paperbacks. Go straight to iTunes or to www.panelfly.com.
Stay tuned for further announcements of partnerships between NBM and leading E-Book and mobile download sites.
“It’s clear this is the future where readers increasingly have a choice as to how they want to read their comics,” said NBM publisher Terry Nantier, “and we consider ourselves purveyors of graphic novels, not pushers of print publications. Any way you want a quality, engrossing novel-length comic, we’ll make that available, whether print or electronic.”
For further information, please contact our publicist, Marc Mason: [email protected].
Hmm…. $8.6 Billion worldwide market.
Total book market is $155 Billion? (U.S. = $29.4B)
5.5%
Manga on cellphones has been commonplace in Japan since at least 2007 (and available since 2003).
http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2007-04-09/mobile-phone-manga-storms-japanbusinessweek-business-news-stock-market-and-financial-advice
2006: $20 Million spent on handset manga in Japan, via 3G.
Yes, mostly flip phones back then…
The forecast for the US comic market in that infographic shows a shrinking print market from 2012 onwards. Since 2013 actually saw an fairly big increase from 2012, and 2014 so far is almost completely neck and neck with 2013 (marginally lower unit sales, higher dollar sale). I think the projections in that chart is a bit on the wrong side, especially since it projects fairly big declines from 2012 onwards. Yay print!
I don’t have access to the ICV2 white paper numbers, which covers the entire print market, not just comics shops.
The Direct Market is a sliver of the Book Market, either internationally or domestically.
My feeling is that the market is growing. Librarians are eager for new titles. Every Big Six publisher now has at least one comics imprint (Penguin finally is ramping up production). And I believe BookScan is showing a large increase in GN sales. (They survey normal retail channels, covering about 70% of bookstores.)