WEBVTT - Digital Comics 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:11.400 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from dot com. 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:15.760 Hey then, everyone, welcome to tech Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland, 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:18.880 and today I have a special guest host, Christian Saga, 0:00:19.239 --> 0:00:23.239 writer and host extraordinaire. He's the guy who tells me 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:27.360 what things I should say on certain videos. Yeah, I 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:29.840 put the words in your mouth on brand stuff and yeah, 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:31.560 sometimes on lots of stuff. I don't know if you've 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:34.000 done want to know what the stuff scripts. So anytime 0:00:34.040 --> 0:00:36.360 you see me on video and you think wow, Jonathan 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:40.200 seems in particularly well spoken, it's probably because Christian wrote 0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:43.400 the words, Oh, I don't know about that. You add 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:46.519 the words yeah, well I you know, I just make 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:49.680 them up. So that's all it's. But when I asked 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:53.040 Christian if he would come on to the show, you agreed, 0:00:53.040 --> 0:00:55.080 and you you know, I gave you the choice, like 0:00:55.120 --> 0:00:56.880 can you want? You can pick anything you want that's 0:00:56.920 --> 0:00:59.120 tech related, and you came back with something that was 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:02.920 really interesting. Because I know that this is an area 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:07.000 that you have followed quite a bit. I am sort 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:10.040 of only tangentially connected to this. I get a lot 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:14.399 of it through osmosis. I'm talking about digital comics, and 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:19.880 so the the the digital world. The digital um revolution 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:23.240 you might call it, really shook up a lot of 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:29.600 established industries, especially in areas like our own in terms 0:01:29.600 --> 0:01:34.160 of content, yeah and everything. We've seen it so many times. Right. 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:36.320 We saw it first and foremost, i'd say, we saw 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:40.480 it with the music industry. UM iTunes was incredibly disruptive. 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:44.520 We saw lots of different companies resist that as much 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:49.440 as they could in various ways, often by putting terrible 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:53.840 DRM onto files, right yeah, which is something we'll talk about. 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:57.880 With digital comics, it's still going through those growing One 0:01:58.000 --> 0:01:59.880 nice thing I'll say is that as far as I am, 0:01:59.880 --> 0:02:04.360 a where no one in in digital comics has uh 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:10.000 installed d r M that would create a critical vulnerability 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:13.799 in your computer system, unlike what Sony did with their music, 0:02:14.200 --> 0:02:17.080 right yeah, I don't think so. I have yet to 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:19.840 hear about anything like that. You know, I wouldn't put 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:22.720 it past some some publishers, right right. I would hope 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:25.560 they wouldn't do it on purpose at least, but uh, 0:02:25.680 --> 0:02:27.720 you know, we've also seen it in film, We've seen 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:31.880 in television. We've seen it in publishing in general, with Amazon, 0:02:32.000 --> 0:02:34.799 the Kindle and and and the Nook and all of that. 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:39.600 The publishing cure, but now we're seeing it also in 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:43.359 uh in comics. And when I think digital comics, are 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:46.520 two things that come to mind. Either I'm thinking about 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:51.639 comics that are produced digitally and then they may be 0:02:52.240 --> 0:02:56.080 printed in hard format or they may be distributed that way, 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:59.000 or just strictly the distribution, and we're really going to 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:01.840 be talking about the disc tribution side today, right, yeah, 0:03:01.960 --> 0:03:06.120 And so yeah, like digitally made comics started and probably 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:08.600 like the early nineties, I want to say, but that's 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:10.360 not what we're going to be talking about today. And 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:12.880 in fact, like almost all comics have some kind of 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:17.480 digitally made component nowadays. Pretty much everybody colors digitally now 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:22.399 um and letters digitally as well. But um no, yeah, 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:25.200 we'll be talking about the distribution, and I want to 0:03:25.200 --> 0:03:28.920 clarify to that digital comics and web comics are two 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:34.200 different things. Digital comics are comics that you would maybe 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:37.280 find in a print edition, not always there are some 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:41.640 digital first editions, but that are distributed in digital means, 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:43.920 either through an app or PDF, and we'll talk about, 0:03:44.040 --> 0:03:47.440 you know, the different means of distribution later. But web 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:50.160 comics are really comics that are hosted on websites and 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:53.480 are meant to be read on a desktop. Yeah. We actually, 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:56.680 way back in the day, tech Stuff did an interview 0:03:56.720 --> 0:03:59.560 with Chris Straub, who's a web comics artist, and we 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:02.000 talked about web comics then. So if you guys are 0:04:02.080 --> 0:04:04.720 interested in the subject of web comics, check that old 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:06.840 episode of tech Stuff out. But we're really going to 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:11.280 talk about this distribution model and the consuming like how 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:14.600 you consume the comics, right, So it's not just how 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:18.039 how they are distributed, but how the the audience is 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:23.400 able to experience that stuff. And uh, clearly, one of 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:27.400 the big things that has really fueled this is the 0:04:27.600 --> 0:04:30.760 move to the mobile platform. I mean, yeah, I know 0:04:30.800 --> 0:04:34.000 there are people out there who still will read comics 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:39.000 on their laptops or desktops, but that tends to be uh, 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:42.800 it's not ideal. Difficult. Yeah, when I am When I 0:04:42.839 --> 0:04:45.640 was working on my thesis in college, it was about comics, 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:48.200 and I had to read something like three comics for 0:04:48.240 --> 0:04:51.640 this thesis and it was before I had a mobile device, 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:54.240 so I was like flipping a laptop on its side 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:59.280 and reading a PDF, uh, like in my lap upside, Yeah, 0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:02.680 that's not not ideal because as as you were pointing 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:05.800 out right there, just but from that description, the layout 0:05:06.000 --> 0:05:10.040 of a typical monitor is where you've got You've got 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:14.039 that landscape layout rather than portrait. Yeah, and portraits really 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:15.960 what you need to experience a comic book in the 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:17.600 way the format that we're used to here in the 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:20.600 units of print format. Yeah, and and that is something 0:05:20.640 --> 0:05:24.760 that both web comics and digital comment comics have and 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:29.080 are experimenting with. Um. There are some digital comics that 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:32.920 are designed specifically for digital and are in landscape format 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:37.280 and have an interesting design and that their panel to 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:39.880 panel transitions. You wouldn't be able to get away with 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:41.760 it in print because they would be so slow, but 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:43.679 like be the same image and all of a sudden 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:46.040 a word balloon would pop up as you scrolled to 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:49.200 the next one. So it's almost like a cross between 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:55.320 very slow animation and uh and and print comics, right right, Yeah, 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:58.360 it's I guess the next step will be interactivity, where 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:01.719 it becomes there there. Yeah yeah, yeah, well yeah, Marvel 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:04.440 is already they're all over it. Every south by Southwest. 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:08.080 They announced all this interactivity stuff that they're gonna embed 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:10.320 into their digital comics over the next year, and then 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:13.280 like half of it happens. I can't I can't wait 0:06:13.320 --> 0:06:15.320 to get my hands on it, because I would love 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:18.320 to have the moment where I go on and on 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:22.520 to everybody about how the comics I have manipulated makes 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:25.200 so much sense and they're so consistent internally, and then 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:28.960 after three issues say this is hard. Yeah right, yeah. 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:32.360 If if comments, if comics only had the same comments 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:35.480 fields that our YouTube video has had, I can only 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:39.080 imagine how horrible that, I mean, people would write in 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:43.600 their readers did kill off Jason Todd. So there's there's 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:48.320 some there's some uh, some precedent for that. So now 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:51.200 that we have these mobile devices that are often in 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:56.360 the layout that at least are it can be um modified, 0:06:56.440 --> 0:06:58.640 A comic can be modified to fit it, and perhaps 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:01.719 in a way that is closer to the print editions 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:04.760 that were used to in the States. Uh. They we 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:08.960 really started to see the dig digital comics industry kind 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:12.000 of take off, and we'll talk a bit about how 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:15.720 popular they've become. And I love that. In the notes, 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:18.840 By the way, guys, we're gonna be relying heavily on 0:07:18.960 --> 0:07:24.240 Christians notes here and and he is an exhaustive note taker. 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:29.080 I I didn't have to lift a finger for this episode, 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:31.720 So I thank you for that. Yeah, no problem, I 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:34.080 mean it helps that, uh I. So I used to 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:36.360 write about comics for CNN before I worked at How 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:40.119 Stuff Works, and I did articles in interviews with people 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:42.800 in the digital comics world as it was sort of 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:46.760 starting up while I was over there, and also self 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:50.960 published my own comics also, and I've worked with digital publishers, 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:53.280 have kind of gone through the system from the back end, 0:07:53.320 --> 0:07:56.200 and I understand how it all, the behind the scenes 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:58.480 of it, how it works. In fact, my graphic novel 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:00.880 is currently in queue at Comics Pology. I'm waiting to 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:04.120 try to get that up there for sale. That's fantastic. Yeah, 0:08:04.360 --> 0:08:06.600 that's one of the things that's really cool about the 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:10.880 digital approach is that it opens up distribution process for 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:15.320 people who otherwise wouldn't have that access. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely, So, 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:18.760 like without getting too far into because we could spend 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:21.600 hours talking about it. Most prit comics in the United 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:25.840 States are distributed through a company called Diamond Distribution, and 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:29.280 a couple of years ago, Diamond made a decision that 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:32.240 they would not distribute books unless they could guarantee that 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:35.360 they would sell I think it was at least I 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:38.360 want to say, fift undred dollars worth of copies, which 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:41.439 doesn't sound like a lot, but for some small press 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:44.800 people really is. And so they lost the ability to 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:48.360 distribute their small press books two stores around the country 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:51.640 unless they were local. Um. So yeah, digital has sort 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:54.199 of replaced that for them, that they can get eyes 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:57.280 all around the world on their books, no matter how 0:08:57.360 --> 0:09:02.239 small and unknown they are, and it gives an opportunity 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:05.400 for discovery that wouldn't be there. Uh. And we can 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:08.079 talk more about the potential for discovery, I think towards 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:11.000 the end of this. So the first big one that 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:13.880 we need to talk about. The first big platform for 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:18.960 digital distribution is comics Ology. Uh and uh that's probably 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:21.640 want anyone out there who is familiar with digital comics 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:25.640 you probably probably have this app. Uh. It's it's one 0:09:25.640 --> 0:09:29.360 of the most well known and uh, it's been around 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:32.559 for a while in various forms. The earlier ones were 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:35.560 more of a uh, kind of a discovery tool and 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:39.520 then became a digital reader further on in its existence. Yeah, 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:42.960 comics Oology the company, if I'm remembering this correctly, They 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:45.600 started off as sort of like a way to keep 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:47.800 track of the comics that you bought at the store 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:50.400 every week. And also it would allow you to know 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:54.120 what was on the pull drawers at various comic book shops. 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:56.440 So if you were if you were in the market 0:09:56.520 --> 0:09:59.280 for a specific issue of a specific comics, you could 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:01.719 go on there check it and they would have a 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:04.160 database there. Essentially they would have all the comics listed 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:07.680 yeah right, yeah, and then giving you the addresses of 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:09.920 course in the stores so you can go find them. Yeah, 0:10:09.960 --> 0:10:14.360 but it um. They released their app for digital comics 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:20.720 reading was called just Comics, and and no one that 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:23.640 I know in the comic book world, readers or creators 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:26.560 ever referred to it as comics. They always just called 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:28.680 it comics oology. And I think it was like maybe 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:30.280 a year year and a half ago that they finally 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:33.160 gave up and we're like, all right, find comics Sologna. 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:37.359 We're not going to fight it anymore. Yeah. So they 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:44.320 facilitated more than two hundred million downloads. That's a lot. Yeah, Yeah, 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:50.040 And that's through desktop, tablet, phones, you name it, yea, 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:52.959 through all the different platforms. It does not necessarily mean 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:56.559 two hundred million purchases. We are talking downloads here the 0:10:56.600 --> 0:10:58.840 same sort of thing, Like if you ever read a 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:02.600 press release from company that talks about how many units shipped. 0:11:02.920 --> 0:11:06.360 Units shipped and units sold are two different things. Uh. 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:09.320 But and Apple says that Comics Oology is the highest 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:13.640 grossing iOS app that is not a game, right, So yeah, 0:11:13.679 --> 0:11:16.320 so like stuffitely, candy Crush is obviously like bigger than 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:22.359 Comics Oology. But in terms of content, uh, comics Ology 0:11:22.440 --> 0:11:25.760 is killing it on iOS and has been for a 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:29.640 couple of years now, six billion pages of comic books 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:33.959 and graphic novels. I think it's a It's ranked eleventh overall, 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:38.200 or at least it wasn't. And we'll talk later about this, 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:43.199 but uh, comics Ology and their new owners Amazon had 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:46.320 a little bit of a kerfluffle with Apple earlier this year. 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:47.800 So I'd be curious to see at the end of 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:49.760 this year where they stand in those rankings. You know what, 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:51.720 I want to talk about that for a second. So 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:54.640 the kurfuffle you're talking about here is that the way 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:57.199 Apple's policy is is that if you have an app 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:01.079 and you allow in app purchases, Apple takes a cut 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:06.400 of those purchases of the fee. In the case of Comicsology. 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:09.200 I think that's it across the board for Apples, for 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:11.640 any in app purchase, for any app that's in the 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:15.720 Apple Store, Apple gets cut. And I don't know if 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:18.200 you guys know this out there tex stuff Land, but 0:12:18.280 --> 0:12:20.920 Apple and Amazon are kind of competitors in many ways, 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:25.960 and uh, generally speaking, if you are producing something or 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:28.480 you're distributing something, you want to be able to get 0:12:28.520 --> 0:12:30.480 as big a cut of that as you possibly can. 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:34.520 This also is tough on creators because if you look 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:37.240 at the slice of the pie that creators get from 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:41.720 print versus digital, you would think, oh, well, with print, 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:43.960 you take all those printing costs out, you take all 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:47.760 those shipping costs out, all the physical warehouse space, all 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:50.080 of that is gone. All you have is a file. 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:53.080 You must be breaking in a huge amount. Actually, no, 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:55.640 that's not true, right, Yeah, because you're looking at the 0:12:55.679 --> 0:13:00.480 breakdown first between Apple and comics Oology, and then between 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:03.800 comics Ology and the creator. Yeah, and so by the 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:05.240 time you get down to it, it might be that 0:13:05.280 --> 0:13:08.920 the creator is actually making less per issue than they 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:11.760 would with a print. That's a possibility, especially because usually 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:14.160 the cost of digital comics is less than it would 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:18.120 be for print. Yeah, and uh, so Apple and Amazon 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:20.760 are kind of butting heads in that sense. So Amazon 0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:23.400 is looking at I think they've already done it where 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:28.040 they're uh, you would purchase the comics outside the app, 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:31.760 and then you could read them inside the app. So 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:35.280 they they they modified the comics Ology app. First of all, 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:39.280 Amazon bought Comics Oology, I want to say in March 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:44.599 of the spring, and maybe a month month and a 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:47.839 half later, Comics Oology announced that they were no longer 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:52.280 allowed for in app purchases with within iOS devices. Interestingly enough, 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:54.280 if you're on an Android device, you can still make 0:13:54.280 --> 0:13:57.840 an app purchases. Um. Uh, and I would suspect if 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:01.400 you're on a Kindle Fire you probably can as well. 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:04.280 I would imagine it's encourage you. Yeah. Um. But it 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:06.800 basically works the same way as like an Amazon Kindle 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:09.000 app would work on an iOS device. In that like 0:14:09.040 --> 0:14:11.000 the same way you can't buy your e books through 0:14:11.000 --> 0:14:14.000 the kindle L app. You have to go to Amazon 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:16.240 site by your book and then when you go to 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:18.280 the Kindle app you can download it through your account. 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:20.480 So it works the same way now with comics Ology, right, 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:23.680 So that way they bypass the in app purchase and 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:28.120 Apple doesn't get that cut. So yeah, it will be 0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:30.920 really interesting to see how that plays out politically, because 0:14:30.960 --> 0:14:33.680 Apple could say, well, we'll just make sure that this 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:36.800 doesn't get featured in any way, so that exactly, it's 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:39.920 not that we might not necessarily remove it from the store, 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:41.920 but we don't have to, you know, we don't have 0:14:41.960 --> 0:14:44.200 to profile it in the store either. And there are 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:46.280 a lot of people in the comic book world who 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:48.720 were up in arms about it when it happened as well, 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:52.120 because they felt like that the in app purchases allowed 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:59.720 for more sort of um, compulsive buying or impulsive rather buying. Uh, 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:02.600 while you were reading, like let's say you finished Holk 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:04.840 number twelve and you said, wow, I immediately want to 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:06.720 read Hulk number thirteen. All you have to do is 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:09.040 just hit a button and it would it would charge 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:13.160 your credit card. Yeah, totally, And now you have to, 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:16.200 you know, go to to the desktop version, pay for 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:18.960 it there, and then download it in. So they're worried. 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:21.680 I think they're worried about the money, but I'll be 0:15:21.920 --> 0:15:25.360 I'm very curious to see what the figures look like, 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:32.520 because numbers were very high. Ninety million dollars digital comics made, 0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:36.640 which was almost a thirty percent increase over the year 0:15:36.640 --> 0:15:39.400 before that. If you look at year over year gains, 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:43.320 it looks the story seems to be negative if you 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:45.840 were to just look at the percentages, and it's only 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:49.160 because you don't realize how young this industry is. So 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:52.640 from year one to year two it was a seven increase, 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:55.600 and then you have like a two hundred something percent increase, 0:15:55.640 --> 0:15:57.560 and then a hundred something percent an increase, and now 0:15:57.560 --> 0:16:00.000 a thirty percent increase, and you think, wait, that increase 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:02.800 is going down, But you have to realize that that 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:05.120 year one that was like a million dollars and year 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:08.560 two was eight million dollars. So the figures, while while 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:12.320 the percentages are going down, the actual figures of money 0:16:12.520 --> 0:16:15.560 are are much higher. We're talking ninety million. Now, that's 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:18.360 a huge amount of money for something that's still so 0:16:18.440 --> 0:16:22.120 young as this this particular form of distribution, and it's 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:26.000 still a smaller percentage than print holds in the industry, 0:16:26.240 --> 0:16:29.480 but it is gaining. At the end of every year, 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:33.000 when you see interviews with comic book creators or publishers 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:35.800 or editors and they say, you know, they're asked what 0:16:35.840 --> 0:16:39.160 their prediction is for the following year. They usually say 0:16:39.360 --> 0:16:41.960 digital is going to get bigger and it and it 0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:44.680 always does, right. And the nice thing for for the 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:47.360 comics industry right now is that it does not appear 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:49.520 to be taking a huge like it's not taking that 0:16:49.600 --> 0:16:52.480 chunk out of the print side. I think that for 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:57.160 one thing, the success of comics and other forms of media. 0:16:57.520 --> 0:17:01.120 And granted, you know we should say comics are go 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:05.160 well beyond superheroes. Superheroes is what we always think about 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:08.520 because they are the high profile ones, but comics are 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:11.840 all sorts of genres, not just superheroes. But I would 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:15.360 say that the superhero successes at the box office recently 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:19.720 Marvel in particular, have really helped drive more interest in 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:24.600 comic books. UM yeah, And and interestingly enough digital has 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:26.679 had a hand in that as well too, So like, 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:29.920 for instance, UM, Guardians of the Galaxy just I think 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:32.600 I read today it just hit seven hundred million dollars 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:38.680 for for sales in UM. Before Guardians of the Galaxy 0:17:38.760 --> 0:17:41.679 came out, they Marvel knew that that property was fairly 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:45.560 unknown amongst people unless they were like hardcore comic book fans, 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:50.520 and so through digital they started publishing digital first only 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:54.159 comics about the characters about Rocket Raccoon and Groot and 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:57.959 star Lord, trying to get people familiar with these characters 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:02.120 for they were either free or like super cheap likes 0:18:02.200 --> 0:18:04.000 or something like that. So you would go, huh, I 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:06.360 heard this, Guardians the Galaxy thing's gonna come out later 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:09.640 this year. I'll click on that. Read that, and now 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:11.719 I sort of have an idea of who this raccoon 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:15.080 with machine guns is right going to the movie. Yeah, now, 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:17.080 and now I can understand how a raccoon can be 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:20.880 an action hero, right yeah? Yeah uh. And another interesting 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:23.679 note you have here going back to comics Ology is 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:29.120 the comics Ology Submit program, which allows the the independent 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:33.280 comics creators a chance at having their work featured and 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:37.040 carried by comics Ology. Yeah, so comics Oology Submit. I 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:40.400 think they unveiled that to two and a half years ago. 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:43.160 It was it was at a south By Southwest event. Um. 0:18:43.280 --> 0:18:45.520 And yeah, that's what I was talking about earlier in 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:48.520 terms of small press being able to find a place 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:54.160 to distribute their comics since Diamond h raised their premiums Um. Yeah, 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:55.920 so basically what you do, I've done it with one 0:18:55.920 --> 0:18:59.280 of my books. You submit your book, you upload the files, 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:02.879 you um create an account through comics Ology. You have 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:07.760 to have a an Amazon sinked payments account of course. Uh, 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:10.880 it's kind so far. Yeah, it is. It's a lot 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:14.440 like that, and um, they will review it and determine 0:19:14.440 --> 0:19:17.200 whether or not the content is safe for them to distribute. 0:19:17.320 --> 0:19:22.040 So um. For instance, Uh, one of my books actually 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:24.960 got ding for music copyright because we had lyrics from 0:19:24.960 --> 0:19:28.240 a song in there, and so we haven't resolved that yet. 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:30.160 But for instance, they wouldn't carry a book for that. 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:32.320 But like I have a horror book that made it through. 0:19:32.680 --> 0:19:37.520 It's pretty it's pretty gory, and they're okay with that. Um, 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:41.879 they format it specifically for their devices because they have 0:19:42.280 --> 0:19:46.679 a specialized I guess it's exclusive to comics Oology system 0:19:46.720 --> 0:19:50.240 of reading called guided view technology, which is basically it 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:53.159 zooms in on the panels no matter what you're on, 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:56.080 if you're on a desktop or tablet or a phone 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:59.919 or whatever. It scales the panel to fit the screen 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:02.240 of the device you're reading at the time, so it's 0:20:02.320 --> 0:20:04.639 it's readable and you can go panel by panel as 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:07.800 opposed to page by page exactly. Yeah, I read a 0:20:08.000 --> 0:20:10.240 person's account of that, and they said it took some 0:20:10.359 --> 0:20:12.359 getting used to it first. It felt a little odd, 0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:14.320 just because you know, there's there's a certain way that 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:16.640 you've become accustomed to reading comics. But once you get 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:19.240 used to it, you really see the value in it. Yeah, 0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:24.800 I am definitely a convert. Um. I love Guided You, Um, 0:20:24.920 --> 0:20:27.479 not just because comics Oology carries some of my books, 0:20:27.680 --> 0:20:31.640 but I love Guided You because it zooms in so 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:34.520 close on the panels that I can really see almost 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:38.480 at life size, the artists renderings of how they're working 0:20:38.520 --> 0:20:41.600 on stuff. Usually artists work at a much larger scale 0:20:41.640 --> 0:20:44.199 than what's printed, and so you get to see it 0:20:44.280 --> 0:20:46.320 at the scale that they were drawing it at, and 0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:48.639 the fine details that you normally wouldn't notice. And I 0:20:48.720 --> 0:20:53.199 really like that, um, and the it is it is interesting. 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:55.640 It sort of changes the language of comics if you're 0:20:55.640 --> 0:20:58.400 talking about it in like a formalist perspective, because before, 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:01.560 when you're reading common because you were looking at all 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:05.200 the panels on a page simultaneously, but you were reading 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:09.480 the panels in sequential order, whereas now, depending on the 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:12.760 settings that you put in in in guided view, you'll 0:21:12.800 --> 0:21:15.240 just see the first panel, and I'll scroll those second 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:17.520 panels so you won't necessarily see what's at the bottom 0:21:17.520 --> 0:21:19.640 of the page that you want to. So you could, 0:21:19.720 --> 0:21:23.800 in theory, as a creator, you could you could bank 0:21:24.000 --> 0:21:28.160 on certain things actually being a surprise without it having 0:21:28.560 --> 0:21:31.480 without requiring a page flip. Right, Yeah, like if you 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:34.120 write exactly what you used to have as page turn 0:21:34.200 --> 0:21:36.800 cliff hangers, what you can now do within panel to 0:21:36.840 --> 0:21:38.960 panel if you if you so choose, that's really cool 0:21:39.560 --> 0:21:42.760 us as a storyteller, I really think that's neat to 0:21:42.760 --> 0:21:45.920 give extra tools like that. So we've got some other 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:48.159 ones that you've listed here that we can kind of 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:51.920 mention some of the other platforms, some of which were 0:21:51.960 --> 0:21:55.640 instrumental early on but never really stuck around someone, which 0:21:55.640 --> 0:21:58.000 are still around today. So why don't we go through 0:21:58.000 --> 0:22:01.000 some of those. Okay, So let's start with long Box, 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:04.919 which was created by a comic book creator named I 0:22:04.960 --> 0:22:09.679 think he pronounced his name Rance Hoseley. He is most 0:22:09.840 --> 0:22:13.120 known for being the editor of It's a book called 0:22:13.119 --> 0:22:16.880 Comic Book Tattoo that was a compilation of comic book 0:22:16.920 --> 0:22:19.880 stories based on Torre Amos songs, but he's done other 0:22:20.440 --> 0:22:24.520 comics work. For a number of years now. He developed 0:22:24.520 --> 0:22:27.439