Valiant Entertainment want to give you free first issues, and a DRM-free digital comics reading experience.
For the second time in a month, Valiant Entertainment has entered into a deal to bring their comics to a digital retail space that embraces DRM-free books. And for the second time in a month, that digital retail space is not ComiXology. Last time it was iVerse Media’s ComicsPlus app, now it’s DriveThruComics.com. I have no idea who that is and that is a sentiment that I’ve seen others express as well.
Make no mistake, Valiant (who relaunched in 2012) has a presence on ComiXology, but they weren’t a part of the group of “cool kids” who jumped aboard the first wave of DRM-free comics that ComiXoloy announced during SDCC and now, I’m wondering why that is and if they ever will go DRM-free on ComiXology, because right now it seems like they’re shunning Wal Mart to pay favor to the little guy. While I can understand the sentiment, I don’t quite understand the economics of it, though, the impact of going or not going DRM-free is not really known at this time.
According to the press release heralding Valiant’s arrival at DriveThruComics.com, Valiant will offer their books day and date on the digital retailer while also making a vast array of their #1’s free to download for the next 30 days.
Here’s the flowery language of love and friendship from the release:
"Fan support for Valiant's first RPG at DriveThruComics.com's sister site, DriveThruRPG.com, has been huge! In conjunction with Catalyst Game Lab's launch of the Valiant Universe RPG, we're proud to offer our a complete selection of comics from Valiant's award-winning library to DriveThruComics.com's passionate fans," - Russell A. Brown, President of Consumer Products, Promotions, and Ad Sales for Valiant Entertainment.
"Valiant has some of the most exciting and entertaining comics on the market today, [...] Several members of the DriveThruComics crew were already huge fans of the Valiant characters and creators, so we couldn't be more thrilled to have these books available on our site." - Matt M. McElroy, Director of Publishing for DriveThruComics.com.
So, is this the birth of a new big-time player in digital comics? Someone that should make the folks over at Amazon shake in their boots and doubt their acquisition of ComiXology? Probably not. What it is is a company diversifying its list of partners, though I have to wonder if we need less and not more places to buy digital comics.
Hear me out: I don’t want Amazon/ComiXology to have a monopoly, but I don’t want to see the growth of the digital comic book market get hampered by too much competition either. It’s like porridge, except instead of temperatures, we’re talking about the number of retailers -- not too many, not too few, just right…
A handful of digital comics retailers who think that they can compete with ComiXology helps to keep that behemoth honest and it staves off stagnation. Digital comics are still a new game and we want innovation to continue. We don’t want ComiXology to sit on a throne atop a hill getting fat off of its marketshare. Keep them hungry and fearful that another company is going to come up with a new way to make digital comics stand out from their paper based kin.
Any kind of extreme market segmentation is equally bad in that it still allows the big guys to sit on their laurels while also annoying customers. It’s like digital streamers. We have Netflix and Amazon, but there there is Crackle and AMC’s service and FOX’s service and Epix and things that are on YouTube and Hulu Plus...but not CBS because they’re not on Hulu Plus.
Digital comics can’t ever become that. The easiest comparison for that in the brick and mortar world would be if you had to buy DC at one shop and Marvel at another. Who would bother? They’d just buy whatever’s easiest or turn their back on the purchase altogether. I’m not saying this is going to happen or that the deal between DriveThru and Valiant paves the way for it (again, it’s just them selling their goods on another site, not giving them exclusivity), I’m just speaking to the general dangers of a digital comics Gold Rush where everyone tries to get in on the action.
The digital market is still in a formative place where it needs to seduce converts and other new customers with its convenience. Shopping at a strip mall, with a couple of big box retailers and some specialty shops, is convenient. Shopping at a flea market, with 1,000 vendors offering the same thing or slight variations on the same thing, can be annoying and inconvenient. The digital market should resemble the former, not the latter.
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