Daily Bits has compiled a list of links for 17 completely free graphic novels you can read or download.
(Hat tip to The Beat and Wired for the referral)
But the cool thing is this:
What if every week you received an email reminder that said your comics were waiting for you to download... for free. These are new comic stories by the pro creators you've come to know and loathe in the fan press (oh come on! You know you flame the fanboys turned pros!) , but whose books you buy anyway.
The books would be a PDF or similar format book with ads with links. It would be big - about 48 pages a week with several different characters in each issue... and yes, it was free.
If you wanted a print version it would be available in different editions separating the characters and stories into separate books. Yes, I said books. Not trades. Not magazines.
Books. Collections. Each containing extra material and available exclusively in comic book shops and finer bookstores.
How do you feel about that?
4 comments:
David Wellington has written a handful of novels which were updated a chapter at a time for free on his website. At least a couple of those were released in print (it might actually be all of them at this point) and in Barnes & Nobel and such.
For me, the greatest thing about releasing a book a chapter at a time on the Web was reading a serialized novel the way the first readers of Charles Dickens experienced his works.
For others, the fact that their comments on the blog might actually influence the story as it went along was the most exciting (although I'm sure that would be almost impossible for comic-book writers and illustrators because of the time required to create the comics).
http://www.brokentype.com/pz/
In answer to your question "How do you feel about that?" I think it might work really well.
So what is it that makes a trade not a book?
It's a personal bias of mine that I'll admit to, that trades are so often just formatted "collections" with no thought to the work.
I like the idea that each format is designed more, and with many of the current trades I see ---
I don't see any thought behind it.
Again, a personal bias.
One "trade" that runs counter to this is ONI's Definitive editions of QUEEN & COUNTRY, that you should really try if you haven't picked it up already.
'kay. Figured it was something like that.
Queen and Country? What's that?
(got all the issues and spin offs, interviewed Rucka a half dozen times, got a letter printed in #13, and have all the Sandbaggers DVDs...and if you haven't seen those, you're missing out on the true Q&C experience...the whole series is based on it)
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