Phil Kauffold

Technical Animator. Metalhead.
Comic book junkie. Occasional renaissance man.


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Digital Comics - not quite there yet

Comics are still poised at the edge of a full blown digital revolution. The problem is they’ve been there for a while, and will probably still be poised at the edge for a while. 

I can’t speak to the various Android devices, but I have to tell you - reading comics on an iPad is pretty awesome. Like more awesome than I would have thought. The convenience factor is almost scary - I can be laying on my couch at 11 at night, think “gosh, I’d really like to read the latest issue of Wonder Woman”, and about a minute later, I am reading it. The culture of instant gratification that technology has created is getting a little bit scary…but that’s a topic for a different day. 

The two best digital publishers right now are Archie Comics and Viz Manga (the Japanese stuff, kids. Keep up.) Both have a huge number of titles available, and the prices are pretty good, too. For Viz, the cost of one volume of (about 200 pages) of most of their titles is 5 dollars and they add new stuff all the time. And good variety too! Contrast that with 3 or 4 dollars for 22 pages that the big boys are charging for new issues. 

Archie Comics does pretty good, too, with a lot of 1.99 and 99-cent comics, and they are also helped along by being a familiar brand that suddenly reinvented itself in some shockingly good ways (also a topic for another day). But the pricing is a big part of what the other guys haven’t quite figured out yet. 

I’ve all but stopped getting monthly issues. There are a couple titles I can’t live without, and I’ll occasionally grab something that looks interesting to see what’s going on, but for the most part it’s all about the trades for me. There’s two key reasons for this - money and space. For space, after several decades of comic…accumulating…I just don’t have much space, and frankly can do without anymore “things”. For price, 4 buck and issue is too much and adds up pretty quickly if you read more than one comic. And I do. The space problem could be solved by just leaving the issues at coffee shops or bus stations, but I pay too much to feel like they’re disposable. 

Granted, there may be some behind the scenes reasons for the prices to be like this, but something has to give. And it is a bit of a catch 22. In order to get more readers, publishers will have to lower prices, but in order to lower prices they have to get more readers. 

There are other factors, too. There seems to be a prevailing thought that everything has to be “download to own”, meaning that you download your comic in whatever format, and you can keep it. I can understand that position, and I think once you pay for something you should have access to it forever, but what about the idea of paying to read something?

The best example of this are newspaper comic strips, which are dying for reasons that have little to do with their quality or people not liking them. For a long time, people would read the strips, and then buy the collected volumes when they came out. Again, I’m comparing comic books to a somewhat dying medium - comic strips do live on via the Internet - but I do think it is a valid comparison.

Part of the fun of comics is following a serialized story. Getting a little bit each week or month can be much more satisfying than a big block all at once. You do take more time to appreciate the nuances, maybe even go back and reread things once or twice. And frankly, you want to hook people, the monthly model is going to be much more effective. I’ve waited in borderline insanity for “next issues”, but with a lot of trades, after 6 months or more I can’t even remember what happened before. 

You are going to see comics evolve into a different model, and not just the “digital version of what we already do”. It just may not be as soon as we all would like. 


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Digital Comics are here - don’t fight the future

I love comics and comic strips. I like reading them on a regular basis. I like seeing the stories unfold over time. I like discovering new material and immersing myself in it. I like finding obscure but amazing stuff and telling anyone who’ll listen (and plenty of people who’d rather not, for that matter) about it. 


As Steven Colbert put it, “I want and iPad. Give me one.”

Yet I almost never read online comics or comic strips, and considering how much time I spend parked in front of the computer that doesn’t really make much sense. There are tons of new strips out there, and the Internet would seem to be the ideal place for new artistic work to flourish. And flourish they do. Like flowers. And weeds. Mostly weeds.

I’m not going to belabor this point because it is stating the obvious that there is plenty of lousy work all over the Internet. Whether you like movies, books, comics, paintings, or clog dancers, you’re going to have to do some panning for gold. That’s just the way it is. 

What really keeps me from diving more into online comics and such is where I like to read. I like to read on the couch. At coffee shops. In bars. In parks. On trains. Actually, pretty much anywhere that isn’t the chair in front of my computer is a place I like to read. I don’t have an iPad yet, and yes, I could tote my laptop to many, if not all, of these places, it’s still awkward compared to a book or comic book. Or maybe I have a little bit of neo-luddite in me. 


Will digital comics featuring Magneto erase your hard drive? This needs to be researched….

The comic industry seems ready to embrace the iPad and start digital distribution, and I for one can’t wait. My comic reading habits have changed over the years from getting weekly issues to mostly trade waiting on all but a few titles. But I seriously miss the week-to-week unfolding of all the different stories, and the variety as well. Sitting down and reading six different comics is more fun than one trade with 6 issues of the same thing. 

As the occupant of a small apartment that can’t fit in any more long boxes of comics, I’m especially interested in the idea that I can consume without accumulating. I’m more interested in the stories anyway, and comic books really are no longer a collector’s item. But they’re too expensive to be considered disposable.

To me, this looks like a way back into weekly comic book reading. To the industry, it should look like a huge opportunity. But we’ll see. 


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Carl Macek, American Anime Producer, Passes Away

If you’re a Robotech, anime, or animation fan, this is not a happy day. Carl Macek, who was instrumental in bringing anime to western audiences, passed away. 

Carl’s career was truly amazing, and for all the details I’ll let Jerry Beck, his friend and one time business partner, tell you all about everything he did. For me, the one I’ll always remember him for is Robotech.

The first time I became aware of Robotech was before it was even called Robotech. There was an add in the back of a sci-fi magazine for it, and had the above picture. Which had me hooked instantly. I mean, how could you look at that and not want to see it? You just can’t. 

I’d see it on television a few years later and, much to the annoyance of everyone who knew me, I became a somewhat unbalanced fan. I watched the episodes over and over and over again to the point that I, to this day, I could probably just lay back, close my eyes, and run the episodes in my head. They’re pretty much imprinted on my brain. But Robotech, and long with a handful of other shows and movies, was one of the key influences that put me on the path to becoming an animator.

In addition to contributing to my geekiness, Robotech brough anime to a broader range of people than ever before, and started the process of opening the floodgates of anime into the west. Carl cracked open the floodgates even further a few years later when he brought over the now-classic Akira not only to video but released it in theaters - which just didn’t happen at the time. 

He was, at times, a source of controversy for some of his dubs and some of the edits he had to make to some of the shows, changes that were largely necessitated by the way business dictated they be done at the time. But this isn’t the day for debating the good or the bad. Suffice it to say that anime in the west wouldn’t be what it is today without him. 

Nor would animation. He was also helped found Spumco with John K. That’s the studio that produced Ren and Stimpy. Imagine a world without that. Yeah, too scary. 

There is a great podcast interview with Carl that you can listen to here, at Anime News Network, and was recorded just this past January (the interview starts about 8 minutes in). It’s funny and absolutely fascinating for anyone interested in just how anime started making it’s way over here in the late 70’s. If you want to know why and how he did things the way he did…pretty much all the answers are there. It’s around a 2 hour interview and, honestly, well worth the time. Someone on another message board described losing Carl as being like losing a library, and I have to agree. He was heavily involved in the science fiction and fantasy world and his stories about those days are priceless.

For those interested, Robotech: The Macross Saga is available, free and legal, on Hulu. I’ll be doing a little binge tonight, and listening to the podcast while I work today. 

Carl Macek 1951-2010