Box Brown started off Monday morning with huge news for fans of mini-comics who are making the transition to an electronics reading lifestyle or who live in teeny tiny apartments: For the first time, Retrofit's line has gone digital.
Brown broke the news on Twitter, along with a post you can read here on the Retrofit website. Offering not only future comics but the back catalog as well (some of which are long out of print), Retrofit is starting off on Gumroad, where you can download a copy of your very own to keep. You can also get Retrofit titles on Barnes and Noble or Amazon, if you prefer reading via an app.
Brown promises that Retrofit is coming to Comixology as well, which opens up a large proportion of the digital reading population to the high quality mini-comics he publishes every year. If Retrofit gets its own publisher notation (like AdHouse or Monkeybrain), this will be huge, as it pulls mini-comics work out of the huge pile of "Submit" and into a place where they can actually be seen, gives the potential for them to be on the main page, etc.
I don't know the Retrofit Library by heart (sorry Box, I'll try harder), but from what I saw, it looks like the entire line is available. That means Fungus, Retrofit's breakout hit, is now available for anyone who wants to read a little seen, but excellent, James Kochalka comic. Similarly, Noah Van Sciver's 1999, Josh Bayer's Raw Power series, and many others, are all there with a click of the mouse, and at half the cost of the physical copy, too. Best of all, it's a download, so the comic is yours to keep.
I couldn't be happier about this news. I am a huge digital fan, even though I also like paper copies of comics. In some cases, I missed the print original and now it's gone. In a few other instances, I'm a lot more interested at $3 a copy than I was at $6. Having this option allows me to go print for my favorites and digital for the rest, giving me the full Retrofit experience.
Further, as I hinted above, the reach of digital comics via Comixology cannot be overstated. Getting in there, once it happens, could really mean big things for Box as well as the creators he publishes. If something becomes a cult hit via downloads, that creator might get picked up to do a longer story or a collection.
All in all, this is a net win for everyone. Readers get the chance to read out of print Retrofit comics or sample ones they were unsure of for half cost. Readers also have their choice of platforms, though I'd recommend Gumroad, of course, as your first choice, since you get the file. The creators are able to have access to readers they might not otherwise have reached, who don't go to comics shows or shops.
And Box adds a new revenue stream, which is always a good thing, helping him bring more great comics to the public.
Not bad, Monday. Not bad at all.
January 13, 2014
Banner by Ansis Purins
Read the Newsletter
The Splash Page
Interview with Carlo Vanstiphout translator for Toyokazu Matsunaga's PaperaQ
A couple of years ago I kept reading the same few people reviewing the movies I was watching on Letterboxd. One of them was a guy named Carl...
Popular Posts
-
Welcome to Catch it at the Comic Shop, where the Panel Patter team looks at what's coming out at your favorite store or digital device t...
-
Art by Greg Smallwood Moon Knight opens with what looks to be a standard superhero device- a villain using the heroes’ dissociation fro...
-
Welcome to a new feature we're trying out here at Panel Patter, "This Looks Cool!" It's a chance for us to highlight an up...
-
Too often, The Great Gatsby gets reduced to the realms of English term papers and students trying to wrestle with lives that they have yet ...
-
The Boxer: The True Story of Holocaust Survivor Harry Haft Written and Illustrated by Reinhard Kleist Self Made Hero Publishing The Boxe...
-
In most of his work, Junji Ito explores the things that terrify us. In some of his most known books— Uz umaki , Gyo , and Tomie — he fi...
-
Dark Horse Comics announced in a press release yesterday that Eric Powell's Goon character would return with a new #1 issue, as part of ...
-
I don’t know how I feel about enjoying Ed Piskor’s Red Room as much as I do. The first time I read it, I felt queasy with Piskor’s attempt...
-
Sweet Paprika Vol.1 by Mirka Andolfo, Simon Tessuto, and Fabio Amelia published by Image Comics One of my least favorite tropes in romance n...
Recent Posts
Blog Archive
Powered by Blogger.