With this weeks Multiversity 101, I take over for David to talk to about something I’ve been nudging him to talk about for quite some time now.
As we move into the digital millenium of entertainment, it is impossible these days not to experience something through piracy. Movies, music, TV shows, even books fall prey to the pirates that surf the digital waters, and comic books are obviously no different to their plundering. It’s such a big thing now that, just like music companies responded when mp3’s became big, comic companies have come up with possible ways to combat it, such as Marvel upping their quantity of digital comics and even offering exclusives. Dark Horse also has a huge online undertaking, and smaller press companies like Red 5 also try to appease the digital medium. You can get comics on your phone or portable game systems as well! But does this stop piracy? Not really.
So what do we do about it?
When we talk about piracy, we enter a very grey area of moral ambiguity. I would say that 99.9% people who visit this site, and even read this article, have pirated something – anything – in their time on the internet. Hell, I would be lying if I didn’t admit up front that I have downloaded songs before. I think what most people do tend to forget though is that this act is entirely against the law. Since it’s so easy to do and “everybody does it,” I think a lot of people feel they have carte blanche to do whatever they want when it comes to handling of the internet. That’s not the case. If the RIAA showed up at my doorstep and told me I was under arrest for downloading The Best of Aretha Franklin, would they be wrong in doing so? No, because I did something illegal. All those ads that say “You wouldn’t steal a car, so don’t pirate a movie!” may be cheesy, but they’re true.
With that in mind, we’re all probably going to do it anyway. Comics are relatively new to the piracy medium, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find whatever you want. A quick search through a torrent, or even Google, will probably reveal to you that yes, you CAN now read Amazing Spider-Man #1, in color as it was originally printed (I hate those “Essential” books…). It may have a little ‘wear and tear’ on it, but that’s the price of “free,” isn’t it? And hey, did you ever want to get into that one title that has 15 volumes out already but you don’t want to buy all 15 volumes? Helllloooo, internet! The internet is a great tool, but it makes it far too easy for everyone to just have what they want. In a way, it makes us all part of the upper echelon of society who sit in their robes all day being fed grapes and throwing away money like candy wrappers. If we want it – we got it.
This is where we cause problems. Let me give you two examples of two recently cancelled books: Phonogram and SWORD. For those of you familiar with the first title, the name Jamie McKelvie will be easily recognizable. Well, Phonogram, and his solo title Suburban Glamour, were printed on Image Comics. Image (unlike Marvel or DC) has a different rate of pay, where he only gets paid per issue/trade sold. Bigger companies do by page rate because they own the intellectual property (through a work for hire system), so you can think of Image as a gateway for creators to get their work out under a name people trust that can offer more recognition (kind of like a record label, though assumedly less insidious). Well, Phonogram may have a cult following now, but how many of those people do you think have acquired Phonogram through the internet? Apparently, pirating is so bad that McKelvie has a whole section on his blog bookmarked about pirating. Then we look at SWORD, written by McKelvie’s Phonogram partner-in-crime Kieron Gillen. It’s funny – when you look around online, you see this intense following of SWORD and plenty of “bring back SWORD campaigns,” yet why was SWORD cancelled in the first place? Poor sales. Those might remember Gillen addressed this on his blog, stating:
Continued below
Comics operate on a system of pre-ordering. As in, the first issue’s orders were in before anyone had even read a single page of the book. The numbers which people are reporting are low enough that the inevitable second issue dip – also ordered before anyone had read issue 1 – would move it into a clearly dangerously low sales for a book in the X-family. In other words, I actually don’t feel that bad about the cancellation. It was already on unsteady ground before anyone had even read the thing, and got annoyed over Sanders’ beast design or my over-verbal theatrics.
So since we all vehemently loved SWORD, why wasn’t our support shown? I love the book to death, but I can’t argue with the fact that if Marvel felt zero faith in it based on sales, no online community will bring the title back with all the rallying in the world, especially in this economy (as much as I hate that I actually had to type that last part). So we won’t see SWORD again for a while (I’m holding out for a mini), and unless Gillen and McKelvie get rich, we’ll never see Phonogram again.
Now, some scanners believe that what they are doing is right. The biggest scanner “company” that I know of is DCP, or Digital Comics Preservation. Every book they scan ends with a logo from them that insists that “if you like it, buy it!” That is probably the most important aspect of piracy, and always has been. I don’t care if it’s a comic book or the fifty hour long Lord of the Rings quadruple extended cuts: if you like something enough to pirate it, you should like it enough to buy it. I am reminded of a scene I once had in a Barnes and Noble. I was buying a large collection of stories by HG Wells, most of which I’d never read, and it was one of those fancy “special editions” with nice custom covers and wrapped in plastic. Another customer stopped me in the store and started quizzing me about my purchase, asking me how I can buy something I’ve never read before. Well, I naturally got a bit indignant on him, because isn’t this the whole point? Don’t we go out to book stores to buy books by authors we trust to tell a good story? Sure, you might end up with a bad book or two. It happens. But part of the fun of it is the mystery of if you will like it or not. When you go see a movie in the theater, you don’t know you’ll like it. You put your ten dollars down at the box office entrusting that the creative team behind the movie is good enough to entertain you for an hour to an hour and a half. That or you’re on a date/bored.
Such is the case with comics, but it’s a little different. With comic books, I feel that while a large part of it is the story, the writing, the art, and the characters we love, a huge part of it is the collectible nature of the comic. Let’s be honest – while not all, a large amount of us buy comics, put them in our long boxes, and don’t pull them out for a long time. I’m not saying we never go back and re-read our issues, but for example, I’ve re-read Green Lantern: Rebirth only once since buying it. We buy books in trade as well, with fancy “deluxe” or “absolute” editions, and we browse them every now and again, but we don’t read them like crazy. So why do we buy them? Because we want them. I’m sure that’s not the only reason, but with many of the books and editions of books I own, that’s the reason. I don’t need Absolute Justice. I haven’t read it since buying it. But I wanted it. I wanted the item of that nature specifically in my collection, and I can download the 12 issues of Justice all I want but it’s still never going to be as good as the book I bought, with it’s huge pages, extra sketches and notes, etc. But what happens is you have an example of someone wanting something, but not caring enough to pay for it. Someone may want to read the latest issue of Superman and all the books tying into the overall World Without Superman storyline, but they may not want to pay for Superman, Supergirl, Action Comics, Adventure Comics, and World of New Kyrpton. It is a bit much.
With that in mind, the idea of “digital comic preservation” I suppose is a passable one, in that I can see the purpose of it. I can understand the nature of the idea ostensibly because after buying the comic and putting it in a bag and board and putting it in your longbox, isn’t it easier to just have a digital form? I will always 100% prefer a physical copy over a digital copy, but many people fully believe that there will be a push into the digital medium as a main source of comic book entertainment. That’s highly possible in today’s age, sure, but I’d prefer to act against it.
So what can we do? Well, I said it earlier but I’ll say it again – if you like it, buy it. Help show the companies what you love, and maybe books like SWORD won’t go to the wayside while the Hulk books quite literally rage out of control. We take a lot of shots at Hulk by Jeph Loeb, sure, but I can’t deny the fact it sells well, whereas SWORD unfortunately did not. I know people read it though, so I’d imagine that part of this is from online pirating. I can’t entirely preach against online piracy without being hypocritical because I have seen the uses for it, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that some of the images we use on this website only exist because someone pirated the picture in the first place. And I can’t deny the uses or positive aspects of online piracy too, in that if there is enough word of mouth on a title, someone could find it online to see what the fuss is all about and then go out and buy it, but that should never deter people from buying in store first.
If you love an artist or a writer, or even a series (as I can think of a good X-Men related example of someone not liking the book but still buying it…), support it with your dollars. Your money in the store not only goes to show the companies what books are viable and should continue, but you have the added bonus of helping out your local comic book shop too. Plus, you’ll sleep better at night.
