David: Shots fired! The world of comics had their collective minds blown yesterday, as Amazon acquired digital comics superstore comiXology in a deal that – from what we’ve heard – leaves the team of comiXology to their own devices, acting as a subsidiary who retains much of their autonomy. It’s a big deal, especially for those who buy digital comics, and no one buys more of those than my fellow MC writer Brandon Burpee.
So Brandon, I have to ask, as someone who buys digital comics like Alex Rodriguez buys ninja steroids (meaning early and often), what was your immediate reaction this news? Did you have any trepidation or concerns for the future, or is this very much the type of thing that can’t be anything else but a good thing in your mind?
Brandon: As a die hard Red Sox fan I must start by saying how dare you compare me to A-Fraud.
As far as the topic on hand though I am very excited and slightly fearful of the news. I am excited because I feel there are a lot of great options and directions opened for comiXology as an entity thanks to the purchase, although I fear some of the best and more underrated parts, such as customer service, might take a hit due to this change. If I had to pick fear or excitement, I’d have to say I am leaning more towards excitement.
I must say that I love what this means for the industry and it’s ability to expand into new audiences more than anything. I am not sure who said it, but I remember reading someone say something to the effect that digital comics are the new convenience store spinner rack. A place where those who don’t live close to a comic shop or may just want to try comics for the first time might be able to do so in a relatively easy way. I would agree with this wholeheartedly and I feel that this brings that metaphor to the next next next level.
A potential new reader now will hopefully have access to digital comics outside of a comics app. If you want to garner new readers you aren’t likely to get those from a comic app. Those who frequent such an app are more often than not already wanting to purchase comics or do so on a regular basis. Now you toss them on Amazon and it opens the comics to that coveted new market. ComiXology truly becomes the spinner rack it aspires to be by being right there on the largest online retail store. Hopefully highly accessible on the main page. Comics as a legitimate mainstream product. The geek who caught tremendous flack on for reading comics most of his adolescence is loving all of this. It’s a very cool thing.
What are your thoughts on this monumental news?
David: You know, I’m not sure yet. And the reason why is we don’t really have any idea what this actually means, so it’s kind of hard to guess what the ramifications will be. I mean, if they actually put comics on Amazon to be purchased through comiXology in digital format, that might be a great way to reach new readers. But from what has been said, comiXology is very much being left alone as a subsidiary, and their day-to-day business isn’t going to be effected. So I’m not sure if anything like that would happen. From what little we’ve heard, this is more of an acquisition in the sense that Amazon is purchasing a profitable business with the hopes of earning additional revenue that fits into their general role as a retailer. So if that’s the case, I don’t see how it will bring in new readers or anything.
That said, having Amazon behind you is a tremendous way to get the financial backing and the weight needed to grow in really exciting ways. In the wide world of speculation, I don’t see how this can be negative, and if anything, it gives comiXology the allowances needed to fail more without worry of going out of business in efforts to reach those new readers and reach different – and global – audiences. They’ve already been pretty dynamite when it comes to thinking outside the box, but when you have someone like Amazon in the corner, who knows where this can lead?
Continued belowLet’s talk about the potential negatives. You said customer service could take a hit in your view. Why is that?
Brandon: Well this may not be anything because as you said this may be a purchase that entails no corporate hands touching the day-to-day business. If Amazon does make any changes, I would worry about the customer service being one of those as I think comiXology’s customer service is superb and much better than what you would get in a standard shop. Well, your and I’s shop anyways.
For example, recently comiXology had the snafu with customers passwords needing to be changed which led some people, like myself, to have difficulty in changing their passwords for a variety of reasons. In my case it was because my email was incorrectly entered by some person who might be me. So I couldn’t have anything sent to me from the site to change my password. I got right on Twitter and tweeted the comiXology app and within two minutes I had someone from the company helping me and poking fun at me for my plight, all in good fun, through direct message. I answered a question about my purchases to show I was who I said I was and BAM! they had me fixed up. It was tremendously easy and one of the best experiences in customer service I have had that didn’t involve me giving the customer service.
Experiences like that sometimes get lost in a corporate shuffle as there are corporate right and wrong ways to handle things. While they still might be able to help me quickly and might be able to be reached in the same manner it might not feel so personal in the future. I might not be told to “Pray” in the future when I ask what I can do to fix my problem. I’d hate to lose the local shop feel that I get when dealing with the company that I’ve had to this point.
David: One thing I have to give credit to Amazon for is even though they are HUGE, I’ve never had any issues with their customer service. It’s always been first rate, and maybe not quite as personable as that experience, but they do seem to get the job done. That’s what I want more than anything.
Do you think there’s anything to the idea that, with Amazon’s backing, digital will start digging at brick and mortar shops now? There was a lot of doomsaying on Twitter – I know…shocker, right? – after this announcement, but to me, it seems like that’s just the standard practices for announcements at this purpose. If there was a flow chart it’d go something like this:
Announcement! -> Outrage! -> Outrage to the outrage -> Bickering -> New subject comes up! Go back to square one!
What are your thoughts on this? I just can’t imagine this will all of a sudden put the digital game on some form of NOS and make it bigger than it is right now immediately. But I’ve been wrong before Brandon!
Brandon: Considering you can buy trades and such on Amazon already and the brick and mortars haven’t fallen into the abyss yet leads me to believe this is a lot of the same Chicken Little, sky is falling mentality that seems to dominate the online community. When Disney bought Marvel, we saw a lot of this same type of knee jerk reaction and now we are a few years removed and I can’t name a single negative to this point regarding the sale. While this is obviously a different type of deal, I think the reaction is similar in that people literally have no clue what the ramifications will be at this point and already are freaking out. For a group of people raised on concepts like fear leading to the dark side and hating and fearing things we don’t understand, comic fans really do hate and fear quit a bit. It’s odd.
How long do you think it will be before we actually hear some solid word on what will come of this?
David: Probably a month or two. They said that the deal will be finalized in the second quarter, and we’re there already, so it should be soon. But I honestly think we’ve heard of what’s going to come from this. It seems pretty straightforward – this was an asset acquisition by Amazon, and one that they’re hoping to continue to be profitable and find new ways to be MORE profitable going forward. I don’t think Amazon is going to do anything crazy with it for a little while because it’s already something that is making tons of money (2013 was the third year in a row it made the most money out of any non-game app on the iPad), and Amazon is smart enough not to mess with that formula.
Continued belowThe question really is, what are they going to do to expand comiXology’s reach? And honestly, I don’t think there is any point in even speculating on that, as – and I mean no offense to either one of us in saying this – far smarter and more in the know people will be making those decisions, and it won’t be for a while now. I think if anything, Amazon is going to do two things:
1. Try to find ways to get comiXology integrated into the Amazon storefront
2. Find ways to get more people to utilize comiXology, and by that, I mean more people reading comics
While many will have an issue with that, I have to ask: don’t we want more people reading comics?
Brandon: I would have to agree. Anything that can sustain and/or grow the industry can only be seen as a good thing to me and I can’t see how this could do anything but.
