Digital Comics

Here, we discuss issues related to digital comics and their Web comics siblings

About the Commodification of Digital Comics

Hervé St-Louis
August 26, 2015

The distinction between web comics and digital comics is unclear in the comic book industry. Using the delivery platform of the comics to define them as digital (like on ComiXology) or as web comics (like on Comic Fury) is arbitrary. What about platforms that cater to both digital and Web comics, such as Tapastic? One can read a Tapastic-based comic within a browser or within the apps developed for iOS and Android.

My definition of Web comics and digital comics comes from the research done by liberal and Marxists scholars about the information economy. Liberal jurist Jonathan Zittrain distinguishes between open and closed platforms. A closed platform or what we often refer to as a walled garden controls the experience of users and interactions. Users can only perform a set amount of interactions that force them to remain within the environment designed by the platform owner. On the other hand, open platforms have various standards and allow both users and other providers to make changes to the devices and apps that deliver contents. For example, WordPress and the Web comic plugin ComicPress allows Web Comic creators to perform changes to the architecture of the contents management systems designed to deliver Web comics. Similarly, users can easily download Web comic pages they have viewed through their browsers. Zittrain argues that open platforms allow for more innovation and are better for end users.

Closed platforms, liberal jurist Tim Wu, argues, can lead to the commodification of knowledge by a few cartels. Looking at the comic industry’s distribution system from the early days until today, his fears are legitimate. Earlier comics were distributed through few distributors. In the 1930s and 1940s, National Comics and All-American Comics were allegedly separate companies but with a single distribution channel for their comic books. Similarly, during the 1950s and 1960s, DC Comics distributed Marvel Comics on the newsstands. Later, in the 1970s and 1980s, a few distribution networks headed by Diamond Comics and Capital Comics distributed most comics to the direct market of comic book stores in North America. In the mid-1990s, Marvel Comics bought Capital Comics creating a duopoly with Diamond Comics after the rest of the industry regrouped under Diamond Comics. As Marvel Comics later abandoned Capital Comics, it allowed Diamond Comics to once again distribute its comics.

Today, with the concentration of digital comics’ distribution under ComiXology we can witness a similar concentration of information, knowledge, and culture. While there are other competitors to ComiXology, most of the large comic book publishers are already distributing their comics through ComiXology. With the purchase of ComiXology by Amazon in 2014, Zittrain and Wu’s fears of a closed platform for comics are realized.

An upstart like Tapastic, one would hope, has the potential to disrupt this state of being by allowing comics to be distributed both as Web comics and as digital comics. However, Marxist scholar Tiziana Terranova argues that participants in the information economy often generate information, knowledge, and culture without any appropriate remuneration. She adds that the free labour of hobbyists can easily be commodified and used by enterprises.

If one follows Terranova's arguments, Tapastic’s model is worse for culture and comic creators. Unlike ComiXology, Tapastic concentrates its effort in wooing nonprofessional cartoonists and hobbyists who create comics to its platform. These hobbyists are not remunerated adequately for their work unlike their counterparts publishing digital comics. Although Tapastic has limited revenue sharing-opportunities, a minority of cartoonists posting their comics through its platform achieve substantial remuneration. Most of the labour provided by these cartoonists is unpaid and benefits the greater commercialization of Tapastic and its eventual purchase by a competitor such as ComiXology, Condé Nast, Apple, Google, Marvel, or DC Comics.

One important development for both digital and Web comics has been the expanded audience and greater innovation of contents in comics. The most successful comics today are no longer Superman and Spider-man. Instead, Archie, Batgirl and Ms Marvel lead the funny pages. This has made comics more attractive to female, queer, and non-white readers. Their issues are being addressed in the comics of today. In Web comics, similar popular series have taken over and dominate platforms such as Tapastic, Smart Jeeves, Comic Fury, and, The Duck.

Based on Marxists scholar Jody Dean's interpretation of the role of culture in the greater dialogue around power and labour, there are serious reasons to minimize the effects of the nouveau comics contents depicted in digital and Web comics. These comics are about culture and depict conflicts that arise out of cultural issues. Dean's research focuses on the how cultural topics overshadow labour issues in the information economy.

Dean's insight reminds us that cultural topics make light of the precarious position of many creators versus their publishers and the third party distribution networks that make their comics available to readers. For example, large publishers such as Marvel Comic, pressure comics letterers for lower wages. Flatters, the assistants of comic colourists are paid menial amounts and often non-credited for their contribution to comics. Thus even paid comic creators are pressured into delivering profit-making contents that benefit larger organizations.

Digital comics produced by large corporations also benefit from the control of their copyrights and trademarks. This allows publishers to not credit comics workers or force them to accept lower wages in exchange for the privilege of working on major comics franchises such as Batman or the Avengers. Alternatives for cartoonists exist in the self-publishing movement but even these networks are becoming curtailed.

Scholar Yochai Benchler believes that the sharing economy is severely affected by commodified goods whose distribution and sharing are controlled by a few corporations. In the case of digital comics, this is an important problem. Rules enforced by Amazon and Apple often force digital comics publishers to sell their comics for the same price as physical comics. While digital comics are less costly to produce, the number of intermediaries in their distribution often forces publishers to mark up their comics significantly higher than they should. Yet, these comics cannot be shared freely by users once purchased or consumed with non-proprietary platforms. As Zittrain argues, closed platforms do not benefit users, the dissemination of culture and the improvement of standards.

While not a perfect solution, because of the reasons outlined above, the Web comic, I argue, remains the best case for cartoonists who want to maintain some level of ownership over their work and enhance user access to their comics.

Last Updated: November 10, 2023 - 14:53