Archie goes digital with 'New Crusaders'

[Yoc]

Posted on http://www.firstcomicsnews.com/?p=33444

NEW YORK – Archie Comics has revealed to the New York Times its latest move – the relaunch of a superhero comic, this time in purely digital format.

With the New York Comic Con just around the corner, Archie comics is hoping to breathe new life into characters introduced as early as the 1940s, which have since fallen out of the public eye.

Fans will have access to both Archie Comics' latest material, in the form of a six-page comic, and to the back catalogue, which will be reprinted for the first time.  (my red, Yoc)

And just like the recent DC Comics reboot, the new comic will not require knowledge of decades of continuity.

The series, to be written by Ian Flynn and illustrated by Ben Bates, will feature the original Mighty Crusaders, a collective of Archie Comics' superheroes. Set years after their original adventures, the story will feature the patriotic hero, The Shield, leading a group of young superheroes to take down villains which have taken out the since-retired heroes. This new super-team will be known as the New Crusaders, which is also the title of the series.

The characters were last published by Archie Comics in 1985. DC Comics licensed the characters to revive interest in them in both 1991 and 2008, however, both attempts did not last.

Those expecting edgy stories that are a common theme these days might be surprised by the tone of the New Crusaders. "They are not going to be water-downed (sic) superheroes, but they are not going to be dark either", said Jon Goldwater, the co-chief executive of Archie Comics Publications, to the New York Times. He compared the tone of the series to popular Pixar animated movie, The Incredibles.

Tackling the digital frontier has become a priority in the comic book industry. DC Comics and Marvel Comics were at first reluctant to release digital versions of the comics on the same day as the print versions, but have since started to do so. Slave Labor Graphics, a small independent publisher, has also started to release its comics purely in digital format, and will only print collected editions of the comics.

"It's very exciting to be creating the first brand-new digital comic book label," said Goldwater. "Financially, it makes sense … We are not going to have any print costs. To be a slave to printing prices when you're starting a new venture is a tremendous concern."

Archie Comics has yet to set the price for the subscription. "Value, value, value. That's what we want to give at Archie Comics," said Goldwater, who shared that he hoped the subscription fees to be no more than a regular comic book sold by DC Comics or Marvel Comics, which regularly go for US$2.99 (SGD$3.90) to US$3.99. "We're very conscious of what's going on in the economy right now. We want to be recession busters. We don't want to gouge our fans."

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So Marvel and SLG have jumped on the same day bandwagon?  This is the first I've heard of it.  I'm very curious what access to Archie's 'back catalogue' means.

-Yoc

[John C]

Interestingly, the New York Times article doesn't mention same-day for anybody but DC:

https://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/business/media/for-archie-comics-a-return-to-superheroes.html?_r=3

Marvel isn't mentioned at all in that context, and SLG apparently is only doing print for collections.  I wonder if that was something that got confused with the mention of "major studios."

Other interesting bits from the NYT are that they're also going to have Spanish translations and I guess the Archie-universe series about the gay kid is important.

I can't say I'm excited about yet another relaunch, especially one that's launching in six pages at full price.  Especially when the story is being described as:

The premise of the digital series, written by Ian Flynn and illustrated by Ben Bates, begins with the heroes largely in retirement in a suburb called the Red Circle. Their enemies find and dispatch the heroes, forcing the next generation, who will be overseen by The Shield, to save the day, thus paving the way for The New Crusaders, the title of the series.

I mean, yeah, there's the archive, but the MLJ material is already public domain and the '60s stuff wasn't exactly a masterpiece.  I guess I haven't read any of the '80s stuff, and it's possible they own the Impact run, which would both be nice to see.

So, probably worth a look, but it would be much nicer if their flagship title was full-length.

[paw broon]

Although I'm off to buy a Kindle this afternoon, it's not much use for a colour comic and I'm not that keen on reading comics on the computer and I haven't tried a comic download.  A 6 page comic for $2.99?  Sounds like a great bargain.
As a fan of the 60's Mighty Crusaders, my initial reaction was, great.  But on reflection, I dread what the new, young heroes will look like.  The back catalogue would intrigue me if it involved the Archie titles. And as you point out, the MLJ material is pd and I have all the 60's titles.
As an aside, Kindle appears to support PDF and there are lot of old British storypapers available in the format.

[Yoc]

I'm told Archie will be hosting digital copies of the old 40’s MLJ comics with retouched colours.

[narfstar]

Epads are much more practical IMHO than a Kindle. You get the ereader function plus computer functions

[johndesmarais]

Epads are much more practical IMHO than a Kindle. You get the ereader function plus computer functions

Depends on what you need and what you're willing to spend.  I love my iPad (particularly for reading comics, but for a lot of non-reading stuff as well) but if my ONLY need was for a reader I would would have looked hard at other devices (like the Nook Color and the new color Kindle).

[jfglade]

Although I'm off to buy a Kindle this afternoon, it's not much use for a colour comic and I'm not that keen on reading comics on the computer and I haven't tried a comic download.  A 6 page comic for $2.99?  Sounds like a great bargain.
As a fan of the 60's Mighty Crusaders, my initial reaction was, great.  But on reflection, I dread what the new, young heroes will look like.  The back catalogue would intrigue me if it involved the Archie titles. And as you point out, the MLJ material is pd and I have all the 60's titles.
As an aside, Kindle appears to support PDF and there are lot of old British storypapers available in the format.

 I don't wish to get embroiled in the kindle/Ipad/whatever discussion, but I have to agree with Paw about the original topic of discussion. I absolutely cannot see the six pages for $2.99 price, and the MLJ material is in PD so I wouldn't see much of an advantage to the back catalogue (unless it could bring up issues of the Little Archie series which seems unlikely. I don't need access to Fly series, and the rest of the Archie Adventure series/Radio Comics from the sixties just don't appeal to me now, although I did follow the Jaguar and even the Mighty Comics stuff back in the day. There simply wasn't enough of the Red Circle material before it imploded, and I never cared for the Impact adaptions (with the exception of the too short Black Hood series). The premise of the new material absolutely turns me off, as I've had a bellyful of watered down "legacy" heroes already and don't want to see more of the same ilk.

 I'm sort of glad to know that the Crusaders are back because they have many fans, and there is nothing inherently flawed with that group of characters, but I'm underwhelmed by the premise of this incarnation.

[John C]

Yeah, I feel like I came down too hard on them and I do hope they can be encouraged into going beyond just six pages per month.  The industry can definitely do with a line whose eye isn't exclusively on movie adaptations and isn't yet more of the same old grim and gritty stuff.

And come to think about it, if they were to tell a complete story in those six pages, wouldn't that be the most amazing thing on the market in decades...?

[Yoc]

And come to think about it, if they were to tell a complete story in those six pages, wouldn't that be the most amazing thing on the market in decades...?

Almost revolutionary! 

[Roygbiv666]

There seems to be some confusion - maybe read the article again.

The $2.99 is for the subscription service, not the Crusaders comic:

"Archie Comics has yet to set the price for the subscription. “Value, value, value. That’s what we want to give at Archie Comics,” said Goldwater, who shared that he hoped the subscription fees to be no more than a regular comic book sold by DC Comics or Marvel Comics, which regularly go for US$2.99 (SGD$3.90) to US$3.99. “We’re very conscious of what’s going on in the economy right now. We want to be recession busters. We don’t want to gouge our fans.”

Technically, that's a bit vague - is the subscription for the one title or an overall service?

So, I went over to the Archie Comics website:
http://www.archiecomics.com/

and clicked on the "Digital" link at the top - that took me to iTunes. Which had an Archie APP, but I don't see comics per se.

Archie has a digital page here:
http://archiedigital.com/

So, I'm not entirely sure, but it sounds like subscription provides access to many titles, not just the Mighty Crusaders. Although, if that's all you want, then yeah it's steep.

Why don't publishers just release digital to an iTunes like platform, and let them absorb the server costs? Then it's comics for 99 cents! Yay!

[John C]

The $2.99 is for the subscription service, not the Crusaders comic:

That was never in question, as far as I know.  The question was what the subscription actually gets you.  From the articles, it looks/looked a lot like it's just for the superhero material, which would be access to an archive of cleaned-up public domain material and the handful of pages of New Crusaders.

The website itself implies that the scope is wider.  However, today's addition is an early issue of Blue Ribbon, and you can only browse the full list and see anything else with a subscription.

Why don't publishers just release digital to an iTunes like platform, and let them absorb the server costs? Then it's comics for 99 cents! Yay!

That's basically what they're doing (iVerse is running the server, as I understand it), but subscriptions are a more appealing business model, since revenue is more predictable.  They also don't need to sell you every issue, just avoid convincing you to cancel.

(It's also why big software companies like Microsoft and Google are so gung-ho on "the cloud."  Taking your monthly payment is a lot easier for them than trying to sell you an upgrade.)

I'll give it a look later and report back if someone already hasn't.

[Yoc]

If someone joins please compare Archie's Blue Ribbon 3 issue with our own scans here -
http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/index.php?dlid=42

I'm curious if they are the same or 'improved.'

[John C]

Hm.  I was ready to jump on, but I don't think they're quite ready for prime time.

They have free samples, so I figured I'd try out the interface.  My installation of Firefox isn't loading it for some reason (might be a plug-in, but I'd rather not have to care), and it crashed my installation of Chrome after a while.  So we're not off to a good start.  Worse, I'm reading on a netbook, and they've made it difficult (impossible? confusing?) to see a whole page.  I think you can zoom and pan, but panning didn't work for me.

The interface is...I don't know, kind of "adorable."  There's nothing cute in the design, but it's all about the "feel" of an actual comic, suggesting that you physically turn the pages, and so forth, and trying to map your mouse movements to bending the paper.  That, and the tutorial video's incessant references to "Archie Comics dot com" made me feel like I was in one of those old-timey PBS specials about computers.  At least they didn't use the word "cyberspace" anywhere.

Second is the price.  It's ten bucks a month, which is a little insane to test drive.  Weirdly, it's only fifty annually.  I guess it goes to show that the goal is to stabilize revenue, here, if they're willing to discount almost sixty percent for a year's commitment.  Four dollars a month is probably going to be a good deal, if I can convince myself that random Archie books are worth reading.

However, third and probably biggest, we've got technology problems already.  I realize nobody else checks the Terms of Service before checking the box, but I get curious...and since I help out around here, I wanted to make sure they don't have some weird anti-competition clause or something.  However, they don't seem to have one linked, or at least they set up the page wrong.

On top of that, their SSL certificate (think of it as an automatic password, if that's meaningless to you) isn't set up properly, so Firefox tries to wave me away, as if it's likely that someone is only <b>pretending</b> to serve me up Archie digital comics.  This may mean that they just put a file in the wrong place or need to update a timestamp somewhere.  It might mean that they bought a certificate second-hand or from a cheap/unknown dealer.  Or it may mean that they have serious security problems.  There's no way to tell unless they investigate it and fix the problem.

So, I'm going to hold off for a bit and try to get some useful intelligence out of their web monkeys (no offense, Yoc) before subscribing.

However, all that said, it's got promise if they can pull themselves together.  I don't like that even the index is crammed behind the pay-wall, since it's their best possible advertising, but what I see looks like it'll be worth the money when they don't look quite so much like they're running this operation out of the back of a van on the shoulder of the expressway.

[Yoc]

Thanks for trying John.  Let us know if you decide to take the plunge.

[John C]

I sent a message running through my issues.  We'll see if they're in a position to fix things.

Meantime, I do recommend at least checking out the free books to see if/how it works for you, even though it doesn't include the Blue Ribbon book.  Those of you with experience scanning and editing might also have some insight as to whether the older books are existing scans, new, or re-edited.