Comicscape - November 26, 2003

By: Tony Whitt
Date: Wednesday, November 26, 2003

OPINION:

Before we get started, two plugs: one, an invitation to visit CINESCAPE's comic book message forum in addition to sending e-mail to yours truly, so that you don't have to wait for me to reprint your letter before others can respond to it; and two, an invitation to visit the Help Shelter Pets website, whose stated mission is "to provide much-needed medical care, food, shelter and love to the many unfortunate animals who have yet to be adopted into a loving home." (It also happens to be run by the spouse of CINESCAPE editor Scott Collura. Thanks for the heads-up, Scott - it's a worthy cause the missus is working for!)

It's Thanksgiving week, if you didn't already know, which luckily will not affect the delivery of our precious comics - and that automatically gives us something to be thankful for. There's a great deal else to give thanks for in the comics world, of course: we're finally getting to read the long-awaited JLA/AVENGERS (or is it AVENGERS/JLA? Which month is it?); Marvel reversed its decision to give Mark Waid his walking papers on FANTASTIC FOUR; Greg Rucka's writing WONDER WOMAN; and Neil Gaiman's writing for Marvel. (Yeah, I know I made an offhand remark about 1602 not living up to expectations, but that was based on the comments of three readers writing in and on my own reading of a single issue - and now that I've gotten to read all of the first four issues, I sincerely recant my transgressions, as they'd probably say back in the 17th century. It's certainly something to give thanks for.) But whether we should be giving thanks for BitTorrent, the facility that allows people to trade comics on-line, is still up in the air, and it depends on who you talk to.

Gary Bosko, for instance, feel the whole business is wrong: "If you replace the word 'trading' with the word 'copying,' you'll come closer to the reality of the situation. I was horribly sad to hear comics may go the way of music. I'm been a

music producer/engineer in the entertainment industry for 12 years, and I can only attest to the damage caused by Napster, Kazaa, and the rest. No matter what people tell you, they will never purchase anything that is available for free, even if it means lesser quality. And no one, other than very serious collectors, will ever purchase a book they've already downloaded. Why should they? They have it. The people that justify the stealing of copywritten material, and comics are covered by this, are the benefactors, and love their free stuff. Even if it means it will destroy the very industry they love."

On the other hand, Pat Curley explains why such trading, when done responsibly, does not hurt the industry - he also points out that comics trading on-line began long before BitTorrent came onto the scene: "I have

been 'trading' comic scans via the usenet newsgroup alt.binaries.pictures.comics (abpc) for the last four years. We have probably been the most active comics-scanning group on the Internet. Over 40,000 comics have been scanned and posted to abpc. Most of the older comics you see on BitTorrent and other p2p networks are comics that were originally scanned by abpc members...One major difference between abpc and the p2p networks you describe is that we have a strict rule against posting comics that are less than one year old (going by the cover, or indicia date, which generally means most comics were on the newsstand over 14 months ago by the time they can be posted to abpc). This rule was agreed to because we absolutely do not want to do anything to hurt the industry. The easy availability of high-quality scans of current comics will hurt sales inevitably. Teenagers always have another place that they can spend their money, if something's easy enough to download. A high quality scan of a comic can be downloaded in about 5-10 minutes. But downloading an image file of a computer game might take 6-7 hours even with the cable. So the kid downloads the comics and buys the computer game.

"It seems to me[, though,] that the opposite is the case with the easy availability of scans of back issues. What is the most intimidating thing to a new comic reader? The vast back story. If you want to start reading, say, BATMAN, again, you're going to say 'What happened to Gordon? And who's this new Batgirl?' So you start poking around for back issues to answer the story, but most stores don't have an extensive back issue collection, and are you really ready to plunk down a hundy for the five-volume set of 'No Man's Land'? It is true that DC makes some money reprinting the old titles, but the vast majority of this stuff will never be reprinted. DC is never going to put out a HAYFOOT HENRY Archive, and ACTION issues in the 80-120 range are dauntingly expensive even in the lower grades. I personally love to read the 1950s-era DC, but if I wait for them to reprint that stuff I'm probably going to be buying it with Social

Security benefits. DC published about 3600 comics in the 1950s; in the last 10 years they have reprinted about a dozen of those comics in their entirety (using the word 'entirety' to mean complete story and art, with garish coloring), and they're usually the comics that have *already* been reprinted, some multiple times - SHOWCASE #4, ADVENTURE #247, FLASH #105, DETECTIVE #225, etc." This is a good point, Pat - my own resurgence of interest in the X-Men has been spurred on not only by Grant Morrison's recent work on NEW X-MEN but in the availability of the enormous collection of back issues on-line. Even comics "experts" like me can't afford to plunk down thousands of dollars on eBay trying to complete that large a body of work, after all.

Brian Compton sees both sides of the issue, though he worries about the ramifications: "This can be a useful tool for the collector who just needs that one, elusive back issue to complete a series/storyline/whatever. Also, it's probably the best chance any of us will ever have (short of shelling out thousands of dollars) of getting in our hands such great moments as the first appearances of Superman and Batman, or battles of the Fantastic Four or Avengers that old timers reminisce wistfully about (of course, I'd like to actually hold those historic documents in my hands, but short of the lottery I don't see it happening). Next, for those of us like myself who are trying to cut down on the amount of space comics take up in our houses, being able to download all the comics we currently own onto a few CDRW's may be an economical alternative. Finally, is reading a comic this way any different than checking out a book at the local library and reading it? You've read the book without paying for it, you've deprived the author of a potential sale, and yet nobody complains about that. If I delete the file after I read the comic, is there a difference?

"However, I think there is more detriment than benefit to this. I fear that too many people will use this as another way to mooch free stuff instead of paying for it. It's one thing to talk about 'stickin' it to the man' when it comes to depriving millionaire musicians and actors of a few bucks, but comic creators aren't the best paid people in the world (McFarlane and, one day, Mack being exceptions to the rule).

Also, it deprives money from comic book shops, which aren't rolling in dough like Best Buy or Virgin Mega Stores. While you could argue that depriving stores of back-issue business doesn't help, they'll probably feel more pain from losing their weekly sales than the variable amounts they make from the bins." Both are good points, though I might make one point of clarification here: those first appearances of Superman, Batman, and the Fantastic Four mostly are available through reprints, and not ones costing thousands of dollars. But those other moments that old timers reminisce about, like the ones Pat mentions above, are the ones that BitTorrent may allow us to see.

A reader named "Jackal" (no, really) also points out the library parallel, which applies far more to comic books than to music traded on-line: "I just wonder what the justification is for the acceptance of our national library program but not the p2p music/movie/comic file sharing. If I 'borrow' the latest Stephen King book from my local library, am I not taking the purchase price money out of Mr. King's pocket? And if you consider that some 50 or so people will 'borrow' the book from the library instead of an equal number of 'sales' times all the libraries around the nation, it turns into quite a bit of money which Mr. King is no longer getting." It's not a bad analogy, except that library books are also returned for others to read. Perhaps peer-to-peer sharing allows for that to some degree, but I have to admit, I don't see where else this analogy falls down. Anybody else see a problem here?

"Merin The Bard" (really, folks, I'm not making these up) has a problem with some of the arguments put forth against file-trading, and actually sees BitTorrent and other p2p clients as helping the industry: "I've always had a problem with the entertainment industry using 'lost potential sales as a true bar of how much money is being lost by file-sharing. Lost 'potential' sales? Most people I know of (myself included) who get stuff via Kazaa or whatever would probably never have bought half the stuff they get that they don't end up buying at some point anyway, and the stuff they wouldn't buy they don't keep. The argument has been used many times, but I honestly believe it is true - file-sharing helps the entertainment industry by exposing people to new things they would never have tried otherwise. The argument I always think of and rarely ever see is sharing, person to person. Who doesn't loan recorded tv shows, DVDs, CDs, games, books, etc, to friends, family and co-workers? Isn't everyone who 'borrows' a piece of media, uses that media, and doesn't pay for that media then, in fact, stealing? They are getting the use of the product without paying for it... and isn't THAT what the entertainment industry is, ultimately, calling the foul? Because they aren't targeting people who profit from file-sharing (who are those people?). And they aren't targeting people who make and distribute complete copies of products - like burning CDs and photo-copying books. (Ok, I know they do go after such people - but if you watch the ad campaigns and listen to the entertainment industry, it's the ones who are sharing with no money exchanged who are causing the most damage. What is that all about?)

"'Potential sales' is a forced and misleading argument that I just don't buy. Stealing media, to me, involves taking it from someone [so that] they don't have it anymore, [such as] physically picking up a CD or book from a store and leaving without paying. Making copies to share with someone, with no profit involved to either side, isn't 'stealing'... it may be made illegal at some point...but that needs the use of the newer definition of 'piracy' and not 'stealing.' People are generally honest, really, and will support the artists whom they like. If they get a copy of something and like it, most likely they go out and buy other products from that same artist. I see it happen all the time - it's called 'word of mouth' and it helps sell products for company and doesn't cost an advertising cent! The entertainment industry needs to pull its collective head from its ass and work with this trend and use it to help promote instead of fighting a battle they will never win, a battle which just embitters and turns enemies of their customer base."

One reader, the reasons for whose anonymity will become clear in a moment, thinks that such sharing serves a greater purpose: "I'm what's known as a 'scanner' in the comic sharing community, so I'd prefer to remain anonymous for my own sake as well as for those of the people I work with. First of all, let me say that, yes, comic sharing is piracy. We know we are never doing better than teetering on the fringes of legality, which is why we try to keep our presence on-line rather low key. That said, what we do is also necessary. Nowhere but on-line can you find Grant Morrison's run of DOOM PATROL, Keith Giffen works that have been lost to the ages, or older obscurities

like MAN THING, SHADE: THE CHANGING MAN, and THE 'NAM...On the receiving end of the community, many people are from countries where they can't get a number of the newest American comics (Venezuela, Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Sweden, Belgium, France, Hungary) and, instead of waiting months for anthology editions or black and white reprints, they'd prefer to read it, in English, now. (Understand, they still buy the editions they find both to have a hardcopy and support the industry). The reverse is also true; the amount of Moebius works you can find online is staggering, ASTERIX and TINTIN are even easier for an American to access now, and manga that would go otherwise unnoticed is not only scanned but translated for the benefit of the English-only speaking world.

"To be fair, the big two have made some baby steps into our world, but anything less than full bore is ridiculous. Not only did we scoff at the recent Marvel comic CD (retailing for about $40, you get some so-so jpegs of easily 'collectible series'), but some scanners thought they would probably just use our scans (some of which are actually far superior to those on the CD). You see, scanning isn't just about slapping a comic on a scanner and posting the results online. There is a definite love of the comic. There are scanners who will spend hours to merge two pages into a single, seamless splash page. Getting the colors and contrast set so the image breaks through the restraint of looking like ink on paper; de-yellowing ancient, browned newspaper-grade stock; removing printing errors (ink blobs, smears, etc.) and resetting crooked prints and poorly cropped pages (without cutting more out, I might add) - all these things are standard practice for accomplished scanners. However, there are other scanners who love the comics so much that they refuse to make them high quality, in the hope that their work will attract readers but not hurt sales. And this brings me to a point I find very important: we do love our comics and we want them to succeed. When Crossgen hit troubled financial waters, scanners agreed collectively not to scan new Crossgen issues until they'd already been out for a month. RUNAWAYS has been handled with care, as well. I don't claim that we can keep every bored teenager from leaving them be, but I can tell you we're doing a better job of it than anyone else. The bottom line is we don't want these books to fail. When something of quality is in trouble, we back off, simple as that. We may be pirates, but we're comic fans first."

Judging from the responses of people like Frank Forrester, such work pays off for the comics companies in the long run: "I have been downloading the comics using BitTorrent for the last couple of months and...have been able to get comics that I would never be able to afford and have downloaded ones I already have. There are some titles that I stopped buying a few years ago because I didn't like either the story or the art in the comic. With BitTorrent I have been able to download the issues I didn't buy and read them so I could get caught up real quick. I have than started buying some of those series again because of this. I still spend anywhere from $20 - $50 on new comics a week and still buy a back issue or trade paperback when I can afford it. With the comic

files I can read a comic without having to dig thru my collection to find it, but it is still a lot better to read the actual copy. I don't think it will hurt the comic companies that much as it is a lot easier to read a an actual comic than to read the comic on your laptop or desktop monitor. (As my poor aching eyes can attest... - TBW) I have been able to get the entire run of both the first IRON MAN series and the first CAPTAIN AMERICA series from BitTorrent along with UNCANNY X-MEN. I already own a majority of the X-men and Captain America comics, but this makes it easier to read them without having to mess up my actual copies I own. I have also been able to download CANCELLED COMICS CAVALCADE and read those two issues. The chances of me ever coming across a copy of either issue and being able to afford it are slim as there are not that many copies around. I will still continue to download comics, but I will also still buy the new comics and back issues along with collected volumes when I can afford them."

The many, many other responses I got from readers on this issue were much of the same stripe as Frank's: that comics sharing has got them back into reading comics, and that they are no less likely to spend their money in the comic shops because of it - in fact, just the opposite. I'm really quite astounded I didn't get more opinions from people like Gary Bosko, and that I got no responses from comics writers or publishers. That means either the issue is not as big a deal as many are making it out to be - or that those folks just aren't reading my column. I wonder which it could be? If anyone wants to continue discussing the issue, please send your comments to comicscape@cinescape.com, or to me directly, if you choose. And don't forget our discussion boards! Now, here are the books your mom just might be yelling at you for reading at the table while you eat your turkey this week:

THIS WEEK:

Something else to be thankful for: Moonstone's bringing back everyone's favorite investigative reporter in KOLCHAK: TALES OF THE NIGHT STALKER #1, the first in a new ongoing series! Gotta love it!

Arthur's an Aquarius? Doesn't he seem more likely to be a Pisces? Anyway, that's the implication of the title of AQUAMAN: THE WATER BEARER, a trade paperback collecting the newest series of AQUAMAN #s1-4 and the lead story from the AQUAMAN SECRET FILES for $12.95. Get it before it sinks beneath the waves for good!

Bat-fans should also be thankful - that they haven't as much to buy this week! But what they do have is pretty cool. For one thing, Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso continue their six-part story arc in BATMAN #621; BATMAN: GOTHAM KNIGHTS #47 kicks off a brand-new story arc; and then there's the BATMAN: HAUNTED KNIGHT trade paperback for $14.95. Just don't get any cranberry sauce on it!

This week there's a double blast of Selina Kyle as CATWOMAN #25 hits the stands with new art team Paul Gulacy and Jimmy Palmiotti; and the CATWOMAN: CROOKED LITTLE TOWN trade paperback collects CATWOMAN #s 5-10 and the CATWOMAN SECRET FILES for $14.95. Betcha won't find all that on BitTorrent. I mean, who scans the SECRET FILES? Honestly.

Only one issue till the end of Mark Waid's EMPIRE with issue #5. I'd give major thanks if both Waid and DC would consider letting this one go one for a while...

Why Diamond lists this week's issue of FANTASTIC FOUR as #507 (#78) baffles me - does anyone really still care about that silly old "new" numbering now that we have the original numbering back? Well, whichever number it is, things are looking distinctly bad for the team, as Reed has driven them all away - but not before writing each one a last message. Will things in Latveria turn around fast enough that he won't need to have them

delivered?

FLASH #204 continues Wally West's search of his identity, and the search for the murderous(!) Captain Cold, under the capable hands of writer Geoff Johns. Brrr. This storyline's making me look askance at that Captain Cold Pocket Hero on my bookshelf every time I pass it now...

Be thankful for the double dose of green this week, too, as the GREEN ARROW: ARCHERS QUEST hardcover collects GREEN ARROW #s 16-21 for $19.95 (unless you already have them, of course, in which case you should be thankful you don't have to shell out that much money); and GREEN LANTERN #171 introduces new penciller James Bosch and a new story arc.

Vertigo's shipping HELLBLAZER #190, which features part two of the five-part "Staring at the Wall" storyline; and LOSERS #6, which completes the "Goliath" storyline. Be thankful for story arcs, I guess?

JLA fans are bound to be thankful for all the titles featuring their favorite teams this week, including JLA #90; JLA-Z #3 (Of 3); and, of course, JLA/AVENGERS #3 (OF 4), coming at you from DC this time around for $5.95. (I understand people are up in arms over Thor getting pummeled by Superman last issue...are y'all really upset over this? Let's here from you!)

Meanwhile, over in AVENGERS #74, a much smaller team is still doing the whole "Search for She-Hulk" thang. And, of course, she's searching for someone, too. Any guesses? Anyone? Anyone?

The LEGION continues its awesome 40th anniversary this week with #27, which features Superboy's first public appearance with the Legion (no, the other Superboy) and more about Darkseid's latest nefarious scheme.

Speaking of former LEGION scribes, Keith Giffen continues his dream project with REIGN OF THE ZODIAC #4, which is just about as cool as his work on that former series. (Did I really say "nefarious"?)

Spidey-fans can be thankful this week, too (and yes, I'll stop the "thankful" shtick in a moment) because AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #501 (or #60, for those who care), SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #7, and VENOM #8 all ship this week.

Poor Supes fans: for you, there's only SUPERMAN #199 and SUPERMAN: THE KANSAS SIGHTING #1 (Of 2) for $6.95. Oh, well. Eat an extra piece of pumpkin pie, and you'll feel better. Besides, he beat up Thor,

y'know.

Haven't checked out Sean McKeever's excellent INHUMANS series yet? Issue #7 is out this week, so do it while you're lying down when the el-triptiphane from the turkey kicks in. And it's a standalone story! Best time to do it!

You've waited a long time for Norrin Radd's return - and for this particular series to keep going, actually - but finally SILVER SURFER #3 is on its way.

OK, so he got his godly butt kicked by Superman - but he's kicking some Viking zombie butt himself in the last issue of THOR: VIKINGS, issue #5 of which ships this week. Surely that's some consolation? No? Have some more cranberry sauce, then. It's comfort food, don'tcha know.

And speaking of comfort, many fanboys will take comfort from the return of a bikini-wearing beauty on the cover of TROUBLE, which finishes this week with #5. You have been reading it, right?

Wildstorm's giving you some holiday cheer this week, too, with the TOP TEN: BOOK TWO trade paperback for $14.95; WILDCATS VERSION 3.0 #16; and SLEEPER #11. Just don't try reading any of it during the football game - it requires concentration. Reading, that is, not football.

Ever

notice that it's the evil (or formerly evil) mutant ladies who get their own books? Something else to be thankful for, then, that both EMMA FROST #5 and MYSTIQUE #8 are out this week. And if that's not enough, there's also NEW X-MEN #149; UNCANNY X-MEN #433; X-STATIX #16 (yes, the Marvel site's still referring to "a certain resurrected Princess"...sigh); the X-MEN: EVOLUTION VOL 1 trade paperback for $8.99; and the WOLVERINE LEGENDS VOL 5: SNIKT trade paperback for $13.99. Quite a meal there, X-fans...

So. Pie, anyone?

Questions? Comments? Let us know what you think at comicscape@cinescape.com.

Comicscape is our weekly Comics column.