Direct Current 2.0

Direct Currents 2.0

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Direct Current 2.0

By Jim Durdan

Week of July 24, 2013

Psst, Hey you, Want a copy of Action Comics #1 cheap!

In the last 10 years the world of Comic Book publishing has forever been changed by the advent of the Digital Comic Book. Within the last few years same day availability has sparked renewed interest in our beloved hobby.  According to the publisher in 2012 digital sales accounted for $75 million dollars of DC sales, a 200% increase. That is an incredible jump, and certainly bodes well for the future of DC (http://venturebeat.com/2012/11/07/dc-digital-comics-sales-2012/) . But it does raise an interesting question. What about the back issue market? Sure I can get a copy of Catwoman #22 in digital format, but what happens if I want to get a copy of Catwoman’s first appearance in in Batman #1 from Spring 1940? In a search of the DC app it doesn’t appear.  Neither does it appear on Comixology.  I could go out and buy it; a near mint book is only worth $120,000. But I don’t have that much open on my debit card.

Batman #1 is only one example out of thousands of comic books that don’t have a digital presence. Both DC and Marvel have a huge catalog of back issues that do not exist is digital form.  Marvel has made a modest start with Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited, but it contains a small fraction of the publishers back catalog. DC has done far less.

If digital comics are to continue to grow at a healthy rate I submit that publishers have to begin to address the great digital divide that is the back issue marketplace. Many comic book readers are collectors, they have long boxes full of comics. For those who have switched over to the Brave New World of digital comics they are now in a situation where they have all of their new issues on their Ipad, Android or Laptop, and all their old issues in paper (to be called floppies for the rest of the column.)  It’s like having some of you favorite movies on VHS tape and some on Blu-Ray.  Indeed that is a very apt analogy. The movie industry realized that for people to adopt the new technologies of DVD or Blu Ray they had to reissue classic films in the new formats.  It worked and people adopted these technologies. There was one other thing that the movie studios did, the lowered the price on these classics to basically the cost of burning and printing the disc and the disc sleeves. Continue reading Direct Current 2.0 →

Episode 358 is here! Epic Man of Steel Chat with Art Lyon!

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Episode 358: EPIC MAN OF STEEL EPISODE! Sean and Jim are joined by long time friend of the show, Art Lyon. This is the second of a two part discussion with Art. We discuss Man of Steel. There are also a number of listener voicemail comments relating to the film. There is also a quick voicemail about Green Arrow and Forever Evil rumors.

Listener voicemails from Brandon, Jay, D’Angelo, Eli, and Hugo.

Show Notes:

0:00 Show opening, http://www.heroinitiative.org, http://www.DCBService.com, http://www.Instocktrades.com,  show voicemail line 1-440-388-4434 or drnorge on Skype,and more.

Show contact info and web site: http://0nm.a46.mywebsitetransfer.com

4:05 Man of Steel

1:46:25 Voicemails

2:55:25 Show Closing (Hawkman song by friends of the show “Wednesday Heroes”) http://wednesdayheroes.com/wordpress/

We’ll be back next week with our next episode.  Check Ragingbullets.com, Twitter and our Facebook group for regular updates.

Art Lyon

http://artlyon.wordpress.com/

Superman on Broadway

http://www.supermanhomepage.com/other/other.php?topic=w-broadway

Bob Holiday

http://supermanbobholiday.com/

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Direct Currents 2.0 Week of July 17th, 2013

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Direct Current 2.0

Week of July 17, 2013

Where the new guy introduces himself and Bewares’ the Batman!

Welcome one and all to the first of what I hope to be many weekly columns focusing on the DC Universe. My thanks go to Sean and Jim for letting me use a little corner of the internet to ruminate on DC Comics, its past, it’s present and what I hope will be its future.  Before we start that however let me fill you in a little about who I am and how I got here.

My name, like the great Sensi is also Jim. I am 49 this year and live in Maine with my great wife Clarissa, two wonderful children and two grandchildren, along with 2 semi psychotic dogs.

I started collecting comics back in the early seventies and had a pretty good collection going by the time I went to college back in 1981. Then like many collectors I know, disaster struck, and my collection was destroyed by a huge force of nature, my mother. I am sure many of you can relate to the fact that parents have more destructive power when it comes to collections then the Joker and Lex Luthor combined! A small part of the collection survived and I built that back up until I had over 30,000 individual issues at the beginning of this year. But that’s another story, one that I hope to get into in the next few weeks as I want to discuss take the rise of digital comics and the comparative disaster that is the back issue market place.

During the 90’s and up until 2009 I was a frequent customer at numerous comic shops in New England and began to discover that I was a fairly unique comic fan. While I did collect comics from other companies (Marvel, Dynamite, Charton, First, to name a few) I was a DC Fan. Marvel fans then, as well as now, were a huge part of comics fandom, DC fans were not as prevalent.

I took it upon myself to evangelize for DC Comics. In the early part of the 21st century I was given the opportunity to work for the website Toonzone (http://www.toonzone.com) as a forum administrator in their comics’ forum. I began to review comics, or perhaps over review them! In some instances my reviews went to almost 17 pages. That was a lot of work, but I loved it. Every single review I did was of a DC Comic. I started talking about DC Direct as well.

After 2 years at Toonezone I moved over to a new site, Comics News International, which no longer exists as far as I can tell. I was there for the launch as the General Editor and Chief reporter.  I lasted there about 6 months when I realized that I was spending more time working with them, and less with my family. Continue reading Direct Currents 2.0 Week of July 17th, 2013 →

Episode 357 is up: Art Lyon joins us to discuss Phantom Stranger!

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Episode 357: Sean and Jim are joined by long time friend of the show, Art Lyon. We discuss his recent work on Phantom Stranger 6 and 7. This is the first of a 2 part show feature Art. He will be joining us to discuss Man of Steel on 358.

Listener voicemails return next episode.

Show Notes:

0:00 Show opening, http://www.heroinitiative.org, http://www.DCBService.com, http://www.Instocktrades.com,  show voicemail line 1-440-388-4434 or drnorge on Skype,and more.

Show contact info and web site: http://0nm.a46.mywebsitetransfer.com

2:50 Phantom Stranger 6 and 7 and more

1:21:38 Show Closing (Hawkman song by friends of the show “Wednesday Heroes”) http://wednesdayheroes.com/wordpress/

We’ll be back next week with our next episode.  Check Ragingbullets.com, Twitter and our Facebook group for regular updates.

Art Lyon

http://artlyon.wordpress.com/

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Episode 356 is up: Green Lantern 21, New Guardians 21, Green Lantern Corps 21, Listener Voicemails, some Batman 21 and more!

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Episode 356: Sean is joined by friends of the show Myron Rumsey and Jamie Dunst for a two part Green Lantern catch up! This second part looks at Green Lantern 21, New Guardians 21 and Green Lantern Corps 21.We also talk a little Batman 21 and classic Green Arrow via listener voicemail!

Listener voicemails from Hugo and Brandon.

Show Notes:

0:00 Show opening, http://www.heroinitiative.org, http://www.DCBService.com, http://www.Instocktrades.com,  show voicemail line 1-440-388-4434 or drnorge on Skype,and more.

Show contact info and web site: http://0nm.a46.mywebsitetransfer.com

3:21 Green Lantern 22, NG 21, GLC 21

1:00:44 Voicemails

1:30:32 Show Closing (Hawkman song by friends of the show “Wednesday Heroes”) http://wednesdayheroes.com/wordpress/

We’ll be back next week with our next episode.  Check Ragingbullets.com, Twitter and our Facebook group for regular updates.

Myron Rumsey

http://www.blogofoa.com/

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