Digital Comics: Revisiting the “Future”

I love digital comics. Anyone who knows me knows that’s no secret. Truthfully, I am the perfect customer for digital comics. Unlike my partner-in-crime, I am not a comic book collector. I don’t buy comics and bag them and store them in boxes, in dark closets, never to read again. I don’t keep a spreadsheet of issues I own, cross-referenced by title, characters, and creators. I don’t have a pull list, and I don’t anxiously await Wednesdays. I read comics solely for the stories, and when I’m done with the stories, the comics often go into a stack in my closet, where I sometimes pull them out again months down the road and reread them, gaining new perspectives on the stories within. While I have great memories of brick and mortar stores, right now, in my life, at the moment, I am a horrible comic shop customer.

But, digital comics. Digital comics are made for me. They always have been. Four years ago, I wrote an entire essay on a different site arguing in favor of what I perceived to be the future of comic books: digital comics. In that piece, I wrote about the access that digital comics could offer, and the potential for savings for the consumer. I painted digital comics as a perfect utopia, the wonderful and glorious future we are destined for. You can read the whole piece over here. I’m not super pleased with it. I was young and shortsighted and not very good.