Comics writer Scott Snyder continued to profess there's a future for traditional print comics, and that digital media doesn't have to be in competition with it.
Snyder recently launched Best Jackett Press, his new creator-owned publishing imprint, and has a distribution model in mind for the publisher that includes staged releases for its digital and print output. Snyder explained the imprint's intent at this past weekend's New York Comic Con.
"The pandemic really made me think a lot about what kind of a player I wanted to be in comics, you know?" Snyder said. "I was working on these books, and initially, I would have probably released some to the direct market, some digitally. But when I saw how hard everybody was hit and stores closing and all of it, you realize like you want a healthier, stronger industry on the other side, right? And my belief is that digital and print are held in these competitive spaces for too long in this way that digital has to be the same price, it has to have the same content and has come out the same day."
"The way my kids and I think a lot of us consume entertainment these days, tell me if I'm wrong, is you browse it through streaming and if you want the collectible, the thing that you want for your shelf, the book, the album, vinyl, you get it," Snyder continued. "And that's how indie bookstores are having this boom. That's why comic stores, I think, are doing so well. A lot of people find stuff through Crunchyroll, and Shonen Jump, and you know, comiXology and Webtoons and all of that and then go buy it."
"So, we wanted to be part of that and be like, 'Look, this way you can pay one price, $5.99 for comiXology Unlimited, and then you get all the books for that price.' But the best part is that there's 40,000 plus comics on there -- Dark Knight Returns, Sandman -- stuff that made me want to write and then stuff by up and comers."
Best Jackett Press recently published its inaugural release, We Have Demons by Snyder and artist Greg Capullo, on ComiXology, and followed up with Clear by Snyder and Francis Manapul, with other releases to follow. Snyder previously stated that readers can enjoy the digital editions as ComiXology subscribers and that the print editions, from Dark Horse Comics, would later make their way into comic shops.
"So, that's why it'll just be like consecutive waves of books that you can have for just one price," Snyder said. "And then they come out in print from Dark Horse about six months after they come out digitally, so you can always get them that way as well."
Source: New York Comic Con