With the news, as seen in the press release below, that the comiXology main app has charted once again as the top grossing app for the entire Apple App Store for six Wednesday’s in a row, the day that new comic books are released, we have to ask the question – Are the manga publishers missing out? With a lot of buzz around comiXology and the way the major US comic book publishers are working with them, manga is virtually absent here outside of the brief flirtation that TOKYOPOP did with them regarding Hetalia. Other than that, there’s very little to look at in the app when it comes to manga. At present, the manga publishers like Viz Media, Yen Press, Dark Horse and Digital Manga are doing their own thing with their own apps, which we heartily endorse. At the same time, what we also want to see is for publishers to make sure that the content that they’re releasing gets into as many retail channels as possible. It’s great to have your own branded app that you control completely, but the more you segment yourself off, especially as you get top tier apps like comiXology out there (and we do want competition to them, from Graphic.ly and want DC Comics and Marvel to work more with them as well), from the manga side they’re losing a chance to get their books looked at by a larger audience.
We’re big, big advocates of digital manga and comics and want to see them get as wide a reach as possible. And one of the ways to do that is to view comiXology, Graphic.ly and others as what they truly are – App Stores of their own. They’re another Amazon, Things From Another World and Midtown Comics. Just digital. And the manga publishers are not getting their books any eyeballs, unlike how they might at the local comic book store that stocks some volumes or the local bookstore itself, if it even exists.
The numbers themselves aren’t out as the publishers are keeping sales figures to themselves, but there’s something to b said when the biggest app out there bringing in revenue is a comic book app. And comic books are currently at their lowest circulation numbers, well, ever. But they’re seeing new audience, new eyes and a new casual push. Will the manga publishers try to get in on that, getting their product out to as many people as possible, or will they continue to cater to just those that already know about them?
October 27th, 2011 – New York, NY – Yesterday marked the sixth Wednesday in a row that the Comics by comiXology app charted as the top grossing iPad app in Apple’s entire App Store — beating out Apple’s own Pages and Keynote applications. Long known as “new comic book day” to print comic fans across the nation, Wednesday has now become an online comic book event thanks to more and more publishers going digital same day as print with new releases available on the Comics by comiXology iPad app.
Created by comiXology, the leading distributor of digital comics, the Comics by comiXology app on iPad is just one part of the Comics by comiXology ecology — also available on theiPhone, Android, and the Web — offering more than 14,000 comic books from top-selling publishers.
“When have comic books, not comic book movies, not comic book merchandise, but the actual comic books been #1 in anything, much less high tech?” asked comiXology co-founder and CEO David Steinberger. “Being the number one grossing iPad application six Wednesdays in a row isn’t just a huge milestone for comiXology, but a huge milestone for comics as a medium…and we could not be prouder.”
Through a quirk of history and economics, comic books for the last thirty some odd years have been a destination item, sought out by a hard-core fan following and serviced by a dedicated group of independent retail brick and mortar stores. And while this network of stores rescued the comic book industry from near oblivion as newsstands disappeared in the 1970s, the unfortunate byproduct was that if you didn’t live near a comic shop or actually go to a comic shop, you would most likely be denied the experience and enjoyment of comic books — one of the great American art forms.
But this has all changed with the debut of Comics by comiXology.
“Our main goal since day one was to expand the audience for comic books. The medium has long been the inspiration for movies and imagery from comic books can be seen on everything from t-shirts to toothbrushes — but most people have not experienced the actual source material,” said comiXology co-founder and CTO John Roberts. “ComiXology was created to correct that wrong. David and I saw the opportunity to use digital distribution as a way to “unleash” this great medium on a largely unsuspecting public — and being ranked #1 for the last six weeks shows that we have met that goal.”
Comics by comiXology rose up the top grossing iPad apps chart beginning early September with the 3.0 release of the Comics by comiXology app. This was immediately followed by the launch of DC Comics – The New 52, where leading comic book publisher DC Entertainment released 52 all-new number one issues that became top sellers in both print and digital. Other major publishers have quickly followed suit, committing to a same day as print release schedule.
ComiXology most recently announced the addition of IDW Publishing, one of the top independent comic book publishers in North America, to their platform.
And while September has seen record sales of comics through the iPad, September has also seen record print sales — bucking the conventional wisdom that “print is dead” and showing that print and digital can both grow the comic book reading market standing side-by-side.
“It’s great to take a moment and reflect that one of our big goals of being a leader in the comic book industry has been met,” David Steinberger reflected. “But that doesn’t mean we can rest on our laurels. All I can say is… you ain’t seen nothing yet!”
