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Feb. 18th, 2004 05:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
clayhornikI've recently downloaded a Britney Spears song. I can't help it. Toxic, her most recent single (I guess) has all the umph and glitter of a Bond theme song. I suppose the video helps that preconception, but I think it's my favourite non Bond Bondsong since Blondie's For Your Eyes Only. It's the faux strings and twangy guitars, I guess. I know I can listen to it over and over without it becoming annoying.
The thing is, I downloaded it legally. I've joined iTunes, since you can get music just by getting lucky with a Pepsi bottle cap. So far, my downloads have been Bowie's Putting Out the Fire, from Cat People, Toxic, and Siouxie & The Banshees love theme from Batman Returns, Face to Face.
All of my "morally gray" downloads have been pdf texts lately. Lot's of comic books, some seventies vintage- All Star Comics #62 from 1976 (one of the first comics I ever bought. I got it at a 7-11 about a mile from where I live now, a block from where my grandmother lived at the time; I can still remember sitting in her bedroom reading it. Damn)- and a few a little more recent, like Transmetropolitan 1-3. I've also picked up a few real books, like Gibson's Neuromancer and Mitnick's The Art of Deception. I have the dead tree editions of all of these, and the trade paperback edition of Transmet, so I feel... not morally justified, just less guilty, about downloading them.
The author has/will receive his royalties from the purchase of the books, and I've got a much more portable edition to take with me.
The comics are another matter. Most of the stuff I've been downloading comic-wise, aside from the Ellis stuff, are more than likely created under a work for hire contract. Ellis owns Transmet, lock stock and barrel, but All Star Comics was created by a writer and artist who were paid for their work. Odds are their contract didn't make provisions for reprints, as trade collections were unimagined back in the seventies, except for the odd nostalgia pieces like Jules Pfeiffer's The Great Comic Book Heros and the "30's to the 70's" reprint collections from Crown and DC, featuring Superman, Batman, and Shazam. So the creators did their work, got their checks and went home. The work went out onto the magazine racks, and if not pulled, after thirty days, stripped for credit and destroyed.
Now a days, however, with the direct market, there's a greater longevity for comics, and there's a huge market for trade paperback editions.
These things are a brave new market which the comic book publishers are still discovering. Trade paperbacks serve a multitude of purposes.
In the case of the recent launching of The Teen Titans and The Outsiders at DC, they sold out their initial print runs of the early issues quickly. The trade paperbacks for these, collecting the first six issues of each, serve as a good entry point into the series, especially since the first couple of issues are difficult to find.
The recent development of comic as serialized novels is the best use of the trades, Ellis's Transmetropolitan being an excellent example. However, the grandfather of the trade collection, however has to be Neil Gaiman's The Sandman. Covering seventy-five issues in a series of ten trades, The Sandman is actually on huge novel, spanning several years worth of time in the life of Morpheus, the personification of Dreams. The books have gone through multiple printings and cover changes, just like ‘real' paperbacks. The compact nature of the books makes for a better means of collecting rather than the individual issues.
Trades are a double edged sword, however. I started collecting Gaiman's 1602 when it came out, but lagged behind eventually. I've decided to hold off finishing the series, opting to get the trade when it comes out.
As compact as the trades are, however, they do not begin to compare to the portability of the pdf format. I recently introduced several people to Transmet by emailing them a copy of the first issue. Not workable with the single copy, and I never lend my trades. But e-comics allow for the spreading of the gospel, and if they like, then they can go out and pick up the trade.
-end of rambling-
-begin insanity-
Hungry. Haven't eaten in over twenty-four hours now. No real reason. Complete lack of ambition. Hunger isn't enough motivator to leave apartment. Apartment safe... world outside... scary. But I can be scary too. Soon, I will feed. Beware.
-end insanity-
begin worship:
Warren Ellis's website is up again, and looking lovely.
Plink's music hasn't stopped playing on my computer for three days. Soothing. Go, Listen.
-end worship-
begin boring stuff:
I'm re-doing my webpage. Big Grand reopening soon. Pardon the dust.
The thing is, I downloaded it legally. I've joined iTunes, since you can get music just by getting lucky with a Pepsi bottle cap. So far, my downloads have been Bowie's Putting Out the Fire, from Cat People, Toxic, and Siouxie & The Banshees love theme from Batman Returns, Face to Face.
All of my "morally gray" downloads have been pdf texts lately. Lot's of comic books, some seventies vintage- All Star Comics #62 from 1976 (one of the first comics I ever bought. I got it at a 7-11 about a mile from where I live now, a block from where my grandmother lived at the time; I can still remember sitting in her bedroom reading it. Damn)- and a few a little more recent, like Transmetropolitan 1-3. I've also picked up a few real books, like Gibson's Neuromancer and Mitnick's The Art of Deception. I have the dead tree editions of all of these, and the trade paperback edition of Transmet, so I feel... not morally justified, just less guilty, about downloading them.
The author has/will receive his royalties from the purchase of the books, and I've got a much more portable edition to take with me.
The comics are another matter. Most of the stuff I've been downloading comic-wise, aside from the Ellis stuff, are more than likely created under a work for hire contract. Ellis owns Transmet, lock stock and barrel, but All Star Comics was created by a writer and artist who were paid for their work. Odds are their contract didn't make provisions for reprints, as trade collections were unimagined back in the seventies, except for the odd nostalgia pieces like Jules Pfeiffer's The Great Comic Book Heros and the "30's to the 70's" reprint collections from Crown and DC, featuring Superman, Batman, and Shazam. So the creators did their work, got their checks and went home. The work went out onto the magazine racks, and if not pulled, after thirty days, stripped for credit and destroyed.
Now a days, however, with the direct market, there's a greater longevity for comics, and there's a huge market for trade paperback editions.
These things are a brave new market which the comic book publishers are still discovering. Trade paperbacks serve a multitude of purposes.
In the case of the recent launching of The Teen Titans and The Outsiders at DC, they sold out their initial print runs of the early issues quickly. The trade paperbacks for these, collecting the first six issues of each, serve as a good entry point into the series, especially since the first couple of issues are difficult to find.
The recent development of comic as serialized novels is the best use of the trades, Ellis's Transmetropolitan being an excellent example. However, the grandfather of the trade collection, however has to be Neil Gaiman's The Sandman. Covering seventy-five issues in a series of ten trades, The Sandman is actually on huge novel, spanning several years worth of time in the life of Morpheus, the personification of Dreams. The books have gone through multiple printings and cover changes, just like ‘real' paperbacks. The compact nature of the books makes for a better means of collecting rather than the individual issues.
Trades are a double edged sword, however. I started collecting Gaiman's 1602 when it came out, but lagged behind eventually. I've decided to hold off finishing the series, opting to get the trade when it comes out.
As compact as the trades are, however, they do not begin to compare to the portability of the pdf format. I recently introduced several people to Transmet by emailing them a copy of the first issue. Not workable with the single copy, and I never lend my trades. But e-comics allow for the spreading of the gospel, and if they like, then they can go out and pick up the trade.
-end of rambling-
-begin insanity-
Hungry. Haven't eaten in over twenty-four hours now. No real reason. Complete lack of ambition. Hunger isn't enough motivator to leave apartment. Apartment safe... world outside... scary. But I can be scary too. Soon, I will feed. Beware.
-end insanity-
begin worship:
Warren Ellis's website is up again, and looking lovely.
Plink's music hasn't stopped playing on my computer for three days. Soothing. Go, Listen.
-end worship-
begin boring stuff:
I'm re-doing my webpage. Big Grand reopening soon. Pardon the dust.
