Kindle Fire and DC

Amazon and DC have announced that DC digital comics will be available exclusively for the Kindle Fire, their new...well, I don't know what exactly it is. Media tablet? Their new thing.

Shortly thereafter, Barnes & Noble announced that they will no longer carry DC books in their stores, including older stuff like Watchmen and the like.

So who did the right thing?

Okay, it's clear that both companies are only out for themselves. Amazon wants exclusivity to the point that their tablet is like a VIP room, just without the g-string women. Unless maybe they plan to carry back issues of Gen 13, in which case I would have a whole new understanding of what the fuck the point of this thing is.

Barnes & Noble can pretend to be on the side of the consumer, but the truth is that their Nook Color is just about the only thing that kept them going the way of Borders, and they want to defend their turf.

In this case, I'm coming down on the side of the big BN. It sucks because it will greatly reduce my consumerism, aka sitting at a table and reading shit for free. But I think that DC/Amazon made a move and BN was forced to react, sort of like when my girlfriend tickles me and I'm forced to diarrhea.

I think that Amazon might not understand the monthly comic-buying audience. Here, from what I can tell, are the three most common ways monthly readers get their shit:

1. Comic specialty shops.
2. Ordering directly.
3. Torrent.

That number 3 there is the really important one. Why in the hell would I buy a Kindle Fire when I could use whatever tablet I may have and read the entirety of Detective Comics for free? Or, as most torrentors discover, have them available to read and never, ever do so? Also free.

The Kindle Fire looks kind of rad, don't get me wrong, but I just can't picture someone saying, "Hey, comics are like $3 and I am sort of into those. You know what I would like to do? Spend a couple hundos to get a tablet, then pay for digital issues." You know what I would do with $199? Buy $199 worth of comics, which I would also then have the option of adding to a PHYSICAL collection, by the way. Yeah, I'm telling you right now, a digital comics collection is officially uncool. Completely, totally, not cool. And it never will be. A collection of files? What are you, an accountant?

All this publisher exclusivity is stupid, and who suffers? Readers. What's next, comic stores having to pick between publishers the way restaurants have to pick between Pepsi and Coke? Nobody is going to tell a waiter to fuck off when he says, "Pepsi okay?" but truthfully, Pepsi not okay. And if I order Amazing Spider-Man and someone says, "Legion of Superheroes okay?" I would absolutely say, "No. And fuck off."

Rather than trying to bury their books in a niche, publishers should be doing the work of making the best possible books. Going back to the Pepsi/Coke analogy, you can trap people in a restaurant, but when they go to the grocery store and choose, that's the real test of good product, and that's the market you should be capturing.

Write the best comics and it won't matter where you're exclusive. Quit making bullshit business moves, start writing.