Last year around this time Top Cow announced their plans to win you over in 2009 by keeping the price of their regular series comics at $2.99. How do they plan to keep you a fan of the Cow in 2010? The answer is on the device in front of you, whether it be a PC, Mac, iPhone, Blackberry or something similar. Top Cow has an aggressive, multi-platform digital distribution plan in place and all of the details are in the press release below. I am new to the smartphone world and am very happy that I will be able to get some very early and recently sold out Top Cow books for free and pay-per-download and I am very interested to see where they take this throughout the year. Might Top Cow be the first to offer an online digital subscriptions for new books? That remains to be seen, but this certainly opens the door. Stay tuned for more from Top Cow and Pop Culture Zoo on this.
Top Cow Productions, Inc. proudly announced today that the publisher has partnered with comiXology, iVerse Media, WOWIO, Amazon.com and Longbox Digital to distribute their digital comics on mobile, portable and desktop readers.
The move is in direct response to requests from fans and in an effort to tap into a new growth market. The publisher plans to focus on primarily archival material and sold out issues of recent series. The first of Top Cow’s digital comics will be available beginning tomorrow, December 10th, 2009.
Top Cow’s digital comics have been optimized and reformatted for mobile devices and desktop computers, such as Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s iPhone. The publisher will have numerous first issues and entry point issues available for free, as well as a pay-per-download.
“Top Cow is very excited to have our titles available on multiple platforms,” said Top Cow publisher, Filip Sablik. “The potential to reach out and connect to a new audience and hopefully drive those new readers to physical comic book stores are all driving forces for this coordinated push. And partnering with comiXology, iVerse, WOWIO, Amazon and Longbox ensures we’re using the most up-to-date technology to provide our readers with an easy, accessible and satisfying experience.”
The move follows the mobile digital distribution of The Darkness/Pitt #1 on the iPhone made available through comiXology’s ‘Comics’ iPhone application.
“In many cases, we will be able to make recently sold out issues of comics available digitally right before the following issue comes out in direct market stores and encourage new fans to continue reading the story at their local comic shop,” added Sablik, “We’re value our direct market partners a great deal and are taking measured steps to ensure we help grow our business with them, rather than cannibalizing sales.”
Top Cow will release the following titles for the month of December for free: Witchblade #1, Wanted #1, The Darkness/Pitt #1 (already available on Comics by comiXology), Witchblade #80, Tracker First Look, The Darkness Volume 3 #1, Berserker #0, Impaler Volume 2 #1, Hunter-Killer #1 and The Darkness Volume 1 #1. Each week will see new issues available for fans to download.
For the month of January, the additional titles will be made available including: Witchblade #2-8, Wanted #2-6, The Darkness/Pitt #2, Witchblade #81, The Darkness Volume 3 #2, Witchblade #82, Tracker #1, The Darkness Volume 3 #3, Impaler Volume 1 #1, Witchblade #83, Berserker #1, The Darkness Volume 3 #4, Impaler Volume 2 #2, Impaler Volume 1 #2-6, Witchblade #84, Hunter-Killer #2-12, The Darkness Volume 3 #5 and The Darkness Volume 1 #2-6.