With all the craze of comics going digital these days most people will agree that there’s still nothing like having an actual book in your hands. This goes for all media that is produced digitally these days and it’s going to take a long time for our society as a whole to detach themselves from the tactile objects that clutter their homes to the digital impulses filling up their hard drives. Being an old-school analog digital hybrid myself, I spend a lot of my time online reading comics and also offline reading, what else, comics. This is the fact for many comic book fans so it’s a no-brainer that successful digital comics are finding their way to print. This isn’t something new. Digital comics have been transitioning to print probably ever since Al Gore created the internet but most recently it’s starting to become a noticeable trend. Take a look at all the major comic book publishers out there and almost all of them have a digital comics presence and many of them offer digital comics exclusively online. This gives publishers the time to build a following and a fan-base that they can cash in on when going to print.

One publisher I talked to recently told me before they even solicit a book for print they have to market the book online for at least 3 months. He said they only do this though for the books they think already have some kind of marketing appeal. For other riskier titles they are offering creators the chance to put their comics online first and then see where it goes. Comics going online before they go to print doesn’t work all the time but some publishers are starting to feature some of their flagship creators’ books online to push their marketing machines into overdrive. Avatar recently featured a webcomic by Warren Ellis called FreakAngels online and immediately published a trade when enough pages were up. That comic would have probably done alright without the digital comics campaign but having the pages up online helped create awareness of the title and that translates to sales which translates to happy comic book creators.

I have to say that putting up a coming online for free is definitely a risky prospect for aspiring comic book creators. For one, you don’t know if all your time invested in the project will pay off in the long run. Two, it’s a lot of work to update your site, market your comic, hit message boards and going to cons. Which brings me to the last point, you’re doing it all for the love of comics. Which is code for… you are working for free. Don’t fret though, there is still a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for good comics who know how to make a name for themselves. If you’ve got the goods and work hard there is a chance you could make your way into the select few web comics that people will actually read and might even be willing to for over some cash for. You never know what can happen on the web.

Here’s just a couple examples of web comics that will be going analog:

Image/Shadowline started a webcomics imprint recently by publishing various webcomics to “test the waters”  and it seems to be working well. Just recently it was announced that their first wecomic series to go to print will be the highly successful Platinum Grit.

CBR featured an article this week with Jeremy Love, the creator of Bayou,where he talks about the release of his comic as a trade this May,  the first comics from DC’s online imprint Zuda comics to make the jump to analog. High Moon and Night Owls, two other great comics on Zuda will most likely make announcements soon about print version as well.

Platinum Grit by Trudy Cooper and Danny Murphy.

Bayou by Jeremy Love

This list will probably be growing in the next year or so and I’ll be keeping a close eye on the market for future columns. For now, I must depart …I have my own web comics to make.