Totally get you! I’m a big fan of physical books myself. There’s just something about holding them in hand. Lucky for me, my nearest comic book store is just a mile away, but I can understand not everyone has that convenience.
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Or what they had available to scan. Sometimes you need a good source to clean up, or else it’s fuzzy pdfs or cbz files. I like older material, but I also would like that older martial to look as best as it can.
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As someone who has actually done research on this, there is not really a huge difference in terms for the environment in the short term. I can’t remember the exact numbers my study came up with (it’s out there somewhere, Google it). Basically, if you buy a device to read on, it is environmentally equivalent to I think a few thousand 250 page novels (bindings are the reason for not just doing pages). That’s a lot of comics.
Now digital is rapidly becoming greener while paper is not. I’m not discouraging anyone from either choice, just sharing something I found interesting.
Me too! There are two Lego DC threads on here! You should pop in sometime.
I personally prefer print. That said, I normally read in mass on things like Marvel Unlimited or DCUI. If there is something I want to own, I’ll buy it in trade over singles if possible to save space. There are exceptions but that’s my general practice.
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Paper! I still like something tangible and in my hands! The only digital thing I’ve gone to is music, and that’s it. I still want my movies physical since they can take that down anytime they want.
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I like reading comics a lot more than owning them, so I primarily read digital. That said, the experience of reading a comic physically in your hands is something special, so I regularly go to a bookstore or library to have that experience.
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Here’s one personal downside to going digital these past few years. When I go to a convention and see all the discounted trades or dollar bins, I don’t get the same rush I used to because I know I don’t have space for anything and I could probably get it on DC Universe Infinite or Comixology. There used to be a time I’d go crazy at conventions, buying what I could with the money I had. I remember one particular year I spent about sixty dollars on fifty cent books…but I did walk out with a near complete run of Justice League International and Justice League Europe. I don’t have that anymore at conventions. That’s kind of a bummer.
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That’s a good point! Sometimes digital can be a catalyst to get you into buying physical copies.
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I switched to e-books for prose over a decade ago, when the amount of books I read became simply too cumbersome to store, let alone repeatedly move cross-country. (Fun fact – a large backpack packed absolutely solid with all the the non-textbook novels you couldn’t possibly leave behind when going to college plus your laptop looks like “a huge block of undifferentiated material with electronics attached to it” on an X-ray machine and will get the TSA really excited.) I reserve physical copies for stuff I really want, and I get them in hardcover if possible.
My comics reading has always been all-digital all the time. First, because I’m hard on my belongings, and a physical single issue is simply not going to survive acquaintanceship with me. Second, I’ve never had access to a good LCS – certainly didn’t at the peak of my DC fandom in college. Maybe someday when I have room for more than one bookshelf, I’ll acquire more TPBs and graphic novels (especially if DC ever gets around to collecting the rest of Connor Hawke’s run) but right now, the only comic book I own in dead tree format is the Certified Murder Weapon hardcover version of the Digger Unearthed 10th Anniversary Omnibus.
As for the carbon footprint of a digital device – I do my reading at home on my desktop, and away on my phone, both devices I’d own and use anyway.
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