We've been teasing it all week, and now we are but one day away from Nathaniel and Alex's Epic NYCC 2011 Recap©. We'll kick things off tomorrow with a (lengthy and somewhat rambling) part one, and then wrap it up over the weekend.
But since that's taken us a bit of time to compile, today I have something much shorter but (I think, anyway) just as interesting.
Yesterday, the New York Times did a piece on the battle between Barnes & Noble and DC Comics. I talked about the issue about a week ago, but the gist of it is this.
DC has gone exclusive with 100 of their top-selling graphic novels (including The Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen, and the entire Sandman library), giving the digital rights to Amazon and their new Kindle Fire.
This angered Barnes & Noble, as they also have a digital reader. And while the nook probably won't be able to compete with the Fire in the long term (or even the short term, if you ask me), B&N was justifiably annoyed with DC's move.
You see, DC had been in negotiations with B&N about getting their books on the nook. Those talks had started and stopped a few times and DC wisely jumped on a much bigger, better horse with the Fire.
The problem?
Barnes & Noble responded by yanking all 100 of the DC/Fire exclusives from their brick and mortar stores, thus delivering a major blow to DC's ability to sell outside of comics shops.
What makes this move so significant--other than the fact that you won't be able to buy a huge chunk of Frank Miller, Neil Gaiman, and Alan Moore's work at bookstores--is the fact that exclusivity between publishers and distributors (and, really, folks, they're both retailers as well) has become the hot button issue in publishing.
So much so that, as I mentioned, the New York Times weighed in on the matter.
Sure, they might be a whole week behind Exfanding in terms of picking up on the story, but we won't hold that against them. So go ahead--have a read. It's fascinating stuff.
Back tomorrow with the Recap to End All Recaps.
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