Back To The Future: Tor.com Buys Book-Size Webcomics to Serialize
This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week November 3, 2009 Sign up now!
By Calvin Reid -- Publishers Weekly, 11/2/2009 4:26:00 PM
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| Dan Goldman |
The two works were acquired by Tor.com producer Pablo Defendini, who described the acquistions as part of Tor.com’s mandate to experiment with nontraditional publishing strategies. But he also emphasized that the acquisition also highlights how important and popular comics have become on the site, which he also said will be redesigned and relaunched in 2010..
“Tor.com is a separate entity from Tor Books and is an effort to explore nontraditional publishing strategies,” said Defendini. “Anything we consider for the site is definitely not for business as usual,” he said, emphasizing that “we may try some things that just might not work.” Tor.com was launched in 2008 and originally focused on orginal short stories in the sci-fi genre in addition to commissioning original webcomics. “We noticed right away that the comics were very popular,” said Defendini, who said the site’s redesign will “give comics a really big and popular profile.”
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| Jim Ottaviani |
However, the acquisition of web publishing rights for full length graphic novels is something new and Defendini said the site will consider publishing both works in print form. While he emphasized that Tor.com is a place for experimentation, he also acknowledged that the site recently published its first Print-On-Demand physical book, an anthology of fantasy short stories, some of which were launched through the site.
Indeed both Mecoy and Defendini were excited over the acquisition, calling it an updated publishing model that will use serialization to attract and build an audience for the finished books. “My clients decided to go with Tor.com because this model breaks new ground, or rather it’s a traditional model—the serial—used by Dickens and others over the years to attract new readers and build an audience,” Mecoy said. “We know that you can regularly release episodes of story telling that will not negatively impact the sales of the finished complete work. It’s the old becoming new again.”
