Continuity Free Reading

Wednesdays tend to be difficult for blogging, mainly because I get busy doing other things and therefore spend less time letting my brain kick out whatever thoughts may actually congeal into a semi-coherent post. Last Wednesday was an exception since we did almost zero business and I was particularly annoyed by Diamond, so not much thought was necessary.

In general, however, the day is well past half over by the time I finish setting up the new comics section, updating the New Release books and Best Sellers, shifting inventory to make room for those books that fall out of those two categories, rearranging our display table, sending the weekly e-mail to Diamond detailing what we've been shorted that week, pulling our Reserve members titles, and oh yeah, helping/ringing up customers.

That said, yesterday Larry Young made Continuity, AIT/PlanetLar's first new release in months (outside of a Sky Ape one shot) available for free online. The title is solicited in the April Previews and is therefore not due to hit shelves until June. I expected to see quite a bit more reaction to this as a business decision, particularly regarding the question of whether scans of comics being illegally available online help or hurt sales (or make little to no difference) and whether this is the wave of the future. Personally it's an experiment I'm glad to see take place, and while it is an approach I would expect from AIT/PlanetLar, I'm a bit surprised that they're taking this risk after such a gap in their publishing schedule. But than, maybe there's not much of a risk since we're talking about relatively unknown creators rather than something like The Tourist.

As for the book itself, the scan is not exactly phenomenal, but it gets the job done without making the PDF too horribly unmanageable (though it still tops 11 MB). Didn't immediately hook me, but I do like the premise and will probably give it another shot when I get the chance. In the meantime, come on people, let's argue about whether this will backfire or not (and then about whether it's all much ado about nothing). Joanna Draper Carlson has already speculated a bit and offers her less than enthused view of the title, while Dorian at Postmodern Barney offers his much more impressed thoughts. But go judge for yourself.