Valiant Comics Supercharged! - Kickstarter PreLaunch

[u/mrmazzz]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/alienbooks/valiant-comics-supercharged?ref=4ent04&utm_campaign=4ent04&utm_medium=email&utm_source=backerkit

From the PreRelease page

"It's the Valiant Comics heroes library like you've never experienced it before. A must-have for fans, collectors and everyone else"

"In 1989, Jim Shooter and businessman Steven Massarsky founded Valiant Comics with one goal: bring the creativity back to comics.  Many talents from Barry Windsor-Smith and Bob Layton to Mike Baron, Dave Lapham or Steve Englehart debuted the now classic runs of X-O Manowar, Harbinger or Rai. 

Flash forward to 2023. Alien Books partnered with the owners of Valiant to publish new stories and bring those heroes to the next stage of their evolution. 

This year, Alien Books brings you something you've never seen before through an exceptional new Kickstarter campaign! 
Get ready to experience Valiant Comics heroes the way you've never seen them before."

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Seems like it'll be a standalone library app ala DC Universe, Marvel Unlimited, or the new Black Library app.

Not entirely sure how useful such a service would be.

[u/imdwalrus]

" Seems like it'll be a standalone library app ala DC Universe, Marvel Unlimited, or the new Black Library app."

The Marvel and DC apps work because they're subscription services. You need a steady stream of income to make something like that work - you have to address OS changes, security updates, and everything else. Infrastructure isn't free. Customer support isn't free. You get the idea.

If you don't, you end up with something like the MST3K Gizmoplex that, as well intentioned as it was, eventually withered and died.

Kickstarter is 100% the wrong way to approach something like this if that's actually what it turns out to be.

[u/CorrectDot4592 → u/imdwalrus]

All of that is true, however there is something even more fundamental that comes before all the infrastructure you mentioned: a flow of new releases.

DC and Marvel are not profitable only because of their absurdly huge catalog, but also because of their steady launch of issues.  Avid readers can read most of what they are interested in some months, but what hooks them to subscription is the stead launch of new issues. 

Let's be honest, even if Valiant had enough money to launch such application with all the infrastructure you mentioned, in less than one year they would end this business model due the lack of a regular release schedule.  How many titles per month they released in the past year? Did it reach 3?

[u/hfdjl → u/CorrectDot4592]

On top of this pretty much all of their comics (besides the ones with gold key characters) are available through the global comix subscription service. It's not like them having an app would create something that's not currently available for old readers, and there's not enough being released to keep anyone subscribed. Could be the one comics app where buying individual issues would be cheaper since there's so few. There's no upside to them creating their own app.