(Re)examining the attitudes of comic book store patrons in the digital era

As digital comic book consumption continues to rise in popularity, the comic book community appears conflicted over the effects that digital scans have on the meaning of collecting and reading comic books. Historically, comic ownership served as the locus of comic fan social capital; will digital sc...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: J. Richard Stevens, Christopher E. Bell
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Organization for Transformative Works 2015-09-01
Series:Transformative Works and Cultures
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.3983/twc.2015.0678
Description
Summary:As digital comic book consumption continues to rise in popularity, the comic book community appears conflicted over the effects that digital scans have on the meaning of collecting and reading comic books. Historically, comic ownership served as the locus of comic fan social capital; will digital scans hold the same cultural capital as printed books? And does postpurchased digital scan dissemination primarily hurt copyright holders through lost sales, or does it help through social promotion? Building on an analysis of fan attitudes toward digital comic book texts, we seek to account for the limitations of locality by surveying the attitudes of comic book store patrons concerning their attitudes toward physical and digital comic book texts.
ISSN:1941-2258
1941-2258