David Steinberger & Chip Mosher Interview - Neon Ichiban

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[00:00:55] Hello and welcome to Comic Book Yetis Cryptid Creator Corner. I'm one of your hosts, Jimmy Gasparo. And I'm very excited for the two guests that are on here today because we have a lot to talk about. Welcoming to the podcast, it is David Steinberger and Chip Mosher. If you are in any way involved in comics, reading comics in particular, especially digital comics, you might recognize those names.

[00:01:21] David Steinberger was one of the co-founders of Comixology. Chip Mosher had came on and joined him later. Now that the two of them are involved in Neon Ichiban, they recently rolled out version 3.0. And I was a big fan of Comixology. It's one of the reasons that I got back into reading comics. Not just because I had a great local shop, the comic book shop in Wilmington, Delaware, but also reading digital comics was a little bit easier for me.

[00:01:51] And I have recently checked out Neon Ichiban and I absolutely love the app. So this is kind of nice that I get to chat with folks that I use. They're not paying me for this, listeners. I use it. I really like it. And I'm very excited to talk about it. So, David, Chip, welcome to the podcast. He likes it. He likes it, David. He really likes it. Pretty happy about that. It's a good start.

[00:02:20] I think it's important to, you know, tell listeners like they don't they don't know if people come on here, if it were, you know, what the reasoning might be or if somebody is paying us or they're, you know, whatever. It'd be a very short podcast if you started out and said, I hate this app. Yeah, well, that's also true. I wouldn't be so effusive, though. I'd be like, hey, they got this thing and here it is. But I really, you know, I, I really like it. There's a number of of other, you know, there's another of other companies or competitors.

[00:02:49] I've been doing stuff out and doing things in terms of digital comics. I but I checked out Neon Ichiban. On me also mainly because my my wife has threatened me on a number of occasions that she that that comics are very flammable and I have too many. And so I'm getting back into reading more digitally. And yeah, love the in that purchases, guys. That's why you have to. That's why I have to marry a retailer.

[00:03:19] And then you and then you won't have that problem. So, well, yeah, engage to a retailer. Yeah. So why don't you tell us a little bit for listeners who aren't familiar at all? I don't know. David, David, do you want to start and just tell listeners a little bit about like your background and will kind of lead up to Neon Ichiban? Yeah, yeah.

[00:03:40] We'll put aside everything before 2006 or so when we started Comixology and really quickly we won a business plan competition trying to connect readers to their comic stores and what's coming out on Wednesday. And that turned into when the iPhone came out, Comixology, where we just thought there's this cool opportunity, this little piece of glass you could have in your pocket that now kind of rules our life. But at the time seemed like just a super cool way to read comics.

[00:04:05] And we happened to come up with a really great way of doing it, which was what we call a guided view, which was panel to panel so that before there's an iPad and you could read on bigger devices was just a great device for great way to read comics in the way they are, you know, scanned by your eye. You know, it's not exactly like reading a page, but for people who particularly for people who haven't read comics before, they learn how to read comics and a lot of time with something like guided view. And so Comixology became a really popular app.

[00:04:34] We ran Marvel's Marvel Comics app for 15 years. We ran DC Comics app for 13 years and we had the main Comixology app, which brought everybody together, all the publishers together. We were the top-grossing iPad app for a few years here in the U.S. Non-game, I should say. There were some games that topped us, but we were, I think, number two or number three out of total one year and number five or something another year, but only games ahead of us. And in 2014, Amazon bought us.

[00:05:01] We thought it would be a great place for us to do comics. And they gave Chip and I the opportunity to kind of lead worldwide, which was really fun. We had many great years there and added Comixology Originals, which Chip led, which is our original content line. We added Comixology Unlimited, which was a subscription line.

[00:05:20] And as probably many of your viewers know, towards the 2020s, we worked really hard to put the experience into the Kindle and to base the new Comixology off Kindle itself. Because we were writing code in two different platforms to get the comics to work the same way in both the Kindle and Comixology. And you could use your Amazon login across both in the DC app, too.

[00:05:45] And we were pushed to put it out too early. We didn't think it was ready. We were right. It wasn't ready. And it's never gotten ready. Unfortunately, the team at Comixology has been a part of two different layouts in the last few years. And it's literally gone. Like every employee that we had is no longer working for Amazon.

[00:06:07] And so when Chip and I left after that event in 2022, I think, 2022, we, and it was before, you know, the app was still running. And, you know, you can still read your comics on Kindle, but, you know, the experience just isn't a dedicated experience for comics fans. We've decided Chip was working on a publisher idea. And that's how Distillery Comics were born. And so Distillery is our publishing arm. We got a lot of really great books and incredible creators there.

[00:06:36] And then on the side, thank you. Yeah. Super proud of it. Yeah. A couple of Weisner winners. Like we really had a very good run with it so far. And then on the side, because I really wanted to, I really felt like we could do a bunch of stuff we could never do at Amazon. We decided, okay, this is an opportunity for us to test out. Like, could you sell variant covers? Variant covers were never sold in digital. People loved collecting variant covers. Could you change how a digital license should actually work? Just period.

[00:07:04] Like, could you revolutionize the idea that, like, when you pay for a digital license, that's something that you own like you own a book in physical. You can actually sell that license to somebody else at the price that you choose or that they agreed to pay for it. And so we thought, okay, let's start it with our own books and see if people like it. Do they like the idea that you have an edition number, that it's a collectible in some ways. The variant covers are only available for a certain amount of time and then you can resell it in the marketplace.

[00:07:32] But again, that kind of core idea that, you know, digital comic book buyers, and it sounds like you were one of them for comiXology, there's a lack of trust, I think, in the system at this point. And in the last five, ten years, there's been Kickstarter and Humble Bundle everywhere else where you're buying PDFs and DRN-free PDFs. And so what we wanted to do was make sure that you knew as a consumer what you were buying. So is this a resellable book?

[00:08:00] You can, Marvel in DC, you can buy a Marvel book for five bucks and turn around and sell it for three or get it signed by a creator, which is another thing we do. You can sign digital signed books that are one of one collectibles and sell it for more if you want on the marketplace. And then buy more comics, right? The second, and then, sorry, the third is downloadable. So PDF, DRN-free PDF. So not every publisher does it, but you know as a consumer what you're getting from us is that one of these three things, resellable, remarkable, downloadable.

[00:08:29] And we think that's super important. And distillery got to do that with our own books, our own really great books and test that out to see if it worked. And it did. So we get to expand that to Neon Ichiban. So that's our second, our new attempt at doing what we couldn't do at Amazon and trying to make dedicated comics and manga experience that people love. I mean, I love the experience so far, like checking it out.

[00:08:56] And it's funny, like being involved in comics with the podcast and being online and writing comics as well. I'm always surprised by the things that like I still miss. And as I still didn't kind of get the experience of the marketplace on Neon Incubon. But I thought, oh, yeah, it made a lot of sense.

[00:09:22] I like the idea that like, you know, you if you wanted to get rid of whatever your your digital books are, that you can do that. It was really easy to use. And so I thought that was that was kind of that was kind of cool. So I really like the idea of the marketplace. I don't know if any other apps or companies have have done that yet where I don't know. I haven't seen it. But but yeah, I thought the user experience was pretty. I thought the user experience was pretty great.

[00:09:52] Well, great. Great. Thank you so much. You super appreciate hearing that. Yeah, the the marketplace. I don't know if there's anything else like it out there. I mean, it's it's you know, I I mean, I I I co-founded Neon Incubon. So, you know, it feels a little weird saying this, but it's it's quite revolutionary approach to digital goods.

[00:10:20] You know, what we what we strive to do at Neon Incubon is to give the give the consumer, the fan the same utility with the digital comic that they would have with the actual print book. You know, with the print book, it comes with a license, just not attached to the book. You know, you can't you can't adapt the content, you know, to anything legally. Right. You can't you know, you can't Xerox copy the whole thing.

[00:10:50] You know, there's all these there's all these rules and laws, you know, regarding, you know, what you can do with a with a print book, print comic book. Uh, but with a, you know, as as comic fans have, you know, for time immemorial, you know, they bought a comic book, they could resell it. And we've, you know, and most of our publishers have opted into that.

[00:11:15] And so, you know, in a world where digital comic pricing is going to be the same as print, you know, having the ability to resell that digital comic and drive some from from secondary value out of it later down the road, I think is usually important.

[00:11:33] You know, especially, you know, especially when it comes to discovery, you know, it really enables the fans to take more risks in their purchasing because then they can, you know, if they decide they don't like it, they know they can do something else with it. You know, they can either if they have, you know, we have addition numbers on everything.

[00:11:54] Let's say they get a addition number 23 and you're a Illuminati weirdo that loves the number 23 and that's all the additions you're collecting. Right. Right. And so, so, you know, so maybe you could sell that $5.99 comic book for 10 bucks and then you take your, you take your ill gotten gains from the marketplace. And, you know, the one thing that you can do with it is buy more comics. So, you know, it's interesting.

[00:12:24] I think there's, I think there's a, there's a segment of the, especially like the very online comic book, you know, comic book fans that, that like feel like buying and selling comics or selling comics for more than what you bought them for is some kind of shameful activity.

[00:12:48] But, you know, you can't cash out like, you know, I've gotten, gotten some feedback online about, you know, oh, you know, you're really catering to speculation and, and it really, you know, certainly, you know, there is an ability to, to do speculation. But I think, I think really the, the, the core thing that we're seeing is people driving secondary value out of that initial purchase.

[00:13:16] And, and so, yeah, it's, it's, it's just, it's, it's fascinating to watch. Yeah, I'll give you an example. We were looking at it today and I think we could do a better job of getting the marketplace a little more front and center for people to get these bargains. But we have this behavior where you've got kind of the dollar bin where people are like, they paid three bucks for a book or four bucks for a book and they put it up for a dollar because they just, you know, they're, they not going to read the rest of the series or series is done and they aren't a collector. And they feel like they want to buy some more comics.

[00:13:46] And like we saw today in the most recently sold, which is a, which is on the site in the marketplace. There was, I can't remember the series, Chip, if you remember the series, it was like number one through seven, a dollar each. And somebody just gone through and went, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. For seven bucks, I got, I got all these issues, you know, and, and that's fun to see. And then you have the other end, which isn't a huge end, you know, we're talking, we've sold one thing for 150 bucks.

[00:14:08] But for the most part, we're selling in the, in the like seven to 15 range and people who have, who, you know, we have, we have some folks that have done signatures and sketches on books that, that get a little bit more. But then that creator is actually selling that book and getting 70% of the revenue, right? So creators that come on and, and do commissions where you can buy a signature for five bucks or me and Chip will do your signature for zero or three signatures on the site.

[00:14:34] But the idea, you know, being like you're supporting a, it was hard to figure out that price, but you know, I mean, David and I signatures is in high demand at conventions, but we really thought that zero was the right price. Yeah. I think I've signed two things in my entire life and don't like a star for it. Right. But we've signed more things digitally. Oh, way more than digitally. Right. Yeah. Way more digitally. Yeah. Sure.

[00:15:05] But, you know, like the idea that you can go to a convention and get a signature or you can do a commission online because you can't get to a convention and vice versa for a creator, right? Getting to a convention and signing stuff or doing it from home. Yeah. It's really cool. And it makes a few more bucks and you get to buy more manga and comics with it. Like, I just don't see any, any issues with that. And whether you're a collector or not, it works for all people. Yeah.

[00:15:29] Initially, it seemed like when, when I had heard some of the things that were being rolled out, like with distillery and then with the app, there was like a comparison. And I, I, having looked into it and read about it more like an unfair comparison to like NFTs, like that, that, which kind of like, uh, I feel like it, it, it came and went and maybe a few people made some money off of it.

[00:15:51] But, um, the idea of like the digital signature, the digital remark, or like the sketch that came along with it or the different, um, like, uh, identification numbers for the, the individual issues. Um, but I, I'd seen like different talks, I think that are interviews that either one of the two of you or somebody from the company had done for like Reddit and, and, and different outlets. And it always seemed like that was a comparison early on.

[00:16:19] I think we've gotten past that because I think it is a very unfair comparison. Now that I've seen everything to what you're doing at, at distillery and neon EG bond. Um, yeah, I'm curious though. I think NFTs are kind of the first time that people conceptualized a digital good that you could resell. Right. And I think that's why people made a comparison. Yeah. Yeah. We have nothing to do with cryptocurrency.

[00:16:48] We have nothing to do with blockchain and we have, you know, it, so it just, you know, the similarities kind of end, you know, at a very, very surface level. Exactly. It not, not similar at all. Um, what has the response been though, from creators who are able to like do a digital commission or remark or signature? Like how have they been in terms of interacting, um, with the company?

[00:17:17] Let me, you know, I, I forget when this, this is going to come out, but probably by the time this podcast comes out, we'll have done a video. Um, uh, we'll have released a video and some new remarks, uh, by Dave Gibbons. And so, uh, Dave's in the UK. So, uh, Dave's in the UK. He's, uh, he's done with shows. He's done.

[00:17:41] He's been doing shows for 40 some odd years, you know, and he's, uh, you know, he's, uh, he's not traveling anymore. And so he loves digital remarks. He is just, he's just super excited that he can still, he, and the thing, you know, he loved going to shows and interacting with fans.

[00:18:05] And, you know, he had this, he has a, a Rorschach that he kind of memorized that he does. He called it. It was like, it's my visual haiku. I can't do his accent. And, and, uh, he's not even close. I know. He's like, my wife's seen me draw this so many times. I think she could do it. I mean, he's got so many great quotes. Dave is such a, such a fantastic human being.

[00:18:32] And, um, and yeah, so, so he doesn't, he doesn't get to interact with fans that much anymore. But, um, you know, when you commission a creator, uh, through a neon each bond, you can send a note. The creator can send a note back, you know, and you, and you get that, you get that personalized interaction that, um, that you, you get a personalized interaction with Dave that, you know, you won't, you won't get anywhere else right now.

[00:19:00] And so, you know, it makes Dave happy. Cause he still gets to interact with fans and new fans. And, uh, and it makes, it makes the fans happy. And, uh, and it, it's funny. I, I, I feel like I'm always like, you know, addressing criticism. And I see online and podcasts, you know, preemptively, uh, is I, I, you know, these, these people are like, well, like this is, this has no value.

[00:19:28] And, and, uh, and, you know, it's just a JPEG. And it's like, get rid of all your photos on your phone. Then if all the photos on your phone, all those JPEGs have no value and just get rid of them and tell me how you feel about them. And so, um, so yeah, it, it, what, what's funny is like, we have a, we have a, uh, uh, a, a Nianichimon super user and he, he's like the first one in line.

[00:19:56] Every time we put a, a new creator up for commissions, he's, he's the, uh, he's the guy, he's the first in line. And, and so we have a, we have user profiles. I don't know if you've, you've checked them out where you can like build a shelf and, and show off. Uh, any of your comics, but your remarks and we do watermarks on the remarks. It says remark, you know, so no one can like take it, but this guy, he goes into his view.

[00:20:25] He'll screen grab the covers and he just puts them on Reddit. And he's like, look at these cool signatures I got. Cause it, cause the, like the, he knows that they're hits. And so, you know, I, I think for, I think it's, I think it's, it's harder for, you know, it's harder for, you know, I've always been at, I've always been, you know, uh, uh, on the cutting edge of technology and doing stuff.

[00:20:52] And David more so than myself and, and always been a comic book fan. I, I think it's, it's hard for, it's harder for fans our age who are not steeped in technology, uh, to get their head around some of these concepts.

[00:21:06] And, uh, you know, it's like my, my eldest stepdaughter has a, um, has a, uh, there's a sandbox game that they play on their phone and it's just a world that they explore and they have an allowance for clothes for their character. There is no utility for that, for those clothes other than giving her pure joy. Anyway.

[00:21:32] And so, uh, so yeah, you know, it's, it's just, you know, it, it's, uh, it's definitely, we're, we're definitely building the on each bond for, for the comic fan today and the comic fan tomorrow. Yeah. And I'd add in there that, you know, this guy, uh, just yesterday posted that he got a second signature on one of his books. So he has, he's got a book with two of the creators that have signed in now and that's pretty great.

[00:21:59] Right. And, and just the, the feeling that I get from him is that this is an artifact of his connection to a creator. He's now supported them. He's paid them money. Uh, they've seen his name. They've gotten a message from him and now he has this thing that we can keep. And if it's a DRM free downloadable book, he can download that to his computer. He can't resell it if he does that, right? That, cause you're taking it out of the system in essence. I mean, you can still stream it to your, to your app or download it to your app, but he's taken possession of that item and it's got these, the signature on that PDF too.

[00:22:27] So it's completely unique PDF that he's downloaded. So, but, but I think it really is like, it's a, it's a moment in time that he's, he's got this artifact for kind of like your photos and your photo app. Yeah. Well, I mean, it just depends on, on what it is, you know, at ship, you just kind of said it, it just depends on like what brings you joy. Right? Like I, I just went to New York comic con for three days and got a bunch of stuff signed, but most of that's probably just going to go like back into a box.

[00:22:56] I, I like, no, I have it. I met the creator and got him to sign it, but I don't have anywhere I can like hang it up. I mean, to be honest with you, if I did have it digitally, I could like show it off and like social media, you know, but yeah, yeah. I just, I, my thing is more so, like I said about like utility in terms of like, I just, I don't, I don't have space.

[00:23:23] Like I can't, I can't put another short box or a long box somewhere. And I still want to read, I still want to read comics. I just love the idea that if I do buy a bunch of stuff to support the creators or, you know, support the publisher, I love the idea of the digital marketplace that to me, that's like the biggest kind of draw and a very unique thing that I, that I really like.

[00:23:50] Cause I don't, I don't necessarily am concerned about like keeping everything in the library, but if there is a chance to like sell them and then pour that into buying more stuff. Cause I just love reading comics, I think is a great idea. Discover a new series, take a risk on something. Yeah, for sure. Exactly. Every Wednesday at this point, every Wednesday, we've got number one comics, Marvel and DC both give creators comps if they are verified on our site.

[00:24:17] So every Wednesday morning, there are a bunch of number one issues that are signed by creators available the day they come out at this point. So super fun. And 70% of that sale goes with the creator as well. Was there anything else particular with, you know, 3.0 that you were really excited about rolling out? Well, I think, yeah, go ahead, Chip. And app purchasing was the, was the main thing we started on the, we started on the web.

[00:24:47] With me on each bond and then moved outwards. You know, we had the iOS app, which was a reader app, the Android reader app. We did Apple vision pro reader app. And then, and then now the iOS Android, you know, we have the, the buy button is back, which was near and dear to our hearts. Cause that was like a big, big, big issue back in the early days of Comixology. When we took the buy button out of the app. So the buy button is back.

[00:25:18] Yeah. I, that's, I, I was one of the folks that I was, I was just, I, I'll admit it. I was annoyed. I really liked purchases to have to go and then put it into Kindle. Look, I, I, it's, it's water under the bridge at this point, but it's very excited to see the buy button back in the app. It just makes for a much easier consumer experience. So very excited. And yeah, it was great.

[00:25:45] And, and, you know, David's our, our, you know, CEO and, you know, product visionary here. So David, you know, not only is the buy button, but we have reviews and what else did you, what else did you make sure was in the, the new 3.0? Well, 3.0 is, I mean, just a good store. Like the whole web store is in there. And so you can see the new comics that are coming out. The new manga is coming out on Tuesdays. Good search. Although I'm going to be improved.

[00:26:11] I think I can't remember if 3.1 is out yet, but 3.2 is already developed and behind it. There are some very cool features coming out. There's some, some reading features. We've got a iPhone duo, you know, the foldable iPhone or the unfoldable iPhone. However they say it with the, with the inside screen, that's really big. We've got some great support for that coming up. And most recently in this 3.2 that will be out in the next couple of weeks, depending on how long Apple takes to review it.

[00:26:37] And you're actually going to be able to see the animation of the remark, of the signatures actually replay on your, on your cover. When you read, read a book, which is super fun to see. Like, and we have some sketches. Martin Simmons, for instance, did some sketches at New York Comic Con. One of which was like practically a fully rendered cover. Just insanely detailed. He did my story. He didn't stop. In an hour, in an hour, right?

[00:27:02] It's like, and so you can see in 2x speed, 4x speed, 10x speed, him doing 15 minutes of rendering on this, on this cover. Every time you open it up. And so, that's super fun. And yeah, for me and Chip, it's like, boop. Quick signature and it's done. The animation is really fun to see. That's awesome. No, I mean, mostly, mostly it's about like, how do we make the reading experience better than ever? And I think we've done a good job at that. The shopping experience better. I think 3.1 has some search improvements.

[00:27:31] There are a couple of search problems, I think, initially on 3.0. And we're going to get better and better at putting your series together and making sure that it's easy to browse. But I love it. I love this. Covers are way bigger than they used to be in comiXology. And the interaction is really fun. We're trying to put little moments of delight in there on how things work. So, it's been a blast, honestly. But yeah, the community is going to get bigger. Reviews are in there right now. But on the site, you can put up your own ordered list.

[00:28:01] So, if you want to share your reading orders or your top 10 books or whatever, you can get on there and post that. And then have a discussion about that. And discussions, we have an estimate of anything on there as well. Although, I don't think we've actually put that to use yet. But we'll all get into the app as well. Yeah. Oh, cool. And then when we announced 3.0, we announced that the library is at 60,000 comics. So, it's a vast library.

[00:28:30] And yeah. Yeah, listeners, if you haven't checked it out yet. I mean, DC's on there. Marvel, Oni, Vault, Dark Horse, Titan, Mad Cave, IDW, which I read a ton of both Mad Cave and IDW. I think Dynamite's on there. Well, Distillery, of course. Kodansha. There's manga as well. Kodansha's on there. Ablaze, I think. Like, also Legendary, Panic, Rebellion. Udon.

[00:29:02] Udon. It's the first time they've done single issues digitally. And so, their Mega Man sometimes beats absolute Batman. Yeah, insane. Insane. That's wild. Yeah. I love that. There's definitely some outlaw. You know, there's not a ton of variation between what's popular and what's not. But that's one of the big ones. Between us and retail, you mean?

[00:29:31] Between the comic store? A couple of surprises.

[00:29:35] When you think about, like, the future and moving forward with Neon Ichiban, both in, you know, growing the community, doing things with, you know, with the marketplace, with being able to post reviews and things along those lines to grow, like, the community of Neon Ichiban, but also, you know, to get more titles or more publishers. Is it a dual focus?

[00:30:04] Is there one area you want to concentrate on more so than the other as the company moves forward? Do you want to talk about the Mac desktop app? Sure, yeah, we can talk about that. I mean, obviously, we're going to continue to add publishers. That's super important. Like, and eventually probably open up the back end for anybody to submit books. We think the community is really important. One of the pieces that we felt like we never got to do a comic soldier the way we wanted to was bringing in people.

[00:30:32] And that's where, like, the lists and that type of thing I think are really important. People putting up the best comics and manga they love or a list of reading order or that type of thing. But yeah, what Chip's mentioning is that we have an alpha beta version of a Mac app. And probably we'll end up doing a Windows app as well. Well, you know, kind of harking back to the whole start of this, the idea that over the past five to ten years, there have been a lot of different ways to get comics digitally.

[00:31:00] Humble bundle, it's DRM free. Sometimes DRM, but mostly DRM free on Humble bundle. Kickstarters, you know, that maybe never got onto the digital apps, but had PDF downloads as part of their rewards. And we talked to a lot of people who have spent thousands of dollars in places like Humble bundle that have thousands and thousands of comics. And they're kind of like all over their hard drive. You know, they're not organized. The metadata, there's nothing great out there for getting your metadata together and that type of thing.

[00:31:31] And so we have a vision of having a service and app that allows you to pull that all together. Wherever you got it, whether you own it with us, whether you have it on your hard drive, whether you maybe still have a bunch of stuff at Kindle, and to make it easy for you to organize and understand your whole collection. Because we don't pretend that most people are going to start with us. Most people have started already, particularly the collectors that we're trying to get a hold of.

[00:31:58] And so the idea is eventually to be kind of a one universal digital comics app, no matter where you do your shopping. Yeah. Well, yeah, I left one job and went to another and basically had a bunch of stuff on my former works hard drive. So I think in my current desk is a little box that has like six thumb drives in it just filled with digital comics. Right? Sure. Sure.

[00:32:26] And so like right now on the Mac version, you can get an API key, a personal API key, which is free from Comic Vine. And we'll look up the comics for you and pull them all together and it'll sit next to or within your Neon Ichiban collection. And that's just the start. You know, we think we can do something really, really super cool with that. And so that's pretty exciting. And, you know, we continue to lean in on the general community and all that.

[00:32:53] But I think that's probably our biggest focus in terms of next big features. Oh, awesome. No, I love I love that idea of being like a one stop for, you know, all of your all your digital comics, not just buying, but also collecting.

[00:33:10] I think that that seems like like the unique element as other companies are, you know, putting out what they're doing in terms of a digital comic shop. But how much do you as a company pay attention to that? Are you really, you know, in terms of focused internally on what it is you're doing? Like, are you looking at like, oh, what what is Global Comics doing or drive through comics or like sweet shop?

[00:33:38] Like, is there like a digital comics race? Well, I've never heard of any of those. Never heard of any of those. Okay. Look, I mean, I think we carved out we carved out and found some unique spots for ourselves, which we're super excited about. I think, you know, it's great that it's starting to heat up again in some ways. I think that's that's terrific. You know, I'm proud of our record and that you can still read all the books that you got on comicsology,

[00:34:07] even if it isn't 100 percent perfect, which is which is not true for many, many of the folks that have come and gone in the last 15 years. But yeah, sure. I mean, of course, I'd pay a little bit of attention. I don't think we really want to do subscriptions, although it seems interesting for Global Comics and seems to work for them. Sweet Shop is interesting. You know, I think I think we try to out do the reading experience. I think the resellable bit is super, super important.

[00:34:36] And I think everything else we've got covered. Yeah, I was just curious. I mean, I but I really enjoyed I really enjoyed the reading experience on it. I made sure that I was, you know, checking it out and downloaded a couple of things. And I yeah, the in-app purchasing is like, but I cannot begin to tell you how huge that is. And it also it it also worked so well. I was very happy.

[00:35:02] So, you know, as a as a old PR guy, you know, the the the thing that I I get a little frustrated with when when people do compare compare, you know, uh, me and each bond with with other digital comics, um, yeah, platforms is is is I you know, the no one really talks about the differences in the reading experience.

[00:35:31] And I think that, you know, by far, we have the highest resume. We have the you know, we have the best UX. We have the I mean, it's just it's seamless. You don't think about it. And I I think that, uh, I think anyone like looking for a new digital home. That's the first thing that really has to have. If the reading doesn't work, then then you don't have anything.

[00:35:58] And so there's a lot, you know, we talk a lot about the resellability and the remarks and downloadable DRM free PDFs and stuff. But I think, you know, I'd be remiss and not bringing up the reading experience. Also, our catalog is 30,000, 30,000 comics plus. Um, our Marvel catalog is like, I think, you know, 10,000 plus.

[00:36:22] And so, you know, there's other places that have DC and Marvel, but they don't, you know, outside, uh, outside Amazon Kindle. Uh, you know, there's no one that has the catalog that we have. Right. Right. And it's, it's super important to get those basics right. And then, and then, you know, you can buy some of the same stuff elsewhere, but you can't resell it and you can't get remarks and you can't do those special parts of it as well.

[00:36:49] But the reading really is, I mean, I do compare the reading experience always, always. And we've worked really hard to make it great, both on large devices, your computer and, uh, on the phones. Yeah. I, like I said, I really enjoyed the reading experience and I, I have read quite a few different, quite a few different comics in, in, in my old age, uh, on many different. We need to get you, we need to get you a distillery. Digital platform. You know, Chip and I can sign it for you so you can get, you can get a taste of that as well. Yeah.

[00:37:19] I mean, we can talk about, uh, we can talk about distillery books. I have a couple of, uh, favorites, uh, you know, what spectrograph was a distillery, right? And, uh, let me see. Look, I don't, I don't have my notes open. I don't have my notes open. So I'm going to try and do it from memory. Uh, white boat. Uh, right. That was really good. This Monday. So, you know, it's a part of our new soft cover program.

[00:37:46] Obviously on the, on the print publishing side, we had some disruption with diamond moving to a new distributor with penguin random house, et cetera, et cetera. So I know, I know there are a lot of fans out there that lost track of the single issues. And so, uh, so we decided to, uh, to move to a soft cover program. Uh, and we're collecting the three issues for $20.

[00:38:12] So if you, if you missed an issue, uh, then you can get the collected edition for less than the single issue. And then go ahead. No, I think you were getting there. You, you do it. All right. Well, you're drinking for those. I want the hard cover and complete their collection. You can do that at only a comic book stores. Water. You can, you, you can, you can still get the hard cover, uh, but it's through comic book stores. The soft cover will be widely available.

[00:38:42] So, uh, super proud of those. Yeah. White boat, uh, next, next Monday. A couple of days from now. Yeah. And so that, yeah. So our real focus. Sorry. A real focus. The next six months is we have such a, because of the disruption, we have such a backlog of fantastic material that has not been collected. And so we're, we're, we're going to get through all our collected editions at, uh, at a, at a price point. That's kind of crazy. Awesome.

[00:39:11] Well, that's good for, uh, good for consumers, but yeah. Um, I I'd be remiss if we're talking distillery and I didn't mention some, Becky Clunin and Tula Lotte. I mean, that's a home home run. I mean, that book is amazing. And I also like the weird, what I'll call like the weird books, but, um, I know Byron has covered them on the podcast before, but I think warm fusion was really different kind of book.

[00:39:40] That is just like, what are those things you see as a comic fan? And you're like, look, I don't know if I'm going to like this, but man, I love a big swing. I love something that I've just not quite seen before in the storytelling and the narrative and especially in the artwork. Like, just, just give it to me. You know, one of those things I didn't know I needed till I saw it. Um, I I'm really, I'm really proud of, of what we've accomplished so far at distillery.

[00:40:05] I, I think, uh, I think David and I have taken a, uh, a big swing, you know, not only with, uh, with the level of creators that, that we've worked with, but the, uh, the format and, uh, and, and, you know, what we did with, uh, uh, equity ownership and the, uh, in the company, you know, which extend in a neon each bond is a product of distillery media incorporated.

[00:40:30] So, you know, so all the, all the, uh, founding creators of the have equity and distillery media, you know, uh, are part owners of neon each bond. Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. And, uh, and listeners, if you haven't checked out any of these, these books yet, like you, you, you have to, whether or not you go and find them at your comic book shop or you're ready for when the softbacks, uh, roll out or you want to get them through neon each bond digitally.

[00:40:58] Um, I'd also be remiss if I didn't say another one that I really liked that I, I, I don't know if I see, uh, more people should be talking about it, but, uh, Endeavor, Stephanie Phillips and Mark Lamming. Yeah. Um, yeah. Fantastic book. Fantastic. Absolutely. So. Yeah. So many, so many, many really poured his heart out into the pages.

[00:41:24] You know, it, it took a, took a bit to, uh, to get that, uh, get that one out to market, but it really was, was worth the wait, especially early next year for that one. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That'll be up. Oh, seeing in the next, in the next month. Well, listeners look for it. Mark's work is absolutely in. Incredible. I mean, it's just so unbelievably detailed.

[00:41:50] His character acting from all of the stuff that he shared online that I've seen is remarkable. And, um, yeah, you, you need to, you definitely need to check it out. But, um, yeah, I, I, David, uh, Chip, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. And like I said, I, I, I love the, I love the, I love the Neon Ichiban. I, I love the experience.

[00:42:13] Um, I like a lot of the stuff that you guys are doing with it and yeah, I love the books that distillery has been putting out. So, um, I'm a fan and I really appreciate you coming on and having to talk to me for 40 minutes about it. So thank you. Awesome. Good to do it. Good to do it. Thanks for the interest. Cheers. Uh, all right, listeners, there'll be links in the show notes. Make sure you go check out Nian Ichiban. Check out.

[00:42:41] Uh, distillery and, uh, yeah, you're not going to be disappointed. It really is an unbelievable user experience and reading experience. And, um, again, I've said it like eight times now. Here's the ninth. I love, uh, being able to buy stuff in app and it's very easily downloadable and it was all right there. So thank you very much. Uh, thank you so much for listening listeners. Uh, good night and I will, I'll see you next time. Jimmy is too humble to do this.

[00:43:09] So as his stalwart ride or die, I wanted to tell you about his new graphic novel, Penny and the Yeti with artist Amber Aiken. What started as a comic short with his daughter that I've known about for ages now. And it's evolved and has become one of those annoying can't talk about it in comics things for too damn long. Yes, I'm predisposed to be supportive, but after reading an advanced copy of it, I have to admit it's way better than I anticipated. No shade, but it's really good. Remarkably so.

[00:43:39] Does it have a Yeti? Yeah. Is it cute and adorable? Yeah. But it's straight flies in effectively tapping into the all too familiar family dynamics that we all are facing in 2026 and approaching it in a way that doesn't insult the book's target audience. Kids! They are way smarter and perceptive than we adults give them credit for. So I really appreciated Jimmy's narrative approach tapping into his own experiences as a dad and a spouse. I can hear his wife saying, get off your phone, Jimmy, through the pages.

[00:44:08] She's going to kill me for saying that. It's hitting shelves on April 21st and I dropped a link in the show notes where you can pre-order a copy today. Yeti or not, here we come with Penny, Perry, Fenton, Maxine, and the magical, mythical, magnificent Yeti. On behalf of us both, we appreciate your support. This is Byron O’Neal, one of your hosts of the Cryptid Creator Corner, brought to you by Comic Book Yeti.

[00:44:36] We hope you've enjoyed this episode of our podcast. Please rate, review, subscribe, all that good stuff. It lets us know how we're doing and more importantly, how we can improve. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode of the Cryptid Creator Corner, maybe you would enjoy our sister podcast, Into the Comics Cave. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.