DC’s new digital-first Sensation Comics series starring Wonder Woman got me thinking about the publisher’s digital-first strategy. In addition to continuity-free stories about Superman, Batman, and now Wonder Woman, it’s also their platform of choice for media tie-in comics to their games and TV shows: Smallville, Batman ’66, Injustice: Gods Among Us, Scribblenauts, Infinite Crisis, Arrow…

There’s an excellent chance that, with the Flash TV show launching in October, we’ll see a TV-continuity digital-first Flash series by the end of the year.

Double Your Flash!

If so, this would be the first time in years that we’ve had two Flash series running concurrently, unless you count the Rogues-heavy miniseries tied to Forever Evil, Blackest Night, and Final Crisis. (And really, isn’t it awesome that DC has been doing Rogues miniseries with so many of their big events lately?) Flash and Impulse ran together from 1995-2002, and All-Flash ran alongside Flash Comics from 1941-1948, during which time the Flash also had a regular solo spot in Comic Cavalcade.

Admittedly, the Arrow tie-in comic only ran during the first season of the show, but maybe the Flash’s higher profile among comics readers will translate to better sales?

Digital What?

For those of you who haven’t looked into DC’s digital-first comics, they typically release three chapters a month at 99 cents through services like ComiXology, Kindle, iTunes, Google Play, and DC’s own branded portal. Each month’s chapters are then collected in a $3.99 print edition. The comics are designed around a horizontal page layout to make them fit better on tablets and widescreen monitors, with two digital pages stacked vertically to make each printed page. (It typically ends up being about 30 pages of story instead of 20.)

You can read on a tablet, a phone (panel-by-panel view can be awkward for converted comics, but these are designed for, well, digital first), or a desktop/laptop through the ComiXology or DC websites. Or you can wait a month or two for the print edition, or a bit longer for the trade paperback.

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