Dan Veltre of Dewey's Comic City in Madison, New Jersey has been following the various Talk Backs regarding simultaneous digital and print releases (see "Marvel Synches Digital ") and shares his opinion on the subject:

I've been following the conversation here and elsewhere online regarding digital comics and on simultaneous digital and paper release.  I am aware of the reality of the situation and what it means to the future of print comic books and the graphic story medium.

As a retailer I'm not afraid of digital distribution, simultaneous or not--it's simply one more form of competition and I accept that and I'm willing to deal with it.  It's no different to me than competition with Amazon, mailing order websites or book store distribution.

What I'm not willing to accept is statements from publishers that one of the reasons for simultaneous digital release is to bring consumers into retail stores.  It's not.  The reason for digital release is to bypass retail stores and sell product directly to consumers with no middleman.  It's plain and simple competition.  The simple truth is I HAVE noticed a negative, although slight at this time, impact on sales of titles that have had an additional digital release.

Because of that, I think it's only fair that a company that is planning to release certain material digitally as well as in print provide that information up front to retailers in the ordering process so that we can order their product appropriately.

I'll go a step further I think items that are released simultaneously should be made fully returnable for retailers.  The company that is simultaneously releasing material digitally is putting retailers in an unfair competitive advantage by usually releasing material (this most recent Marvel experiment aside) at a lower price than at regular retail price.  Altering the price is akin to altering the creative team on a book, and that is generally a reason for return ability by Diamond.  Pricing is an important factor for retailers when ordering a book.

I would like to see the powers that be at Diamond get behind such a proposal and require that all the publishers for whom they provide distribution agree to make these changes and provide retailers with this information.  

I would like publishers to realize that it is important for the health of one of their resale partners that they provide such information so that we can ALL continue to profit going forward.  We can all prosper by working together.

I would also like it to be sunny and bright every, never rain, be high in the mid 70s, and never snow on new comic book days.

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.