Buy the back issues.
This one got reblogged to my dashboard yesterday and left me wondering: Why is this conversation still happening? I swear, the first time I saw an anonymous user tackle a mainstream comics pro with a piracy etiquette question was something like two years ago? Maybe three? Probably some guy getting into it with Bendis. And my question is “Why?”
If you’re gonna steal something, why are you spending time asking someone for permission to steal it? Especially a public figure. That’s not really how stealing works. They’re never gonna give you permission, even if just as a matter of policy. Tom Brevoort doesn’t want to end up under a headline reading “Marvel Editor Endorses Piracy,” not even in cases where it makes sense (go ahead and torrent ROM, you little scamp, I’LL give you permission*).
Here, I’ve done my best to create the comprehensive Q&A on illegally torrenting comics, in the form of an anonymous internet commenter asking an established pro for permission to pirate comics. All questions and answers source from real Q&As, I swear:
Q: Well, it’s new comic day and I don’t want to buy any of the comics I’d like to read, is it okay by you if I illegally pirate them through a torrent site?
A: Absolutely not! You’re stealing food from the mouths of creators and their families! You’re tearing down the roof over their heads! You’re pantsing the jeans right off their butts! You might even be taking small things from their houses, like digital alarm clocks or dinner forks! So no, absolutely not!
Q: Well dang, I really expected you to be cool about that. Okay, well, how about if I only torrent comics that already came out last month?
A: You’d still be stealing the food out of their mouths, except only it’d be the food they ate last month, and that food would have already been digested and passed through their system, and would reside somewhere in a waste treatment facility. Do you really want to steal their poop right out of a giant tank full of other people’s poop too?
Q: Oh god no.
A: Well then don’t do it.
Q: How about this: I’ve bought a physical copy of a book that doesn’t include a digital code, but I’d like a digital copy too. Can’t I just torrent the book rather than buying it twice?
A: No, you have to buy it twice.
Q: But that’s taking food out of my family’s mouths!
A: Sorry, I only acknowledge that argument working one way.Q: So what about a book like ROM, which is so heavily tied up in licensing that it’ll never be reprinted, so it doesn’t affect the creators’ cut of the profits at all if I grab free copies of it, surely it’s all right if I torrent that.
A: No, you have to buy the back issues at collector’s prices, or else you’ll be taking food out of the mouths of speculators.
Q: I didn’t realize we were including speculators in the whole “food from the mouth” scenario.
A: Support your local comic shop!
Q: MY local comic shop is in a mall and primarily sells Magic Cards and Funko figures. They don’t even have back issues.
A: Still (using a spooky voice) suppor-r-r-rt them!
Q: I feel uneasy supporting my local shop. One of the clerks got picked up for selling prescription drugs to grade schoolers and the owner uses a lot of words from the Fifties to refer to black people on television.A: (puts on grand poobah hat with hypno-eyes) S-U-P-P-O-R-T T-H-E-M
Q: I … WILL …
A: Haha, excellent! (twirls mustache he didn’t have a moment ago)
Q: Okay, how about this: What about a comic that was only ever released on the moon?
A: You should’ve gone to the moon and gotten a copy.
Q: How do I even — ?
A: Or, failing that, maybe you could’ve asked someone who was going to the moon to bring you back a copy.
Q: I don’t think we even send people to the moon any more.
A: Have you checked Craigslist?
Q: For people going to the moon?
A: Yes.
Q: I have not checked Craigslist, no.
A: Check Craigslist.
Q: How about is it okay to pirate a comic, the physical copies of which were all destroyed in a fire?
A: No. You should light yourself on fire, converting the greater part of your mass to energy and then, once you’ve achieved a state beyond matter, you can buy a copy from a ghost.
Q: What if there are only two physical copies of a comic left in existence, but they’ve been pitted in a perfectly balanced battle between the galactic forces of good and evil, and to remove one or the other from its battle in order to read it would imbalance the cosmic scales, but there’s no way of knowing which one is good and which one is evil, so you have a fifty-fifty chance of turning the universe into a hellscape of limitless pain and suffering.
A. Hm. What happens if you remove both of them from their conflict simultaneously?
Q: The universe is destroyed.
A: Well, in that case, the only acceptable solution is to take the place of the book you’ve removed, and thereby spend the rest of eternity locked in boundless struggle against opposing cosmic forces.
Q: Let’s say I’m buying a series written by Brian Michael Bendis, and I strongly believe that readers should only be required to buy his books if something plot-wise happens instead of there just being a lot of side-chatter which fails to move the story along so much as an inch, so I only actually pay for every fourth issue he writes and I download the others. What’s your response to that?
A: (unfettered profanity)
Q: Can I download a car?
A: Is a car a comic book?
Q: No.
A: I have no opinion on that, go ahead.* By the way, if that guy is gonna just download ROM:Spaceknight, then how about for every issue he downloads, why don’t he donate 99 cents to Bill Mantlo’s relief fund? I dunno, not endorsing comics piracy or nuthin’ (you guys took food out of my family’s mouths!) but it seems like a partial solution …
It does not surprise me that “Calamity” Jon Morris owns a Grand Poobah hat.
