Well, it’s been five years (at least) in the making — but I’m delighted to report that I’m in the middle of a first round testing of a new comics-to-mobile service for ROK Media, that should launch soon, and we’ll be rolling out in full this May.

Several British creators here will know I’ve been touting comics-on-mobile to anyone who will listen for simply ages, but ROK picked up the ball and ran with the idea last year, and it’s been non-stop ever since. In pure business terms, you can’t ignore the massive rise in digital comic demand – one comics aggregator says it’s delivering some 350,000 comics a day to mobile.

The system will let creators upload their own comics and create them using a suite of characters, props and backgrounds: all can then be offered to comic readers to buy and view on their mobiles. Creators will then receive a percentage of every sale.

We’re also looking at distributing a range of comic strips from various publishers to mobile and we’ve had several encouraging discussions so far with a range of companies, both small and large.

In addition to mobile comics, we’re also considering print – including publishing titles based on licenses on intellectual properties we’ve signed, although I can’t reveal the names of those properties at this stage. I can say we have solicited samples from some terrific artists for our first project and I hope to be able to say more about that very soon.

Exciting times!

John Freeman

The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.

He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.

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Tags: Mobile Comics