Daredevil Infinite Comics
We interrupt this celebration of Halloween for some actual comics news! Eyes were red with tears when it was announced that Marvel was ending the much liked DAREDEVIL series by Mark Waid and a host of A+ artists with issue #36. But it was suspected something was up and SOMETHING IS. The book will return as a weekly Infinite comic! With Waid and his Irredeemable collaborator Peter Krause. DAREDEVIL: ROAD WARRIOR debuts in February. The book will find Matt Murdock on that most American of rites of passage: the road trip!

“Matt’s beginning a whole new chapter in his life following the events of Daredevil #36, and he’s excited but apprehensive at the same time,” Waid told Marvel.com. “You can be a Man Without Fear and still be a little worried about where the next paycheck is coming from. Daredevil: Road Warrior is a coast-to-coast adventure/chase with thrills aplenty.” 

24 COMMENTS

  1. Lessee…
    Sandman (with Gaiman’s first signing tour for Seasons of Mist while Brief Lives was being serialized)
    Captain America
    Daredevil
    Superman
    Archie (coming up… Battle of the Bands)
    Spider-Man (via his book signing tour in the late 1980s)
    Fantastic Four (how many?)
    Oh, yes… Green Lantern/Green Arrow!
    And the Super Sons!

    Who else has perambulated in comics?
    Compare and contrast “Road Trip” with “Walking The Earth”.
    Compare “Knight Errant” to “Superhero”.

  2. I’m only interested in this if it is published as print. I still collect physical comics and don’t buy things digitally.

    If so, I will wait for the trade.

  3. I’m only interested in comics news if it is published as print. I still read a daily paper and don’t own an internet.

    Can someone print this blog post off for me so I can know what I’m commenting on?

  4. I’m afraid that I’m with Matt on this one. I don’t own an Ipad or similar device, nor can I afford to buy one these days. And the idea of sitting down at the computer desk to read a comic isn’t attractive to me. I tried with Bryan K. Vaughan and Macos Martin’s excellent digital comic, but the format puts me off enough that I read the first two installments and then haven’t gone back. And yes, one could argue that I read this website every couple of days over my lunch, so what’s the difference with DD? Well, I dip into this website for a short period of time while sitting at my desk. Comics, I prefer to read at my leisure sitting on the couch, or on my deck with a glass of wine, or reading in bed before going to sleep, or on the bus on the way to or from work. I’m sure you can see the difference in accessibility and comfort between sitting in front of the computer and sitting,,, well,,, anywhere I might want to.

    Additionally, there is the dilemma that if I buy a print edition of a comic, I have that on my shelves for as long as I want it. If I want to read it 10 years from now, I can. With electronic media, it’s not so clear. My understanding is that, in essence, we are renting the downloads for as long as the company wants to make them available to us, taking a bit of control from the consumer.

    So, I’ll miss reading Daredevil. And if it’s published as a trade, I’ll likely pick it up. But, this does seem like one more attempt for Marvel to tell me that I’m just not their target demographic. Daredevil was the last Marvel title I was regularly reading. Now (at least for a while) I won’t even be reading that.

  5. I’m kind of confused by this article. Is the print version of Daredevil coming to an end, after 49 years of publication?

  6. I’m torn…..between being old-school and needing to hold comic books in my hand & not wanting to contribute to the waste of trees……

  7. I think this will be a limited time experiment, after all is weekly, unless they publish 5 page a week it can’t go for too long. They probably want to test how well can a digital book with an enough important character sell when there is not printed book on sale. The story has been described as a road trip to San Francisco, once Matt will get there, in month or two, we will get the new monthly Daredevil book from Waid and Samnee back.

  8. I have to agree with the last few posters. I have no interest, at this time, in digital. No disrespect for anyone who does, but the tech isn’t there yet for me.

  9. Sean and others–I was in the same mindset for a long time. I did not like reading comics on the computer at all; still don’t.

    However, my perspective changed completely when I got a tablet. Being able to carry the thing around like a book was the only issue for me, to hold it close to my face if I wanted to scrutinize something, etc., and once I had the tablet I could do that.

    Here are the reasons I like it (you’ve likely heard these before, but they’re significant to me and may be useful to you):

    1) the art looks better. As a comic artist myself, it’s always a little disappointing to see something that looked so vivid and clear when colored on a computer turn out to look dingy or dark when printed. This happens ALL THE TIME. You learn to compensate for it in the work, but it’s still a crapshoot. Paper stock changes the way the inks are absorbed, etc.

    2) I can carry around hundreds (hell, probably thousands) of comics and books in my tablet. When I was a kid and went on trips with my family, I’d always pack a longbox “just in case”. I still do that, but it’s smaller than a notebook now.

    3) “guided view” is interesting. This one I PARTICULARLY objected to when I didn’t have a tablet. Again, as someone who makes comics, I hated the idea that someone was breaking up my page compositions and screwing with my art. But I am shocked to say that I sometimes like reading stuff in guided view.

    4) Instant availability (no worries whether your store will have sold out, not ordered it, etc.) and no money or time wasted on driving.

    5) TONS AND TONS AND TONS of unreprinted material available all over the web in torrents and on sites. Sites that scan old material that I would like to read but again hate to read on the computer is now available in my little pseudo-book.

    NOW. I’m a book addict–I love books, physical heavy huge books (the IDW Artist Editions are killing me, and I’m a total Taschen-aholic). I collect books and my house is full of them, thousands of them. I still buy books. I still go to the comic store and love comic stores and always have. I’m not suggesting you stop buying stuff from the comic store or that you not buy books. I’m suggesting that this is a pretty satisfying way to read monthly comics, and it’s a HUGE storage benefit.

    Plus, if you’re like me, you feel a weird sense of frustration buying the comic, then buying the collection with extra material, and having the issues lying around. Tablets have gotten pretty cheap–and I have the HP Touchpad 10 inch tablet (the one they discontinued the day it was released; I love it, have no problems with it now that I’ve installed Android on it–which is easy–and highly recommend it as a “toe in the water”). You can get Touchpads for about a hundred bucks.

    The one HUGE irritation I have, however, is the whole DRM thing and the idea that one is renting comics rather than buying them, that they can theoretically be taken away at some time. I’m not fond of that one bit.

    Read what you want and spend your money however it makes you happy! I’m not trying to convince you of anything; I just wanted to share the story of my own initial extreme reluctance that has given way to much love of digital comics.

  10. I think it’s wonderful people enjoy reading digitally, but I’m concerned about the format. I really like how Vaughn and Martin are doing it because I can import the .cbr file into whatever program I like. I kinda hate Marvel’s program and I’m not going to read anything else in it.

    As far as reading print v digital, I was a big fan of digital at first, but I’ve gone back to physical books for all non-comic reading. I just like reading books better.

  11. Absolute garbage. Way to piss people off. Bit Torrent to the rescue is all I can say. I’ll pay for it when it’s in print form, not this digital crap where you pay for nothing.

  12. “I have no interest, at this time, in digital. No disrespect for anyone who does, but the tech isn’t there yet for me.”

    Same here. As far as I’m concerned, Daredevil will end when the last print issue is published. Even though I haven’t collected the book since the mid-1990s (during the Chichester run, when he was wearing armor), DD was my favorite superhero for a long time, going back to the Lee-Colan issues of the late ’60s.

    If this is part of some Marvel scheme, and the print edition will be returning in a few months, it’s just more evidence of how cynical and manipulative comics publishers have become.

  13. Hey…
    Remember when Ka-Zar, Micronauts, and Moon Knight were taken off the newsstands and were exclusive to the Direct Market, in 1982?

    Could this be the beginning of moving marginal titles from periodicals to digital distribution?

    Technically, they are still available at comics shops… you just have to buy a Comixology or Diamond digital copy to download later.

    Or they’ll follow DC’s path, and offer the print edition a few months later.

  14. Waid can continue to try and force digital down our throats so he can go completely solo without publishers holding him back and I’ll continue to ignore it. I don’t read comics so I can hold a screen to my face and watch crap slide shows. Just as Kindle/Nook haven’t killed paper novels, digital will not kill paper comics. I read dialogue in comics several times and issue and that just can’t be done in the digital format as easily. Also I’ve never looked at a comic and said wow that looks faded because of the paper, good publishers already have that down to a science.

  15. Matthew Southworth, I get what you’re saying and I understand the advantages to digital reading that you mention. For me, the expense of buying a tablet with a decent sized screen is one of the big objections. I’m just not willing, at this point, to drop a couple of hundred dollars so that I can read comics. I suppose that there is a savings in gas since I wouldn’t have to drive to the comic shop, but that initial chunk of money is problematic for my budget.

  16. IMO most times when you take an urban hero such as Daredevil, Batman or Spiderman out of the urban environment they “work” in, it stinks.

    I have NO interest in seeing any of them take a road trip across the country or voyage into space. Zzzzzz

  17. The whole thing seems VERY vague. Marvel loves this junk. Let’s A) throw out random, vague teasers about upcoming events/series, and B) throw out random, vague announcements about big, long standing titles. Why, in every article I’ve read on this so far, does it not let anyone know if this is a regular series, mini, are they just testing the waters? Nothing. I’ve bought Daredevil straight through since 1999 (and even before that, but not consecutively.) Looks like I’m done for the moment.

    Also, I see the wack-a-doo numbering is back. The new Marvel Now! Nova series is hitting #100 in a couple of months. Sigh.

  18. I still think it’s odd that people are okay reading some things on a laptop/tablet/phone but not others. Different strokes and all, but I don’t understand the militancy. Tablets have dropped in price /dramatically/ since the market was flooded a year or two ago. Image sells all their book DRM free. The colors — even on my smart phone — are absolutely stunning. And no ads. NO ADS. I can’t even imagine trying to read a Vertigo book in floppy form anymore. The ad placement is atrocious.

    And most importantly, reading comics on a tablet DOESN’T REQUIRE YOU STOP BUYING TRADES OR MONTHLIES. Too many people think it’s an either/or. As my eight heavily ladened bookcases and an embarrassing number of long boxes can attest to it can be a both/and proposition. I still have a small pull list of monthly floppies that can’t wait for the TP. I still buy more paper and print books than I physically have time to read. But reading comics/books on the train, or on vacation, or at the local coffee shop, or at the office on lunch break, or you know, pretty much wherever, whenever, w/o having to think about what I can carry, and what I wouldn’t want to see damaged, and so on and so forth, that is valuable to me.

    Also, still serious though, I see this whole conversation like someone from the 1780s marveling at debating/sharing ideas and opinions via flickering screens across wireless connections and drawing a line in the sand because there’s very little human element or physicality involved. I’d want to grab old Ben Franklin by the shoulders and say, “Dude, do you have any idea what you’re missing? I mean, Ben, come on, Reddit /alone/ is worth the pain of learning how to navigate a simple web browser. And the kitten pics, Ben, THE KITTEN PICS WILL MAKE YOU INTO A NEW MAN.”

  19. Daredevil goes to San Francisco: Gerry Conway did that in 1972. I wonder if DD will stay there for 2 years this time?

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