Will Shazam! Go Digital?

When DC Entertainment rolled out a series of backup strips a few years ago--called "Second Features" by DC's marketing people--the idea was to take characters who had a vocal fan following and who were always being asked after, but whose own sales didn't justify having a book of their own. Even at that time, some fans wondered whether digital-exclusive comics would have been a better way to keep Marc Andreyko's Manhunter and Nick Spencer's Jimmy Olsen stories alive. The publisher seems to have come around to that mindset, to one extent or another. Yesterday DC rolled out a promotion whereby fans could sign up for an e-mail newsletter and receive a digital redemption code for a free copy of Shazam! Chapter One. What's that? Well, it's the backup feature from Justice League #7, repackaged as a standalone digital comic. It raises the question: When and if DC decides to change their strategy for Justice League, will Shazam! go digital first or digital-only? With Marvel beginning to include free digital redemption codes in more and more of their print books, it's likely DC will eventually feel some pressure to follow suit, and if they do have to stop charging an extra buck for digital, it seems unlikely that they'll continue to publish the additional content that justifies the extra funds. That will leave the publisher wondering whether to discontinue the stories completely or take a gamble on publishing them in the micro-magazine format they're currently using for digital-first titles like Batman Beyond Unlimited and Smallville Season Eleven. Should Shazam! go digital-first or digital-only, it would be the first ongoing series at DC to make the transition from print to digital, and having superstar writer and DC Creative Director Geoff Johns at the helm could do nothing but help ease that transition. The move is certainly not a foregone conclusion, but yesterday's promotion seems to indicate that, at a minimum, DC is thinking about these things.