Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin’s New Comic Available Now…At Your Price

After a series of teasers yesterday captioned with “like, share, follow,” Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin launched a new, digital comic book company today called Panel Syndicate.First up from their ambitious new endeavor is The Private Eye, “a forward-looking mystery we created with colorist Muntsa Vicente. Set in a future where privacy is considered a sacred right and everyone has a secret identity, The Private Eye is a serialized sci-fi detective story for mature readers.”The issue is available for download now, in DRM-free PDF, CBR and CBZ formats–and readers can name their own price. “You can download our 32-page first issue right now, for any price you think is fair. 100% of your payments go directly into our greedy mitts and will help fund the rest of a story that we’re both very proud of,” explains the comic’s website. The story is planned as a ten-part maxiseries which, at least as far as current plans go, will never be collected in print.Payments can be made via Paypal (you don’t need an account to complete the transaction), and the “pay-as-you-please” strategy appears to be the Panel Syndicate plan going forward, according to the site’s FAQ.The pay model being tried out here might be relatively new to major comic book creators, but a number of webcomics creators have tried similar schemes before, and some outsiders and newcomers to graphic novels have done the same. The model has been popularized by musicians and other artists with an established fan base, with Radiohead, Amanda Palmer and Greg Palast among those who have sold their music, art, books and film this way in the past.A DRM-free download model is about as common–or uncommon among big publishers and content providers, depending on your perspective. Last year, famed stand-up comic Louis C.K. released a concert as a DRM-free, $5 download direct from his website with nobody but him getting a piece of the action. The experiment was an unqualified success, bringing in over $1.1 million on an investment of less than a quarter of that.