When BOOM! Studios published their post-ice-age/book-burning dystopian comic book tale North Wind, at Myspace concurrently with its retail release last January, brick-and-mortar comic shops chafed and some even rebelled, asking for “evidence” that free online simul-publication would not eat their collective lunch. (Funny how the common conventional wisdom that it would, requires no evidence whatsoever.)

One year later, alongside last Wednesday’s (January 7th) release of their new miniseries Hexed under the same experimental distribution model as North Wind, BOOM!’s Editor-in-Chief Mark Waid has posted a video statement for retailers saying the verdict is in, and it’s decidedly on the side of content being born free…

From the vid…

Sales went up 30% from issues #3 to issue #4. What this means is that fans who didn’t have a chance to buy issue 3 on the stands, went out and bought issue #4. The only exposure they had to issue 3 and previous issues, was on the Myspace comic books page. In 25 years of comics, I can’t think of another time I’ve seen sales on a miniseries like that, go up. There has to be something else to it, and in this case, it was the online promotion.

Here’s the link to BOOM!’s second experiment in the distributive advantages of ‘free’, by Michael Alan Nelson and Emma Rios, called Hexed, posted free, online at Myspace Comic Books — complete with .CBZ file. As Waid enjoys pointing out, the new miniseries has been dubbed “Hellblazer by way of JJ Abrams’ Alias“.

[Submitted by The Laroquod Experiment.]