DSTLRY Trying to Sell “Remarked” Digital Comics to Readers

Tech Crunch reports that DSTLRY is producing a new feature for artists using computer technology, but it sounds like this involved the speculator market:

DSTLRY, a venture-backed digital comic books marketplace, on Tuesday added a pair of features designed to bring customization to the platform. The first feature, dubbed Commissioned Digital Remarques, allows creators to add personalized sketches and signatures to digital comics. The second, Unlimited Digital Covers, expands platform-wide access to alternative comic book covers.

Commissioned Digital Remarques brings the tradition of in-person comic customization into the digital realm. At conventions, waiting in line for an artist’s sketch or signature is a major part of the fan experience. In the comics world, a remarque is a small sketch or doodle made on a book’s cover or pages, often integrating with existing artwork. The sketches are less time-intensive than full character illustrations but still highly valued by collectors.

In DSTLRY’s take on things, it’s the creators who set both the price and turnaround time. Like the books themselves, once a digital comic is remarqued, users can then turn around and sell or trade the remarqued issues on DSTLRY.

Oh, good grief. If that’s what this is all about, not buying products for reading value or even hanging on a wall like a museum or gallery, then we have a variation on the speculator market that’s just as farcical, maybe even more. What good is any of this then? All they’re doing is turning AI into much more of a joke than before, and this whole collector’s obsession, where artifacts could be bought solely to lock in vaults, is only dumbing down the art scene more than need be.

Maybe what really matters is wishing the speculators would stop doing this. They’re only making a joke of the medium, and anybody who can’t speak up and argue a better alternative is needed, like wall paintings, clearly doesn’t care about the medium at all.

Originally published here.