Summary

which became the famous Five Forces 2 framework that helps one assess industry attractiveness.
However when this framework is applied to comics, almost everything seems unattractive.
There are constantly new comics being published (New Entrants with low entry barriers), an existing
huge collection of comics (Competitors), and lots of substitute products such as games and movies if
comics are regarded as a form of entertainment (Substitute Products). Bargaining power of suppliers,
in this case, artists vs. publishers, is weak, unless the artist is a celebrity artist whose work is highly
sought after. Bargaining power of buyers depends on the popularity of the work and should be
considered strong as comics are not a “need” but a “want” product. If the Five Forces framework is
to be believed, one can see why artists are struggling. To evaluate the digital comics industry, I had
designed a new framework to analyze external factors that would affect the business environment
(Exhibit 2-2).
Exhibit 2-2: Digital Comics Industry Structural Environment
Product
Development:
• Hardware
• Software
• Contents
Influences
Target
Market
Behaviour
Impacts
Market
Trends
To figure out what kind of digital comics would become popular in the future (i.e. Market
Trends), there is a need to understand the target market’s behavior changes that results from
development in hardware, software and contents for digital comics.
2.3.1. Hardware Development for reading Digital Comics
Before Amazon Kindle and iPad, there was the Sony reader introduced in Jan 2006. It could
load PDF, mp3 and image files but the display was limited to digital black ink. The device was
2 Porter, Michael E.. "The Structural Analysis of Industries." Competitive strategy: techniques for
analyzing industries and competitors. 1980. Reprint. New York: Free Press, 2004. 3-33.
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