Explaining IDW: At SBC, Beau Smith chats with Ted Adams, president and publisher of IDW Publishing:

"From day one, we decided we wanted our books to look different. We’ve always gone for a “European” feel for the art. I don’t think the art in our books looks like a traditional American comic. But, unlike most European comics, our comics are story driven.

"We wanted to make sure that our production values were as high as possible. I like to think that our design and printing is the best in the business. We spend a lot of time working with our printers to make sure that our books look as good as possible. Most American comics are printed on a web press. Web presses are used to print large quantities and are traditionally used for periodicals where the quality of the printing is secondary to the speed of the press. We use sheet feed presses for all of our comics. If you take the time to compare the printing between an IDW comic and just about any other in the market, I think you’ll see the difference.

"That’s also why our books are more expensive than some of our competitors. And our pricing strategy sure brings out the aggression from the guys who post on websites. There was a guy on Newsarama last week, who literally said I should be killed because of the price of our comics. It amazes me: a guy can literally threaten my life on a public forum and not a single person said it was unreasonable behavior. Newsarama didn’t pull the post and not a single person commented on it. What if that guy approached me at a con and said the same thing?

"... I fully undestand that some people won’t be able to afford our comics. What I don’t understand is why they’re so angry about it."