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Can't Viz just dump a library of out-of-print or old titles like...
Cheeky Angel, Firefighter! Daigo of Fire Company M, Flame of Recca, Neon Genesis Evangelion, No Need for Tenchi!, Midori Days, Whistle!, Excel Saga, Battle Angel Alita, I's, and Bastard!! !

I'm guessing that the Ipad APP is a good way to test the market, so my question is if Viz puts up something like Midori Days (Wut that, lol), Will I be the only one buying it?

Some you listed, like Battle Angel Alita and Evangelion are still in print and viable for them. I think Whistle just wrapped, and I''s still seems to be available.

I imagine it depends on them having access to digital rights for those titles- it's clear from their Ipad announcement that they were able to get several of their top tier titles on board, so I guess it boils down to consent from the artists since Shuiesha/Shogakukan/Hakuensha seem to be participating.

That said, reoffering older titles probably depends on if they want to spend the money/time converting them into digital editions [it's not just a matter of plunking in existing files by the sounds of what Vertical's Ed Chavez indicated in the ANN news post's thread on this news], and if there's enough demand for those titles on the Ipad. I mean, if there's not enough demand for a title to stay in print [or tons of backstock of it sitting unsold in their warehouses], would many bother buying it on the Ipad? Would they be better off offering new or more recent titles with current buzz?

I'm guessing it mostly depends on the sales history of the titles and their current standing [in terms of sales, or licensing situations]. I imagine they'll have a better idea of what sells and what they might want to experiment with [be it advanced digital editions of titles, or reoffering older licenses digitally or just offering vol.1's of titles if sales aren't terribly big- all of which is just speculation] once they've been running the program for awhile.

EDIT- looking over their list of launch titles, Ruroni Kenshin is among them. So older titles from their catalogue do look to be a part of it, but in this case, it's one they've reprinted heavily and had great sales records with. I'm guessing Alita or Evangelion probably have better chances than Daigo, whose volumes apparently sold in the hundreds [and under hundreds] if Jason Thompson's animenewsnetwork.com/house-of-1000-manga/2010-09-30 is any indication. So I doubt we'll be seeing any of the poor sellers on the device.

ZeroDemio wrote:

Can't Viz just dump a library of out-of-print or old titles like...

The short answer to this is: No they can't.

Having a license to publish a manga at a certain trim size for a certain price does not mean they can convert that to any other format without renegotiating their contracts. It would be possible if the original contracts included digital rights, but considering the Japanese's previous aversion to digital anything, it's highly unlikely that Viz has any digital rights in the contracts for their older titles.

So it's possible that they could go back and renegotiate, but I imagine that would be expensive (including paying out things like advances on royalties), and I doubt they would do it with books that don't sell enough to keep in print.

On the other hand, they might look to place digital rights into new contracts. If I were a company that licenses books, I'd do my best to get digital rights nowadays.

Actually, Dragonball's one of their older titles, and is on their Ipad application, so they definitely are able to go back and get those rights [....being a domestic subsidiary of Shuiesha and Shogakukan probably helps]. I'd say it's more of a title to title thing- it probably depends on which rights Shuiesha/Shogakukan has to the title, what the author's preferences are [are their works available digitally in Japan? Do they want multiple volumes on sale, or just previews of volumes for free?], and

From my understanding, the main difference tends to be a higher royalty rate for the cartoonists, to offset the lower price for digital editions [so that they make close to what they do per volume on print edition sales]

Anyhoo this- "So it's possible that they could go back and renegotiate, but I imagine that would be expensive (including paying out things like advances on royalties), and I doubt they would do it with books that don't sell enough to keep in print. "
is the exact answer- if it's something that still sells or has sales potential, they'd probably go back and request digital rights. If it sold horribly, then they're better off spending their time making digital editions of more consistent sellers.

Hey it's possible, I've seen digital copies of old Marvel Comic like Spiderman and X-men from the 1960's on PS Digital Comic store. A lot of hard copies of old manga are hard to find these day. So yeah I would like to see old manga get the digital treatment.