BitTorrent is a much-cited and much-maligned format. Most people associate it with piracy, because, to be completely honest, that is mostly what it is used for. But practically it’s just a way of moving bits around – and it’s particularly useful for moving big bits around, stuff that takes a while to download. This is because BitTorrent works by breaking everything down into lots of chunks and passing them around, so you can download a few chunks at a time, from a network of other BitTorrent users. That’s why it’s so popular for downloading movies: but if you’re a publisher with a lot of bits to move, it makes sense for you too. BitTorrent, Inc, for its part, has been trying to go legit, doing deals with movie studios and the like to make films available legally – and it has started to do the same for big books too.

Graphic novels are one of those old media hit with both ends of the digital stick. As the most obvious route to discovery, in the form of the local comics shop, disappears, so the possibilities of reaching ever more readers with ever more hi-def screens increases. British graphic novel publisher SelfMadeHero is best known for its adaptations of literary classics, from Kafka to Brontë, but it also has an excellent original list. Jörg Tittel and John Aggs’s Ricky Rouse Has a Gun is a satire on American culture and perceptions of China, told as a thriller set somewhere in a remix of both societies, and as such is a perfect match for BitTorrent. Last month it became the first graphic novel BitTorrent bundle, a paid download allowing publishers to reach readers directly, without going through Apple, Comixology or other storefronts. This month it’s the turn of US independent Dynamite Entertainment, which has released over 200 issues from 30 different titles for just $6. Among them, titles from George RR Martin and Dean Koontz might just get BitTorrent noticed, and supported.