Digital comics

E said:
Open the Marvel or Comixology apps and get 700 (yes, 700) free digital Marvel #1s.

Seriously. Lots of stuff. Some of it is even good.

Even Marvel Now stuff is included. It looks like they've made every single #1 they have up free, or nearly every single #1.

It's pretty amazing. Go now - it's only available today and tomorrow (Monday). Good luck though - the mass of people downloading 700 free comics has basically crashed Comixology. I am using the Marvel app since my Marvel and Comixology profiles are linked, and while I'm able to "buy" or claim the comics, I can't actually download them.

GO DO THIS NOW, PEOPLE.
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As soon as it starts working again.
 
Some of the support staff have been tweeting about this. They advised that you get the comics through the app as opposed to the website, because you can "buy" the comics and even though it will give you a download error you have still added it to your account.

It looks like they are thinking about extending the sale. If Comixology doesn't get things together soon it could hamper Wednesday comic sales. It's one thing to have limited access to free comics but to not be able to buy comics (which is the goal of offering free #1s in the first place)? That's bad. Even worse is that you can barely download ANYTHING right now, including comics you've already paid for.

Marvel's app is completely borked. You can even sign in. At least you can sign in Comixology's app; you just can't sync purchases (for people who have their Marvel and Comixology accounts linked). This actually happened a couple days ago when the Digital Unlimited app came out, but at least they had it fixed within a day.
 
It's pretty sweet. I got a whole bunch (at least 50). But yeah, none of them actually downloaded. Once it gets all fixed, I'll download them all.
 
I was able to snag all of them. As of last night I was able to download some and read them.
 
I was able to add them to my cart but I couldn't purchase or download anything.
 
Comixology was (and might still be) having a Jonathan Hickman sale. I got his Test Pattern Omnibus (his entire creator-owned library: The Nightly News, Pax Romana, Transhuman, Red Mass for Mars, and Redwing) for $19

I've never read anything of his that wasn't Marvel, so I'm excited!
 
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Captain Canuck said:
Comixology was (and might still be) having a Jonathan Hickman sale. I got his Test Pattern Omnibus (his entire creator-owned library: The Nightly News, Pax Romana, Transhuman, Red Mass for Mars, and Redwing) for $19

I've never read anything of his that wasn't Marvel, so I'm excited!
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The Nightly News is GREAT. We have a thread for it somewhere. It has such a distinctive style. I wish it was HD for newer iPads - I picked it up too.

I also picked up Pax Romana, which was also very good.

I never finished Transhuman. Red Mass For Mars was OK. I don't recall if I read Redwing.
 
Ice said:
I believe that was the first work I read by Hickman (thanks to you). Been loving his work ever since.
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I believe it was E who recommended it to me.

But had I not read that and Pax Romana I'm sure I would've passed on his SHIELD and subsequently Secret Warriors and Fantastic Four. His Marvel work is a completist's dream.
 
Victor Von Doom said:
It's what made me a Hickman fan.
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:rockon:

VVD and I have expressed our love for Nightly News many times throughout this site. I'm sure there is a thread for it too.

I have a few extra bucks this month so I went ahead and bought Transhuman, Red Mass For Mars, & Redwing.
 
I too loved the nightly news. Pax Romana is wonderfully dense and I'd love to see something else set in its timeline. The others are fine but not at the level of the first two. Except for red wing. It was actually fairly disappointing because it felt like it was going in one direction and instead went in a significantly less satisfying one.
 
Big, big changes over the weekend.

Amazon bought Comixology a few weeks ago, and this weekend Comixology abruptly and unexpectedly updated their iOS and Andriod apps. Actually update isn't quite the right word; they removed the storefront and the ability to purchase within the app and introduced a new app that can only be used to read comics. From now on, you have to buy comics on their website then download them via the app to read them.

Obviously there was a HUGE outcry over this. It removes a huge convenience, but worse (for me, and others have mentioned it) it removes the ability to buy comics with iTunes gift cards. I get iTunes gift cards as gifts all the time. I use them almost exclusively to buy digital comics. People are going nuts and the reviews for the new iOS app are brutal.

Fortunately the individual publisher Comixology-powered apps (Marvel, DC, and Image each have one) still give the ability to make in-app purchases, but who knows how long that will last. No one has said anything.

There is thought that this could lead to lower prices but I can't see that happening. Maybe better or more frequent sales, but there's no way they are going to lower prices.

There is also speculation that this will lose them so much money that they won't have any choice but to reinstate in-app purchases. Comixology was the #1 app for generating in-app purchases last year (I think the year before as well) and now they literally made zero. Impulse purchases were so easy and now that ability is gone. The convenience of getting a free comic, liking it, and immediately and effortlessly buying more of it is gone.

Gerry Conway had a pretty scathing opinion on the whole thing...

Amazon did this. It did it for one reason, and one reason only: to advance their proprietary hardware platform, the Kindle, at the expense of Apple's platform, the iPad and iPhone. They have deliberately degraded the iPad and iPhone Comixology app so that users of the Kindle will have a better reading and purchasing experience. That's all this is about. They've destroyed the future of digital comics to give an advantage to their hardware platform — and, in passing, to leverage their control of digital comics distribution to do to comic book stores what they've already done to brick-and-mortar book stores.

Now, I've heard some folks say that Amazon is just trying to avoid paying Apple's "greedy 30% fee" for in-app purchases. This is such nonsense it almost doesn't require a response, because there are people out there who have a knee-jerk reaction against Apple that goes beyond critical thinking, but in the hopes of reaching more open-minded readers who might be tempted by that argument, let me address it.
Apple charges 30% for in-app purchases of eBooks, music, video, games. Amazon charges 30% for digital distribution of eBooks, music, video, games. Same deal. Period.

There's a long and fruitless debate to be had over whether or not Apple "deserves" to make a profit off its App Store. Anti-Apple deniers say no, and their arguments usually boil down to just a dislike of Apple making a profit (or what they consider a "greedy" profit). The fact is, Apple provides a storefront for developers to sell their apps, and as any store owner would, asks for a piece of the money the developers make as a result. Mall owners ask store owners to pay rent. It's a normal business transaction. Happens every day. Apple's App Store provides developers with access, and gives them three ways to pay for the privilege: developers can charge for the app directly (and Apple takes a cut, 30%, same as Amazon); developers can provide the app for "free" and Apple will place ads in the app (ad-supported payment, like Google search); or developers can offer in-app purchases (and Apple takes their 30% cut, one step removed).

What Amazon is doing is finessing Apple's deal with developers by providing an app for free, yet not paying Apple's fee for the privilege. In effect, Amazon is a store owner in a mall who isn't paying rent to the mall owner. And anti-Apple deniers think that's fair, why? Because they just don't like Apple making a "greedy" profit. But it's okay for Amazon to make that same "greedy" profit while taking advantage of a loophole in Apple's deal with developers. To me, this is blatant hypocrisy or blind economic naïveté. But believe me, Jeff Bezos knows exactly what he's doing: he's screwing Apple, and he's screwing the future of comic books. If you let him get away with it because of some bizarre anti-Apple bias, you're screwing yourself, too.
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For what it's worth (not much as he basically doesnt' answer any of the questions), here's a little Q&A with Comixology's VP of marketing...

CBR News: What's the thinking behind this change? Why was this done?

Chip Mosher: As we move to complete the acquisition with Amazon, we are shifting to the web-based purchasing model they've successfully used with Kindle, which we expect will allow us to strike the best balance between prices, selection and customer experience.

Is there any fear that this could affect sales, as customers have to take extra steps to buy comics? Any concern about losing "spontaneous" purchases or the ability to promote sales within the app?

There are many advantages to shopping at comiXology.com. Because of the content restrictions our mobile partners have, shopping on the web provides even greater selection of comic books and graphic novels. iOS customers will now be able to save money with comiXology's exclusive web-only bundles, take advantage of subscription features and enjoy eGift cards. We also made our website more tablet/mobile friendly on all devices to make the purchasing process that much easier. And in Safari on iOS, customers can easily save a shortcut to our webstore with the "Add to Home Screen" feature.

Why launch a new app? Why not just remove the storefront from the current app?

The new iOS reading app is to help customers find and read their books. Also, with the new app we can continue to support customers that purchased without a comiXology account as they can take some time to make an account and move to the new app.

So to download and get reading, customers just need to sign into the new iOS Comics app and tap on the new In Cloud tab. There they'll find their entire comiXology library of books ready for download. Downloaded books will appear in the new On Device tab for reading. We also made our website more tablet/mobile friendly on all devices to make the purchasing process that much easier.
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:roll: I like how he completely avoided that last question.
 
Good ole Gerry Conway.

I usually buy my digital comics from the digital storefront of my LCS anyway, and you can't do that in-app.

But yeah, the impulse buying of whole series was so easy to do. I dropped ridiculous amounts of money on comics that way for a while. Now I just use the Marvel Comics Unlimited app. Saves me so much money.
 
I must say, I expect Comixology's sales figures to drop drastically over the next few months due to people either not owning a Kindle, being angry at this move and refusing to buy the comics (instead hopefully bringing their business to LCS or unfortunately torrenting their books), etc. I can't see this working out for the best for Amazon in the short term, and maybe not even in the long term.

But I'm no business genius so perhaps I'm wrong.
 
DIrishB said:
I must say, I expect Comixology's sales figures to drop drastically over the next few months due to people either not owning a Kindle, being angry at this move and refusing to buy the comics (instead hopefully bringing their business to LCS or unfortunately torrenting their books), etc. I can't see this working out for the best for Amazon in the short term, and maybe not even in the long term.

But I'm no business genius so perhaps I'm wrong.
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You don't need to own a kindle. You can still read your digital comics on any platform you did before, you just have to buy them via the web store instead of in app.

E and I were talking about this on twitter. It really doesn't affect me much because I always bought my comics from the website as I rarely buy one comic from them and its signifigantly easier to buy multiples at once there then in app. I also NEVER get any kind of gift card that could be redeemed to it, I have no stake in the iTunes ecosystem so their gift cards are useless to me and Google play gift cards are pretty uncommon. Having said all that its EXTREMELY odd to me that they're cutting off such a big revenue stream. Now if apple did indeed take a 30% cut that's pretty steep. A lot of businesses operate with that as their profit. Buy I'd still be surprised if the amount lost from people who won't take the extra step will balance out from the people that do. One of the most important things I've learned from working in a variety of businesses is that people WILL NOT CHANGE. If you change in any way you immediately loose a percentage of your sales. Forever. You might gain new costumers but you shed some guaranteed. And I can't see this change bringing in any new customers.
 
Friday said:
It really doesn't affect me much because I always bought my comics from the website as I rarely buy one comic from them and its signifigantly easier to buy multiples at once there then in app. I also NEVER get any kind of gift card that could be redeemed to it, I have no stake in the iTunes ecosystem so their gift cards are useless to me and Google play gift cards are pretty uncommon.
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There are people like you who use it that way, but based on what I'm reading they are not as common as people who just buy in the app.

Friday said:
Having said all that its EXTREMELY odd to me that they're cutting off such a big revenue stream. Now if apple did indeed take a 30% cut that's pretty steep. A lot of businesses operate with that as their profit. Buy I'd still be surprised if the amount lost from people who won't take the extra step will balance out from the people that do. One of the most important things I've learned from working in a variety of businesses is that people WILL NOT CHANGE. If you change in any way you immediately loose a percentage of your sales. Forever. You might gain new costumers but you shed some guaranteed. And I can't see this change bringing in any new customers.
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No, I really doubt it.

30% is steep but a) it's the norm; Apple takes 30% of ALL in-app purchases no matter what and b) it worked OK for Comixology up to this point. Like I said - highest grossing app in the App Store.

The convenience, especially for casual readers (i.e. probably not most of us) is what made Comixology so great and successful. It was so easy to buy comics, find new things to read...there was an accessibility there that, lets face it, comics has never had. It's not real easy for a lot of non-comics readers to walk into a brick and mortar comics store and get acclimated to the point where they are comfortable buying and coming back, and it's been that way for a long time. Comixology erased that stigma about comic books and now it's out the window.
 
E said:
There are people like you who use it that way, but based on what I'm reading they are not as common as people who just buy in the app. No, I really doubt it. 30% is steep but a) it's the norm; Apple takes 30% of ALL in-app purchases no matter what and b) it worked OK for Comixology up to this point. Like I said - highest grossing app in the App Store. The convenience, especially for casual readers (i.e. probably not most of us) is what made Comixology so great and successful. It was so easy to buy comics, find new things to read...there was an accessibility there that, lets face it, comics has never had. It's not real easy for a lot of non-comics readers to walk into a brick and mortar comics store and get acclimated to the point where they are comfortable buying and coming back, and it's been that way for a long time. Comixology erased that stigma about comic books and now it's out the window.
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Exactly. The all in one approach of the app on mobile devices was a huge plus (being able to browse available comics, purchase them, and read them all in one go). They've altered the approach to the marketplace that customers had grown accustomed to over the past 5-6 years. Forcing people to go to their website to buy the comics instead of all in the app to avoid having to shell out to Apple reflects badly on Amazon, however justified it may be.

Either way, it'll lead to a drop in their digital sales and an increase in people pirating their comics due to frustration and ease. I mean, if you're going to be forced to visit a website anyway to purchase your comics, I can see many people just deciding to visit torrent sites instead, which only hurts the creators and comic publishers.

Just a really shortsighted move on Amazon's part.
 
Soo… I just went online to buy some comics off my LCS digital comixology storefront. But it's gone. Did Amazon get rid of that too now?
 
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