The Digital Reader

Read More, Carry Less

The Digital Reader header image 4

Entries Tagged as 'digital comics'

Marvel Brings Their Unlimited Digital Comics Subscriptions to Android

May 8th, 2013 by Nate Hoffelder · digital comics, ebook subscription → 2 Comments

marvel unlimitedI have long been a fan of all-you-can-read subscription plans, so when I learned yesterday that Marvel had finally launched Marvel Unlimited on  Android I was initially thrilled.

Marvel has been looking for alternatives to selling monthly singles for quite a while now, and if not for the many limitations Marvel Unlimited might be their best shot at an ongoing revenue stream.

This subscription service initially launched in 2007, and arrived on iOS in March 2013. And yesterday the app showed up in Google Play.
[Read more →]

Izneo Removes 40% of Their Catalog After Receiving Censorship Threats From Apple

April 4th, 2013 by Nate Hoffelder · Apple, digital comics → 12 Comments

powergirl-bd[1]Apple, a company with a long history of censoring content, is back again today with a new purity campaign.  Reports are coming in that the digital comics distributor Izneo has had to radically prune their catalog or face banishment from iTunes.
[Read more →]

Infographic: Where Your Digital Comic Dollars Go

March 23rd, 2013 by Nate Hoffelder · digital comics, infographic → 1 Comment

CreatorOwnedPieChart-DigitalThe following chart crossed my inbox yesterday (via eBookporn), and after I tracked down the original source and read more about the digital comics market I thought this was worth sharing.

There’s a larger version of the chart later in the post.

As you can see, creators and publishers have to give up two-thirds of the retail price to the retailer and the distributor.  In spite of the fact that it’s possible to bypass comiXology and work directly with the major ebookstores, no one does that. If this is correct then it suggests that comiXology has the same dominant position in digital comics that Audible has in audiobooks.
[Read more →]

Marvel is Giving Away 700 Issue #1 Comics

March 11th, 2013 by Nate Hoffelder · digital comics, Freebies → No Comments

marvel[1]Marvel is making a big deal over SxSW this week, and it’s your lucky day.

For the next couple days they will be giving away 700 different first issues of their various titles and series.You can find the free comics on the Marvel website, or at least you would if it had not crashed. They are also available via comiXology.

This is definitely one worth getting. The selection includes not just the first issues of long running series but also includes a number of standalone titles as well as the first issue of volume in a series. For example, there are free first issues from Book One and Book Two of Ender’s Shadow (by Orson Scott Card).

The deal runs through tomorrow.

comiXology

Marvel

Marvel to Add Soundtracks to Digital Graphic Novels – Um, Yay?

March 10th, 2013 by Nate Hoffelder · digital comics, software news → No Comments

513a22d3a15c2[1]The South by Southwest Con is going on right now, and Marvel is there to show exactly how big their bag of gimmicks really is. They’re showing off Project Gamma, their amazingly wonderful plan to add soundtracks to digital comics:
[Read more →]

ComiXology Releases Special “Digital Variant” Cover

January 23rd, 2013 by Nate Hoffelder · comiXology, digital comics → 2 Comments

CYBORG-009-TrulyDigital-Variant[1]Good Idea: Making an animated GIF which shows a funny clip.

Bad Idea: Making an animated GIF and using it as a book cover.

Comic books have had a long history of offering special or variant covers for certain issues of paper comic books (including at least one augmented reality cover), and today comiXology expanded that tradition to include a one-of-a-kind cover for a special issue installment in the Cyborg 009 series.

The cover, which you can see at right, was created in order to celebrate the 75th birthday of legendary manga creator Shotaro Ishinomori.
[Read more →]

Symbolia’s new iPad App Explores the Concept of Comics Journalism

December 24th, 2012 by Nate Hoffelder · digital comics, software news → No Comments

symbolia Given the recent, public, and messy death of The Daily, some would say that launching a new digital-only publication is a rather public form of  suicide.

Symbolia is planning to prove that idea wrong. They launched their new magazine app earlier this month, and it brings a novel illustration style to the iPad.
[Read more →]

Comic Strips Are Going Digital – Dilbert, Peanuts, & More

December 20th, 2012 by Nate Hoffelder · digital comics → 1 Comment

dilbert comic digitalHere’s something I never expected to see when I got into ebooks a decade ago.

A couple press releases have come across my desk this week. It seems that Graphicly and comiXology, 2 of the leading digital comics distributors, are making a major push to sign new comic strips creators. They’ve each announced new partnerships with one or more classic strips.
[Read more →]

ComiXology Adds Bookmarking, Sharing Features to Their Digital Comics Apps

December 18th, 2012 by Nate Hoffelder · digital comics, ebookstore news → 1 Comment

comiXology_Continue_iPad[1]Here’s a bit of news from the “Why wasn’t it already supported” dept.

ComiXology, one of the leading digital comics distributor, has just updated their platform to include a feature which I’m sure their customers have long wanted.

They’re calling it a Continue function, and it enables you to start a graphic novel in one comiXology app (say, the iPad app) and then continue reading the graphic novel from where you left off in one of the other apps.
[Read more →]

Digital Manga Publishing to Take a Hiatus on Print Editions

November 15th, 2012 by Nate Hoffelder · digital comics → 4 Comments

The leading US republisher of manga comics surprised me with some news last night. They announced on their blog that they’re going to pause their printing schedule for 6 to 7 months:

Today we would like to announce that effective January 1st 2013, the print editions for our DMP, June Manga, DokiDoki and 801Media imprints will be placed on a temporary hiatus. Please be advised that none of our licenses are cancelled, simply postponed. We will be resuming the distribution of our print editions in June, 2013. This hiatus will allow us to coordinate our production schedule for 2013 and temporarily shift our focus to our digital publications.
[Read more →]