700 free Marvel Comics from Comixology, take two

Apr 092013
 

ComixologyComixology’s “700 free Marvel #1′s” comic promotion brought its service to its knees some time ago, forcing them to bail out on the offer. The fiasco also pointed out the flaws in Comixology’s DRM/cloud-based model. (This would’ve been one situation where torrenting would actually have a legit/useful purpose…)

Now they’re trying the offer again, in a more organized manner. Until midnight EST tonight (11 PM Central Time), the promo’s available, but only by signing up at a special Comixology page (http://promo.comixology.com). Comixology will then email you a special link, good for accessing/downloading the comics within 48 hours of receiving said link.

We’ll see if this goes better; I assume they’ve leased out extra server space for the 48-hour period.

Comixology crashes, or why a single dominant digital comics vendor is a bad idea

Mar 122013
 

ComixologyThe big comics story this week so far has been Comixology, the popular (and dominant) digital comics vendor, being inaccessible for most of the past few days. To summarize: Marvel made an offer for 700(!) free first issues of various comics via Comixology. The offer was supposed to have run starting Sunday through the next few days. However, Comixology apparently didn’t have the server capacity (or bother to temporarily rent out extra capacities) to keep up with the demand, and the entire site crashed/came to an unusable crawl. Not only could customers access the Marvel offer, but no other vendor (DC, Archie, small-press companies, etc.) could sell any of their books, either. Marvel rescinded the offer (“for now”), and Comixology is now back up and running. Comics Alliance details the whole ugly mess here.

I’ve written about the downsides of Comixology‘s proprietary model for its comics before (your purchases just being glorified rentals you don’t own, DRM, etc.), but this sums up why the comics industry relying on a single digital comics vendor is a bad idea. At least DC and Archie have recently started offering their same-day digital books through Kindle, Nook, and Kobo, so they’re in better shape than Marvel and others that solely use Comixology/Comixology-based apps for their same-day digital books. Ditto Dark Horse (which uses its own proprietary DRMed app), plus indie/smaller-press sellers offering digital books on their own (without DRM). Imagine if Comixology‘s woes had continued through Wednesday, a.k.a. new comics day: I could go to Nook, Kindle, etc. and still buy the newest DC or Archie fare, but not so much Marvel’s. Still wonder why the comics industry stampeded to basically adopt a digital version of the Diamond monopoly model for physical comics…

And yes, I’ll say again that DRM in digital comics still needs to go. The comics are already easily available via piracy sources (torrents, Usenet, etc.), and the attempt at locking users into one specific comics app/vendor is ludicrous, heavy-handed, and short-sighted. Said flaws would be made even worse if, say, Comixology went out of business (if this week’s any indication, Comixology’s customers might be left high and dry).

To wrap things up, here’s a link to a post I wrote about digital comic alternatives to Comixology.

Digital comics alternatives to Comixology

Jan 132013
 
Archie #640 on the Nexus 7

Archie #640 in the Nook app on the Nexus 7.

While Comixology’s come to become the dominant force for digital comics, is convenient, and has a nice enough app, it does have some flaws. For one, the comic companies seem to have rushed into handing things over to a digital monopoly after years of complaining about the physical one to comic shops, Diamond. For another, there’s the proprietary nature of Comixology’s purchases—they’re in a file format that’s tied to the Comixology app, and thus no way to back up one’s purchases to an external hard drive, use an alternate program for reading comics, and so forth.

So I thought I’d post a few (legal) online alternatives I’ve used for reading comics…

Nook (Barnes and Noble)

Barnes and Noble’s online Nook store apparently offers everything in an EPUB format, including its comics. While wrapped in DRM, the comics still at least come in an actual conventional file format. The Nook store also offers apps to read and make purchases for iOS and Android operating systems, as well as Windows and OS X. However, not all their books are allowed to be read in the OS X version of the app for some reason; what platforms are allowed may be checked under the comic’s description.

Comics offered include same-day digital offerings for DC Comics and (after some hiatus on new books) Archie Comics. There’s also some digital trade paperbacks from DC, Marvel, Archie, and some smaller press/independent companies. Manga and some comic strip compilations (Pearls Before Swine, Get Fuzzy) also have digital versions offered. Marvel fans might be disappointed, as Nook doesn’t offer same-day sales on singles.

Kindle (Amazon.com)

Besides their comics being available on Amazon’s usual website, Amazon also offers a Kindle app for most operating systems, as well as the usual DRM. Amazon, however, is the one online ebook seller that doesn’t offer its books in EPUB format, but instead in its own format, AZW. Along with that, not all of their comics are offered in said format, but in some obscured format (similar to Comixology). Like the Nook, not all of Kindle’s comics are capable of being read on all platforms (again, the Mac’s often the odd man out). What platforms the comic will be readable on (and whether it’s an actual AZW file or not) involves reading the description carefully.

Amazon’s comics include same-day digital books for DC Comics, as well as some trade paperbacks for DC, Archie, Marvel, etc. Manga and some comic strip compilations are also offered digitally. There’s a lack of same-day digital books (or single-issue books, for that matter) for Marvel or Archie, however.

Kobo

Kobo doesn’t have a very strong presence here in the US, save as the ebook seller of choice for third-party tablet/ebook reader makers who need a convenient ebook store ready-to-go. Its main supporter, the Borders chain, unfortunately went bankrupt a few years ago. However, Kobo does have a stronger presence outside the US (where Amazon or Barnes and Noble have a reduced or no presence), including Canada. Kobo’s approach is to offer comics in either an obscured format (a la Kindle/Comixology) or in an EPUB format (like Nook), though largely the former. The ebook descriptions will openly list what format it’s in, whether there’s DRM, and what platforms it may be read on. Kobo offers apps for most of the major mobile and desktop platforms.

Kobo’s comic offerings are largely smaller-press or independent companies, including IDW and Archie. Kobo does offer the Archie titles as same-day digital purchases.

DriveThruComics.com

Drive Thru Comics is a site that specializes in smaller-press and independent books; no DC, Marvel, or Archie material here. The highest profile titles on Drive Thru Comics are “2000 AD” (the long-running British magazine featuring Judge Dredd) and Top Cow’s books (Witchblade, etc.). Unlike the other online stores, however, the books here are offered largely as DRM-free PDFs (aside from being watermarked with the purchaser’s name).

All of the above digital stores (like Comixology) are supported on my Nexus 7 (as Android apps for Kindle, Kobo, and Nook exist). As for which digital comics store I use, I mostly use Nook, since: it’s the app I’ve bought the most books with (my first tablet being a Nook Color); Nook offers all of its comics in EPUB format; they offer DC and Archie as same-day digital books (unlike Kindle/Kobo); and since their comics are all EPUBs (versus an obscured/proprietary format), there’s an actual file I can backup for myself, after using Calibre/third-party Calibre plugins to remove the comics’ DRM (no, I’m not advocating piracy, just personal ownership rights for what I paid for).

That’s all the online venues I can think of for now… if there’s any others, I’ll discuss them in the future.

The best and worst of 2012 in comics

Dec 302012
 

Life With Archie #16Since it’s time for “end of 2012″ lists aplenty, I thought I’d get in as well. And since everything seems to be couched in “best of”/”worst of” lists, I’ll go that route as well. So let’s start off with a look back at the best and the worst of comics over the past year.

Best

  • The wedding of the adult Kevin Keller in “Life With Archie” selling out, as well as One Million Mom’s boycott of “Toys R Us” for carrying the issue backfiring hard. 
  • Similarly, the wedding of Northstar in the “X-Men” comics.
  • “Batwoman” winning a GLAAD award.
  • The present-day Kevin Keller’s own comic, which continued to be entertaining.
  • “Reed Gunther,” a fun Western/light-horror comic. Unfortunately, it’s been canceled.
  • DC Comics selling same-day digital comics through the Nook and Kindle stores. A move away from Comixology’s digital monopoly and their heavily DRMed comics model is a good thing. (Yes, the Nook/Kindle books are still DRMed, but at least they’re actual files one can remove the DRM on and back up…)
  • The 2012 C2E2 show in Chicago. Still fun, even if I could only spend a single day there.
  • Another “Love and Capes” series!
  • “Superman Family Adventures,” the one DC book I’m still reading (unless waiting for the trade paperback for Morrison’s “Action” run counts).
  • Archie’s “New Crusaders” has been enjoyable.
  • Dan Slott’s run on “Amazing Spider-Man,” and Brian Michael Bendis’ run on Miles Morales’ title.

Worst

  • The “Star Trek/Legion of Superheroes” miniseries. Dragged out plotline + my existing dislike of Q (even if he apparently got rather easily captured by Fred Flintstone’s evil cousin, a.k.a. Vandal Savage) + the predictable “reset button” ending rendering it all even more pointless = “hoped that Star Trek/Dr. Who crossover did better with Who fans.” Still, at least this series acknowledged the Kal-El Superboy was a Legionnaire.
  • The shutdown of Graphicly, with the promise of keeping their comics servers up for those that bought books through them…for now, anyway. A big reason I don’t like the Comixology digital model of (basically) paying full price for what amounts to renting comics long-term, as long as the company stays in business/with files tied strongly to a proprietary app. I can only hope the recent move by DC to sell their books as actual digital files via Kindle and Nook stores means Comixology’s glorified-rental model won’t last, and that some changes are in store.
  • “The Meaning of Lila” ended its newspaper run. I’m currently reading the strip’s reruns on GoComics.com.
  • DC Comics overall is definitely on this list. Long story short, the “New 52″ reboot bites, and I still wish DC had different, more progressive-minded leadership as a company. To wit:
    • The cancellations of Mister Terrific and Static’s books. As troubled as they were, they could’ve at least tried to keep them around a bit longer, or clear up their writing/editing situations. Instead, they’re both axed to make room for Yet Another Batman-related Book, among other things.
    • DC’s ugly new “Peel” logo.
    • Captain Marvel is now called “Shazam“… and Billy Batson’s been turned into some obnoxious, rude brat.
    • “Watchmen” prequels nobody wanted or needed, despite the otherwise excellent staff involved in producing them.
    • Re-introducing the “New 52″ Earth-2 Alan Scott as gay is OK, albeit at the expense of his now-nonexistent gay son Obsidian, since they’ve also de-aged Alan into his 20s like the rest of the characters in “New 52″ line. (Even Bronze Age DC’s timeline with Superman being 29 wasn’t as extreme as the take in the “New 52″—the JSAers were allowed to age!) However, what happened to Alan’s better half—being killed off right after being introduced—puts this on the “worst” list.
    • Superman being written out-of-character. Clark Kent should never say the words “booty call,” DC. And the “Little Abner” “early days” costume is still dumb.
    • Lois’ treatment in the “New 52″ is still lousy. Given they have a major movie coming out starring, among others, Lois, can’t see DC keeping this up through 2013 (Superman’s 75th anniversary)… then again, this is DC…
    • The Superman-Wonder Woman romance. Bad fanfic/fanboy fantasy ideas given the “green light?” Um, no. Again, “major Superman movie out in 2013″ (see Lois above)…
    • Plenty more I’ve probably missed, but it’s probably easier to read this blogger’s post about DC this year, which sums things up pretty well.

As lousy as the worst of the above could be, the best of comics this year, as always, will leave a much better impression of the medium. I look forward to seeing what 2013 has in store for comics!

 

DC Comics to sell same-day digital comics via Nook, Kindle, and Apple

Nov 082012
 

DC ComicsYesterday, DC Comics announced that they’ll start selling same-day digital comics through several non-Comixology sources. These sources include Barnes and Noble’s Nook store, Amazon.com’s Kindle service, and Apple’s iBookstore service. The comics will apparently be priced similarly to Comixology’s (i.e. the same as the paper copies). Details may be read here.

I view this as a big step, plus a positive sign. Perhaps someone at DC’s realized that giving Comixology a complete monopoly on digital comics was a bad thing, or would put them in the same situation as that for the monopolistic distributor for comic book shops, Diamond. Still, an actual wider range of choices to buy comics from is a good thing. Said bookstores are also much more prominent among the general public than comic-specific apps; one can buy comics alongside “regular” text books, magazines, etc., just like the old days (when comics were sold at newsstands).

The usual downsides are that the comics are still overpriced (a reason I’ve mostly moved to trade paperbacks, which fortunately are also sold digitally via the above sources), and that they’re still DRMed as ebooks. However, the biggest advantage over Comixology is that they’re in EPUB format (or Kindle’s non-EPUB format) like any other ebook—and that means there’s an actual file I can back up on my own, plus remove the DRM myself. While I’d prefer DRM-free materials, as long as I can perform the latter (which with Calibre and a few plugins is easy… future blog post on this, I suppose), I can finally switch to buying “Superman Family Adventures” digitally, probably via the Nook app on my Nexus 7.

Graphicly to shut down single-issue digital comics sales, focus on ebooks

Apr 062012
 

Comixology displaying an Archie comicThe other day, news was given that digital comics retailer Graphicly (a.k.a. “Graphic.ly”) is shutting down its single-issue digital comics sales, to focus instead on producing ebooks (including ebook graphic novels) to sell for the Kindle, Nook, etc. Comics Alliance has more about the details of this: http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/04/05/graphicly-switches-from-digital-comics-distribution-to-ebooks-pr/

While it’s nice that Graphicly will allow continued access to already-bought digital comics, this is why the current digital comics system is, in my opinion, fundamentally broken, and no better than the early digital rights management (DRM) laden days of iTunes’ Music Store. One’s basically paying for a glorified rental, with the downloaded comic files tied exclusively to a particular app or website, and impossible to mix between the two (i.e., I can’t take Graphicly comics over to Comixology, or vice-versa). And if the site that actually owns your purchases shuts down, then good luck. The fact that they insist on charging the same (overpriced) $3-$4 per issue as they do for paper copies makes this even worse.

It’s too bad the mainstream comics industry apparently didn’t learn anything from the music industry for how to sell digital comics. While I’d like to think eventually they’ll come around (as digital music stores have), it seems like it’ll be a long ways off with nobody but Comixology dominating the landscape.

A better solution for the digital comics landscape would be to offer comics in standardized open formats, such as EPUB, PDF, CBR, and/or CBZ files. If piracy’s still a concern, they could embed some sort of non-DRM identification features such as watermarks into the files, such as the ones in the Archie “Bronze Age” DVD-ROM comics collections from the mid-2000s. There’s also what “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling’s own site is doing—offering DRM-free ebooks of her series.

In the meanwhile, I suppose there’s public domain material, smaller publishers, or independent comics producers (or, for some, pirated CBR/CBZ files, or scanning your own paper books yourself) to rely on for non-DRM digital comics.

 

Nook Color and Nook Tablet now have CBZ file support

Apr 022012
 

Nook Color setupRecently, I’ve discovered that the most recent update for the Nook Color and Nook Tablet has given the Nook built-in support for CBZ files. CBZ is a popular digital comic book format online—mostly found with smaller press or independent publications, public domain materials, and (yes, I know) pirated materials. CBZ is merely a renamed ZIP file containing sequentially numbered JPGs. A common companion format of CBZ is CBR (a renamed RAR file).

Testing some CBZ files on my Nook Color shows it displays the comics just fine. While there’s no support for CBR files, converting CBRs to CBZs is fairly straightforward (in Xubuntu, right-click on the CBR and select “Extract Here,” then right-click on the extracted files’ folder and select “Create Archive,” then select “CBZ” from the drop-down menu and click “OK”).

On a related note, I wonder why Barnes and Noble doesn’t offer the Comixology app. Despite the heavily DRMed nature of Comixology’s comics (proprietary files only readable or accessible within the app; basically a glorified rental model), it seems to have become the most popular online legal comics venue. I suppose it’d mean less sales of B&N’s own digital graphic novels, though.

 

Marvel to go same-day digital by end of March 2012

Nov 042011
 

Marvel Adventures Spider-Man #10 coverOn the heels of DC offering all of its DCU titles for same-day digital distribution as part of its big “DCNU” reboot in September, comes news that Marvel now plans on doing the same thing. Comics Alliance reports that Marvel plans to offer digital versions of almost all of its titles by the end of March 2012. Exempt from these offerings are licensed titles and the “mature readers” MAX line of books.

While legal digital comics still have big DRM related problems (as I’ve noted in the past), this is still a welcome move by Marvel, putting them on par with their Distinguished Competition (and Archie). Hopefully, this is the first step toward all the companies offering true digital downloads not tied to a specific app or proprietary viewer, much like iTunes or Amazon.com music store purchases. Also hopefully, the Marvel Adventures line is included with the digital store sales…

Anthony roots the Nook Color

Mar 132011
 

After some thought, and seeing that Barnes and Noble seems to be dragging their feet on introducing their own app store for the Nook Color (as they promised to do months ago), I’ve decided to go ahead and root my Nook. The Nook Color’s been quite popular among tech enthusiasts, as it’s easy to root, and thus allows one to turn it into a cheap, mostly-full-fledged Android tablet. With the rooting, of course, comes access to the Android Market and its various apps (most of which work with the Nook). In terms of ebooks, it’s also possible to install an app that’ll allow you to read ebooks made for the Kindle. In my case, I’m interested in reading comics on the Nook without having to convert them to PDFs first, thus a comic reader app was part of my motivation for rooting.

Here are the sites with the instructions I followed for rooting the Nook Color:

http://nookdevs.com/NookColor_Rooting

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/guides/2011/02/howto-root-a-nook-color-to-transform-it-into-an-android-tablet.ars/

The most difficult part I had was using the “dd” Unix/Linux terminal command to copy the disk image to the MicroSD card, though somebody online helped me out on that point.

Otherwise, things went smoothly, and I was easily able to root/set up the Nook Color. I installed a few apps, including the Droid Comic Reader and Angry Birds. I’d heard much about Angry Birds, but never gotten a chance to play it until now. I can see why it’s popular; like Frozen Bubble, it’s simple, but addictive.

As for Droid Comic Reader, it worked nicely…for awhile at least. I say “for awhile” because unfortunately, it started to throw up “out of memory” errors. I’ll check online to see if there’s any alternate comic readers, or if there’s a way to fix Droid Comic Reader, though from the looks of what I’m seeing so far, it doesn’t seem likely (the “out of memory” error/bug seems to have been around for awhile).

I’ve also installed the Android Comixology app, which works quite nicely, downloading my already-purchased comics to the Nook. The app (and the Nook) is much nicer to read comics on than Comixology’s website/within my laptop’s browser.

Overall, it’s nice to see my Nook Color now has a lot more functionality to it. I’ll report more on my experiences with the rooted Nook in the future.

Update: Think I might’ve found a better app for reading comics, “Perfect Viewer.” Lofty-minded name (and the programmer doesn’t seem to speak English as his primary language), but it seems to work much better with CBR/CBZ files (no out-of-memory errors so far). I’ll post another update if that proves not to be the case.

Comixology experience and digital comics thoughts in general

Jan 232011
 

Comixology displaying an Archie comicRecently, I signed up for Comixology, an online digital comics store that allows one to buy and read a selection of some comics from various companies, including DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, Archie, etc.

Comixology’s store relies on Flash. On the plus side, this means not being reliant on a particular operating system (it’s Linux-friendly) nor a particular brand of cell phone (read: iPhone-and-iPad-only). On the minus side, it might’ve explained some of the issues I faced: a pair of “magnify” arrows on a pop-up menu didn’t keep the page enlarged, reverting back to its normal size after a few seconds. Pressing the space bar, however, worked fine. The digital comic image quality was quite excellent.

Purchases made are supposed to show up under “My Comics,” however, new purchases wouldn’t appear until I logged out and logged back in. Purchases are organized by the title of the comic (and its general logo, with an indicator how many issues are under each).

As for selection, Comixology has lots of companies (though one big one is missing: Marvel), but the selection leaves something to be desired. Due to not wanting to offend brick-and-mortar comic shops, the companies seem skittish on releasing digital comics either on the same date as paper ones or a fuller selection. Thus, the Archie comics were months-to-several-years old for the most part, as were various DC comics. Pricing was cheaper than paper ones, by a dollar or two. Archie recently did announce same-day digital for their comics (having few brick-and-mortar comic shops to offend—mine doesn’t carry them at all), so hopefully this also will extend to Comixology (vs. only the proprietary Archie iOS app).

As for the digital comics themselves, it seems the comic companies have learned nothing from the music industry (or fear offending their physical retailers), and insist on releasing digital comics in the most crippled manner possible. In Comixology’s case, you can read the comics online via a Flash-based interface in a web browser, or via an app for iOS devices (read: iPhone, iPod Touch and the iPad). Not particularly open format-wise, nor do you actually get to own the comics (via a file on your computer)—you’re basically paying to “rent” them indefinitely. No indication what’ll happen to your purchases if, say, Comixology goes under. (An option to download the comic as a .PDF/.CBR/.CBZ file to your computer would be much better a solution, even if they feel compelled to charge an extra fee for such). Other competitors seem to have similar proprietary issues with their digital comics. Between this and the selection available, digital comics have a long way to go before things reflect the current state of digital music sales. *Legal* digital comics, of course—illegally, it’d be simpler to download (from Usenet/Bittorrent) any recent comic in a .CBR or .CBZ format, keep the file on one’s own computer, view it on any number of devices, and not worry about a digital comic store going under/not being Linux-friendly/only catering to Apple device owners.

Of course, the Usenet scenario for digital comics is the current situation for digital music stores like Amazon.com (where I can buy MP3s without digital-rights management, have a wide range of current material to choose from, and be able to use the MP3s how I wish on any of my devices), and Amazon seems to be doing just fine (as are the record companies, their teeth-gnashing aside). I feel the Amazon.com model is the way to go for digital comics’ future—mixing the advantages of downloading from Usenet (wide selections, no DRM, files in an open format, etc.) with the virtues of, well, actually being legal and compensating the writers and artists.

UPDATE (1/24/11): Via a Twitter tweet I received from Comixology, I’m told that Marvel *is* available, but only via the iOS app. There’s also an Android app now available. Better, I guess, even if the above proprietary problems remain.

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