Wednesday, March 2, 2022

Thursday Morning Superhero

The first Thursday of the month is here and that brings us another installment of Thursday Morning Superhero.  Life is hectic on my end as I am moving to a new state in two weeks!  I have already identified my new comic book store and the timing couldn't be better.

I live about 30-45 minutes away from my preferred comic book store depending on traffic and don't get to go as much as I would prefer.  As someone who has moved around more than I would prefer and someone who used to read a lot of comic books in the dark as my kids fell asleep, ComiXology has been a tremendous asset.  When Amazon bought ComiXology a few years back, I was worried, but things continued pretty normal for the most part and I was a happy digital comic book reader.  My son and I love ComiXology Unlimited as it has granted us access to more comics and manga that we would have not read otherwise.

It saddens me to say that with the recent update of the platform I am going to have to cancel my subscription.  I have spent a lot of money on digital comics over the years and will still read those books, but with a move to a smaller town I am going to focus on buying exclusively physical books. 

Prior to making the changes of a full Amazon integration, ComiXology did not consult with readers or publishers.  In an attempt to provide a single Amazon-style interface, the old ComiXology site was taken down and fans felt the impact immediately.  The site was difficult to navigate and some people couldn't access all of the books in their library or the new releases.  In addition, swaths of old articles and comic book reviews had their links impacted and no longer accessible.  The process of trying to update this to prevent readers from clicking dead links is an onerous task that, if I did link to ComiXology, I won't be updating.

With the announcement of Epic Games acquiring Bandcamp yesterday, I am always a bit cautious when a large company acquires a smaller one.  So far things have been good with their acquisition of Mediatonic and the Fall Guys franchise, but all seemed well with ComiXology until an unexpected change that nobody outside of Amazon was looking for.

POSTED BY MIKE N. aka Victor Domashev -- comic guy, proudly raising nerdy kids, and Nerds of a Feather contributor since 2012.