Libreture
We’ve all seen the responses to Amazon’s recent Comixology update, affecting the comic shop, app and web reader. Bleeding Cool’s category page on Comixology is a cumulative train wreck of posts describing discovery after discovery of bad design choices and a fundamental misunderstanding of the comic reader experience – as one Beta tester describes:
“As I told them, they're not thinking about this the way comic book readers/collectors think about it. And they still aren't.”
Comic creators and publishers have felt the pain too, with many unaware of the upcoming changes or at least the specifics of them. I wonder if Image Comics are regretting closing their own digital comic store in 2018 to move to Comixology...
Comic creator PJ Holden explains his disappointment:
“Really regretting my comixology digital collection, I think one year I spent nearly a grand on books - sometimes rebuying stuff I have already, sometimes finishing off collections that I had in print and moved to digital.”
If you’re looking for an audio overview of the situation, the team at the Talking Comics podcast go through a lot of the experience in their Comixology episode, titled ‘Garbology 4.0’.
Creator of the recently Kickstarted Leeds-based mech-kaiju comic, B-Mecha, Jamie Me, emphasises how this highlights the risks for independent creators’ dependence on large corporations:
“This is what happens when you put your trust in big business. They don't give AF. Mainstream doesn't care about your money as long as they have it.”
In the spirit of Jamie’s tweet, here's the live list of DRM-free comic shops from Libreture’s list of DRM-free Bookshops. For both comic readers and creators.
And remember, when you buy your DRM-free digital comics, back them up, track your reading, and discover even more by adding them to your very own Libreture cloud library!
Happy Reading,
Kevin
My Library