ComiXology is best known for their apps on Android and iOS that allow users to purchase and read digital comic books. The company is starting to consolidate the industry nabbing many premier partners in the last few months which could stimulate the growth of comics in 2012.
In early December 2011 IDW Publishing and comiXology announced that all of the IDW Apps (IDW Comics, Transformers Comics, Star Trek Comics, Doctor Who Comics, G.I. JOE Comics, 30 Days of Night Comics, Templesmith Comics and True Blood Comics Collection) are now powered by ComiXology. These comic books used to be individual apps but now they all fall into the companies extensive portfolio. IDW used to be powered by iVerse – a competitor of comiXology but have since gotten better agreements for digital distribution.
Comics have really come into their own in 2011 with many companies such as DC, Darkhorse and Marvel all agree to release the digital versions on the same day as the printed editions. Not to leave stores in a lark most major publishers are offering digital downloads if you buy the physical version in your local comic shop.
ComiXology is starting to attain many of the rights by indie publishers who choose the company to distribute their digital wares. They are well known to offer both a turnkey service and innovative tools for publishers to make money without having to make and administer their own family of apps to deliver their content. It really does just make sense to let comic book companies pump out the content and allow ComiXology to distribute it.
The company has grand plans for 2012 and will soon unleash a cloud service that will be compatible with all of their platforms. If you buy a comic on your iPad you can sync it with your Android account or read it on your PC. This is apart of their “buy once, read anywhere” mandate that was passed down from management to employees at the very beginning of the year. They recently hired Ron Perazza away from DC Comics. He is best known in the comic book industry for overseeing the development, launch and management of DC Comics’ groundbreaking online content initiative, ZUDA Comics as the imprint’s Editorial Director, Perazza has spent the bulk of his career bridging the divide between digital and print within the comic book industry, finding ways to publish comics that reach consumers in whatever form they want to read it. He was mainly hired to develop new self-publishing tools so indie authors can create comics and then upload them into the ComiXology database to sell them.
ComiXology is growing and if its not held within check could dominate the digital comic landscape. In the last six months they also made agreements with DC, Marvel, Lego, and Archie comics to stock their latest and greatest. In conjunction with their new self-publishing tools to allow anyone with the will to draw and write they very well could be the dominate force in 2012.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
