Broken Frontier

This week the digital comics provider, Comics by comiXology, is celebrating its one year anniversary by having a 48 hour sale. It starts on Wednesday, August 18 from 12:01 AM and goes until Thursday at midnight. During the sale, comiXology will cut the prices of their digital comics as much as 50% and include prices as low as $.79.

The first day of the sale, Wednesday, will take place only on the new webstore. For those of you who haven’t heard, Comics by comiXology has now made their comics (all except their Marvel titles) available for web purchase. This means you no longer need an Apple product like an iPhone or iPad in order to download and read their comics. However, should you ever get one of these iOS devices in the future, all comics purchased from the web store will also be able to be read on the new device.

So,back to the sale. The first day will see comics priced at $.99 cut down to $.79 and comics priced at $1.99 cut to $.99. 

Then on Thursday, the web store sale will continue, but all $1.99 comics will go on sale on the Apple iOS devices as well. You’ll be able to buy these comics on the iPhone or iPad for only $.99

The reason the $.99 comics won’t be on sale anywhere other than the web store is because there’s no price-point for iOS in-app purchases under $.99. But this isn’t really a big deal because any comic bought through the web store can then be read on any of the Apple devices anyway. It’s really just a question of where you buy it. The comic can still be read anywhere.

And just to may the sale even more tempting, the independent series, Valentine by Alex De Campi, which already offers its first issue for free, will make #2 available for free as well. 

During this sale, we will also see the return of Box 13 Harvey award winning creators David Gallaher and Steve Ellis. The first series ran exclusively as a digital comic through Comics by comiXology and was later collected in a trade paperback by Red 5 Comics. The first issue of the second series will launch on August 18.

And finally, for those of you who don’t yet have an iPad, all purchases made on the site will enter you for a chance to win your very own iPad (sorry, US only).

As comiXology CEO David Steinberger notes via press release, "Digital comics can look amazing on any device, PCs and Macs included, which is why we launched Comics by comiXology for the web. You don't need to have an iPad or iPhone to enjoy digital comics, but we thought we'd make at least one web user's day by giving them another brilliant way to experience digital comics.

So head on over to the Comics by comiXology website or app and get some great digital comics at the lowest price you’ll ever find them.

And I just want to let you know, for those of you interested in reading a more in-depth analysis of Comics by comiXology and the other digital comic platforms including Wowio, Longbox and Grahic.ly, look for my article in the next issue (#10) of the Frontiersman digital magazine. I’ll compare how each of them are doing as far as getting onto different devices and providing an extensive catalog of comics.

See you there.

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Tyler Chin-Tanner started his own publishing company, A Wave Blue World, where he wrote and drew layouts for Adrenaline, its flagship series, Adrenaline and wrote its latest graphic novel, American Terrorist.

© 2010 Tyler Chin-Tanner.  All rights reserved.
Email: tyler@awaveblueworld.com

www.awaveblueworld.com