Getting digital comics

[samadriel]

Now that Amazon have carefully opened up Comixology and taken a massive dump into it, is there ANYWHERE else I can go to buy digital comics? It's not too much to ask that there be at least one single solitary place other than Amazon to buy comics, is it?

[Dayraven]

Marvel and DC both have all-you-can-read subscription offers which you read through their apps, but that's no good for other publishers or ownership, of course.

[samadriel]

Indeed, about 90 percent of my reading is neither DC nor Marvel. I think I might be on a hiding to nothing with this thread, but hey.

[Crenners]

I just go on archive.org to be honest.

[Mister Six]

I know where you can read comics online, but not buy them...

[letsgobrian]

Now that Amazon have carefully opened up Comixology and taken a massive dump into it, is there ANYWHERE else I can go to buy digital comics? It's not too much to ask that there be at least one single solitary place other than Amazon to buy comics, is it?

Lots of publishers will sell to you directly.

Dark Horse, Marvel, Viz, Dynamite, Rebellion, Humanoids, IDW are the ones I can recall.

You can also buy comics from most other non-Amazon book sales services (i.e. Google, Apple, Nook etc).

As well as the aforementioned DC & Marvel all-you-can-eat subscription services, Viz/SHUEISHA have TWO, the Shonen Jump and the MANGA Plus services, which I imagine will eventually merge into just MANGA Plus. They are dirt cheap compared to the other subscription services.

There's also Izeno, that I know barely anything about.

If you have a Crunchyroll premium account you get their manga subscription service too, which does update, but you'd be forgiven thinking that Sony have forgotten it exists due to vast chunks of it not being in the search engine and the app being a disaster.

Square-enix recently launched Manga Up, a truly wretched service that has THREE proprietary currencies. Madness.

Humble Bundle will frequently offer massive collections of comics, normally in a variety of formats. Currently there are are two Image Collections up there.

I'm sure there's more, but that's what I know of.

[samadriel]

Thanks @letsgobrian , lots for me to chew on there 👍

[Mister Six]

I know where you can read comics online, but not buy them...

Oh, and I'll tell you if you drop me a DM. I should have added that bit.

[Ignatius_S]

It's only every so often, albeit quite regularly, and time-limited, but Humble Bundle do comic bundles and some very nice ones.

[samadriel]

Yes, Humble Bundle has been my favourite source of comics post-Comixology-shittening, with its nice library. It's just that it's unlikely they'll be selling what you're after, so I kind of don't count them.

[Bently Sheds]

I signed up to John Allison's Patreon & get his thrice weekly webcomic series in one big PDF hit, plus other things an all.

[buzby]

As well as the aforementioned DC & Marvel all-you-can-eat subscription services, Viz/SHUEISHA have TWO, the Shonen Jump and the MANGA Plus services, which I imagine will eventually merge into just MANGA Plus. They are dirt cheap compared to the other subscription services.

Manga Plus also publish the latest updates for free for a limited time (for the titles I follow, anyway).

I'm sure there's more, but that's what I know of.

There's Comikey too, which have picked up one of the titles I was following in scanlation, but have the most awful proprietary credit system and useless search function on their website I've given that title up until it hopefully gets a physical release. They do make the updates free for a limited period, but working out when that is requires a PhD in quantum physics.

As an aside, there's also a the current internet outrage about censorship of some of the official manga translations due to publishers trying to avoid their websites being blocked by some countries, but as someone with 'vanilla' tastes it doesn't really affect me.

[Dayraven]

As an aside, there's also a the current internet outrage about censorship of some of the official manga translations due to publishers trying to avoid their websites being blocked by some countries

Think that's mostly restricted to Manga UP, and it's pretty bizarre — they set an AI to look for cleavage and put black bars over it, so the results look dreadful even when it isn't finding false positives.

[buzby]

Think that's mostly restricted to Manga UP, and it's pretty bizarre — they set an AI to look for cleavage and put black bars over it, so the results look dreadful even when it isn't finding false positives.

Seven Seas have been getting it in the neck over some of their localisation choices to avoid offending western sensibilities too, but it started at the beginning of this year with the 'missing' chapters 74 & 75 of Ayakashi Triangle, which Shueisha didn't publish on the Japanese Manga Plus app, and Viz followed suit on the English Shonen Jump app. Given it's by the mangaka of To Love Ru, it's not exactly a surprise why, and it eventually got moved from Weekly Shonen Jump to Shonen Jump+.

[Mister Six]

What are the "localisation choices"? I'm assuming not cleavage, which has a fairly universal appeal in the West.

[buzby]

What are the "localisation choices"? I'm assuming not cleavage, which has a fairly universal appeal in the West.

They changed the love interest in the yaoi title 'I Think I Turned My Childhood Friend Into a Girl' from a 'femboy' crossdressing male to a transgender female, which predictably caused a Twitter furore. They also excised whole sections of text from the Classroom Of The Elite and Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation light novel translations. In the latter case ,they removed or toned down references to a character being raped, and the MC attempting to molest a sleeping girl.

[madhair60]

I signed up to John Allison's Patreon & get his thrice weekly webcomic series in one big PDF hit, plus other things an all.

Allison bros. He was in Cambridge for a signing a while back and I admire his work so much that I was too actively anxious to go.

[Mister Six]

They changed the love interest in the yaoi title 'I Think I Turned My Childhood Friend Into a Girl' from a 'femboy' crossdressing male to a transgender female, which predictably caused a Twitter furore. They also excised whole sections of text from the Classroom Of The Elite and Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation light novel translations. In the latter case ,they removed or toned down references to a character being raped, and the MC attempting to molest a sleeping girl.

Hum. I'm not a fan of rape, molestation or upsetting trans people, but I'm not sure how I feel about that. Surely the text is the text, and any fuckedupness is a necessary part of what it was meant to be?

That said, I didn't mind them cutting a queerphobic substory out of the English language re-release of Yakuza 3. Maybe that's hypocritical, but a video game made my hundreds of people feels less important to protect than a series of books (even pervy manga ones). Plus, the protagonist, who's usually cool with everyone so long as they're not trying to kill him, acts out of character in the cut substory by freaking out over a crossdresser, so...

[Bently Sheds]

Allison bros. He was in Cambridge for a signing a while back and I admire his work so much that I was too actively anxious to go.

In his Patreon posts he's surprisingly critical of his own drawing ability, which I find really puzzling as his stuff to me is in the same league as what Jamie Hewlett and Philip Bond were pumping out during their Deadline years.

[13 schoolyards]

I remember someone online (Ted Spurgeon?) used to always talk up Giant Days but would make sure to mention he thought the best artist for Allison's stories was Allison himself. Which at the time I thought was crazy as Max Sarin was great, but over the last few years I've totally come around to that way of thinking.

He clearly must have pretty high standards as while I have no doubt there are better comic book artists out there, I can't really think of any offhand who'd do a better job with his material and characters.