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Digital comics distribution

General background

With the growing use of Smartphones , tablets and desktop screen reading, major publishers have begun releasing comics, graphic novels and Manga in digital formats. Declining sales and pirating has sought some publishers to find new ways to publish their comics, while others are just adapting to the digital age while still having great success with the printed comic format. American publishers attempts at creating digital publishing platforms for local comics and Manga have thus far been more successful than attempts with digital Manga publishing in Japan. Which have lacked a coherent strategy to create successful digital platforms in which to publish, and had revenue considerations from the impact of illegal scanlation. Some attempts in japans have been made, but failed, such as JManga, while others merged with larger worldwide distributors as in the case with Square Enix digital publishing joining the Hachette Book Group for distribution in over 200 countries. While also some western notable platforms such as Graphicly have closed down due to the creators getting hired by the self-publishing platform Blurb.

Notable digital distributors

DriveThruComics state that they where the first online retailer to specialize in downloadable comics. They opened their comic store in 2004. DriveThruComics is part of a family of sites operated by OneBookShelf. The store hosts comics form 15 different publishers currently.

comiXology is a cloud based digital comics platform that offers material from over 75 publishers and independent creators, which can be bought or downloaded for free. Their publishers catalog includes both big western publishers such as Marvel Comics, DC etc. and translations of Manga trough publishers such as Tokyopop. As of 2014 the platform is owned by Amazon.com.

Marvel Comics launched Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited, a subscription service allowing readers to read many comics from Marvel's history online, on November 13, 2007. The service also includes periodic release new comics not available elsewhere. With the release of Avenging Spider-Man Marvel also became the first publisher to provide free digital copies as part of the print copy of the comic book.

Image Comics launched their 'Image Digital Comics Store store' in 2013 which is a part of their company website. It got attention for selling comics digitally that are DRM-free. Thereby allowing users to download their comics in PDF, EPUB, and the CBR or CBZ Comic Book Archive file formats to their varying electronic devices. They have also exclusive digital releases on their website and offer 5-page previews of their comics online. Image Comics was the first big publisher to offer DRM-free digital comics in the U.S. Stating that they believe that consumers should be able to own what they have bought in the case of a platform having major technical problems or leaving the market all together. They also stated believing that they don't see piracy as a big problem as most consumers will go I buy comics that are of high quality.

DC Comics is offering to buy it's comics since 2012 from all three major E-book stores: Amazon Kindle Store, iBookstore and Nook Store™, as well as trough the site www.readdcentertainment.com and through comixOlogy. DC Comics where the first ones to offer readers multiple formats to download and digital issues relseases on the same day as their printed counterparts. The company stated that they see the future in digital comics, but their digital sells also help the printed books.

Dark Horse Comics launched their online digital store in 2011 which supports both computers, iOS and Android devices. The site allows nearly 2000 comics to be previewed.

The website Humble Bundle was originally created in 2010 for selling time-limited pay-what-you-want indie game bundles. Since 2012 it has been putting up pay-what-your-want book bundles, which now and then featured comics. The first fully dedicated comic bundle was in April 2014 hosting material from Image comics. The Humble Comic Bundles are Digital rights management-free and support charities. The website has hosted comic bundles from some publisher such as Dark Horse Comics, Top Cow, Oni Press, Boom! Studios, Valiant Comics, among others. The idea behind the bundles from publisher standpoint is to try to find new audiences for their products at heavily discounted prices. .