Amidst new changes to Comixology following its Amazon integration, comic readers who have used the service for a long time are expressing major frustrations. The service's new way of operating is a far cry from what users have come to be used to - and not for the better. Amazon appears to be ruining a great product with no fix currently in sight.
Comixology is a digital comic subscription service. It allows comic readers to subscribe to series, pay for new issues, and build digital collections of comics. It has been particularly useful for comic fans who have run out of physical space to hold new comics and for readers who are not close to a physical comic shop. There have been numerous benefits to Comixology for comic readers who are located outside of the United States, which could disappear altogether.
On Twitter, comic readers and creators have been discussing the numerous changes and FAQs that Amazon has implemented through Comixology. For starters, Amazon is providing the subscription portion of the service only to customers in the United States per the statement "series subscriptions for customers outside the US will not be available." Readers outside the US who relied on Comixology to assist in keeping up with their reading and maintaining subscriptions will seemingly have to do so manually. This is just one big issue of many that have arisen.
Comics that have been pre-ordered which begin February 17 and later will have those pre-orders cancelled. Users will need to re-order them through their Amazon links. Readers are also having trouble with the new reading apps, discovering various results during attempts to read their comics. Text on many issues has become unreadable thanks to the lack of a functioning zoom feature. The single and double-page spreads Comixology used to allow have changed, with double-page spreads being unavailable according to users of Comixology. The transition is still ongoing, though it is anything but smooth. Comixology has long been a top provider of comics to a global market and now, its integration with Amazon is showing cracks in the execution despite having been pushed back to 2022.
Amazon's takeover of Comixology is creating a slew of problems for longtime users of the service's website, which will now be unavailable due to the integration into Amazon's website. Additionally, there are several inconveniences brought about by the shifts in app and procedures. Amazon operates reading experience through its Kindle app. However, Comixology has its own app, which is being updated. Features must be enabled to allow cross-reading between the apps, but as of now, Comixology comics are not automatically transferring over to readers' Kindle apps. Readers are required to manually select the book from their "Content and Devices" for their E-readers and "deliver the book to your registered devices." While it's still possible to move materials, this is a major inconvenience that does not allow a seamless transition throughout the apps. This could also create major storage problems based on a reader's collection size. Web-based reading is allowable through the Kindle Cloud Reader. Going forward the process could get easier as integration progresses, but already the global accessibility and user access are suffering immensely from Amazon's approach to the merger. These do not bode well for Comixology's near future nor for increased comic accessibility within the industry as a whole.
Source: Twitter Jamie McKelvie, Amy Dallen