DC Comics has announced a free book club for comics fans in a combined effort from DC Universe Infinite and the DC Community. This DC Book Club will give readers a chance to discuss some of the most influential books in the DC Universe as well as present the opportunity for fans to contribute to a Q&A. Users will need to create a couple of accounts, but there will be free options available, meaning no payment is necessary to join the DC Book Club.
The DC Book Club is part of DC Universe Infinite, which launched back in January 2021 with an array of digital titles, serving as a sort of Netflix for DC Comics. For subscribers, it's priced at $7.99 per month or $74.99 per year. DC Universe Infinite is a replacement for the failed DC Universe subscription service that collected DC's digital content.
DC Comics has announced the DC Book Club, which allows readers access to a free digital comic once per month to discuss among fans in the DC Community. To join, people must sign up using the club page in the DC Community. The reading material each month will be available for free on DC Universe Infinite. Though they won't get the full services, users can register on DC Universe Infinite for free to get access to the free digital title. Joining the free DC Book Club also means you'll get the opportunity to download exclusive digital content, which includes backgrounds, wallpapers, and bookmarks that can be printed out.
After the comic for each month is announced, readers will have a full month to add to the book club discussion thread in order to contribute their thoughts about the book. To further the interaction beyond just comic book fans, when it's the last week of each month, a special guest talent will join the community and answer comments live. In anticipation of Zack Snyder’s Justice League releasing on HBO Max, the first comic book that will be part of the DC Book Club is Justice League: The Totality, written by Scott Snyder alongside a variety of art teams per issue, including pencils by Jorge Jimenez and inks by Jim Cheung. This trade collects the first seven issues of Justice League and promises a "cosmos-shaking mystery". The series provides the catalyst for the subsequent major events that shook the DC Universe, specifically “Year of the Villain” and Dark Nights: Death Metal. In the future there will be polls running at the end of each month to pick the following month's comic book selection that the DC Book Club will be reading, so users can vote for what they'd like to see next.
The DC Book Club is such a clever marketing move for DC Comics. This is a great way to get eyeballs on a particular book, get people talking about it, and tie it in with other media going on at the time, as evidenced by the timing of Justice League: The Totality being free the same month that the Zack Snyder cut of Justice League is coming out. It will be interesting to see if this leads to more DC Universe Infinite paid subscriptions or if users will stick to the free options available. The DC Book Club could be the perfect gateway to a DC Universe Infinite subscription, which has been offering hundreds of thousands of digital comics as well as digital-first books of previously unpublished materials like Let Them Live.
Source: DC Comics