I just signed up for Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited -- does anyone else use that? How has your experience with it been? I'm looking forward to catching up on some of the comics I've missed over the last ten years, as well as looking through some of the oldies but goodies for Random Panel fodder.
I clicked on an ad in my YahooSports Fantasy Football page, which had a promo offer of $4.99 a month, or $59.88 for the year with a pre-paid year-long subscription. Once on the order page, there was a place to put in a promo code, and with a Google search I found CYBER3010, which apparently is their "Cyber Monday" price, expiring at midnight. Putting that in gave me an additional 30% off a yearly subscription rate for a final bill of $41.92. Not too shabby for all the comics you can read!
Note that I am not getting a cut of this or anything, it's something I was doing on my own and thought was a neat deal that might be interesting to you. If you sign up, or have been a subscriber already, I'd be curious to hear about what you think of it.
I haven’t used it, so can’t say, but like you I’m curious how others who have used it find it to be. I prefer good old fashioned paper comics, or better yet collected comics, but for that price I can overlook that preference, I think.
Frankly i just download the comics and read them using Comical. Ya it’s pirated but it’s free and you can also compile web comics to the easy CBZ. or CBR. format, thats how I read Scot Pilgrim and all the Fables comics.
0.00$ for really all the comics you can read i think is beater deal then 41.92$ for all the Marvel comics you can read.
@Haxxx (2): Well, yes, except that’s illegal. As someone who makes his living off his creativity, I can’t in good conscience condone stealing someone else’s work while they get nothing. If enough people do that, the best creators will not be able to afford to keep creating, instead having to take jobs in advertising or a desk job somewhere.
Stealing comics digitally might seem like a victimless crime from the comfort of your bedroom, but there’s a price to be paid eventually. Believe me, as someone who almost had to give up HeroMachine completely in order to focus on the job that actually paid me, it’s a very real thing that can happen.
for my defense, I don’t think that a thirty years old comic book actually produces anything for the creators. Like those online golden age comics that you bring in the RP segments.
For the newer once, after I done reading the issues I go and buy them. I just like to read my comics (and books) straight, I really don’t like waiting for the next issue to be released. If the comics was (or will be) published as a binder I would prefer to buy it then the individual issues. thats why I spent 60$ on the Epic Watchmen binder. I will probably also buy Sandman and Fables when those are fully published.
The main reason that I download comics is that there is one place (two hours away from my house) that i can buy comics. I could order from them but they are kind of shity about it with no actual catalog. I’m there maybe three times a year and the stock refreshes about each month or two. If I can I buy binders but if I can’t I download issues online and buy them later.
I can certainly sympathize with the distance issue — my nearest comics shop is, I think, five hours away. In another state. Good times.
If you’re still in Bayfield, you should be able to get to Albuquerque in well under six, if that helps!
It doesn’t?
Oh, well.
I like em still only reading the free preveiws though.
Geez, and I thought it was bad that I had to drive halfway across the city to go to a comic store. Although, for some reason, all the comic book stores I know of are within a 10 minute drive from one another.
I’ve been subscribing to an online comic book store for most of my stuff, although I do occasionally buy from regular book stores. Even then, I tend to stick to collections and trade paperbacks. So, while i’ve been relatively happy with it, I’m getting nickeled and dimed on shipping. I think my friend subscribes to the same service as Jeff in order to get caught up to date on Spider-man and X-Men, and he’s pretty happy with it, but I haven’t quite accepted the digital reading experience yet.
Now for the big one. Jeff, I don’t condone piracy, and I don’t want to come off sounding like I do (except in a purely fictional, fantasy-based sea- or spacefaring scenario), but the publishers don’t make it any easier on the readers. Do we really need 3 different Avengers titles, 4 X-Men titles, 5 Deadpool titles, or 6 Spider-man titles for example? And that’s just with Marvel. I’m given to understand that DC is a little better, but not much. Independent publishers, who are more vulnerable to piracy, rarely, if ever, do this. I’m not going to get into the chicken and egg argument over publishers expanding their lines to make a profit in the face of digital piracy vs. readers turning to digitally pirated copywritten material because they can’t afford to read everything the publishers put out and cross-reference together, and I am not putting this on the actual artists that create comic books, but it is a mess.
Today I was rereading some of my old Invaders comics, and I noticed a funny panel which I think would make a good RP. I’m not sure if they have it on Marvel DCU, but the issue is Invaders Annual number 1, page 21 (i think marvel digital counts the cover as page 1, in which case it’d be page 22), the forth panel. The issue has several funny panels, because the villain steals Namor’s trunks and dresses him in different ones. Might be a good source for an RP or two.
Jeff,
I know this is a few weeks late, but I wanted to give you time to peruse your new purchase. How is the unlimited digigal comic subscription working out? I’m tempted to purchase it for myself.
Runt82 (10): I am LOVING it. I’ve already blown through the Civil War main saga, the entire Ultimate X-Men and Ultimate Spider-Man runs, all of World War Hulk, all of Planet Hulk, the first Agents of Atlas run, most of the recent Hercules stuff, and more.
I’m finding my problem is in picking what to read. I missed out on pretty much all of the mid-Nineties to the mid-2000s, so I’ve got a lot to catch up on, but I don’t know enough to know what I ought to be reading.
It’s gotten me thinking a lot more about the nature of storytelling, how generational styles are set (and perpetuated), what makes for a good comic, and in general reignited my love of the genre.
If I were to add up the cost of what I’ve already read in terms of what they’d cost as, for example, collected trade paperbacks, I’d be into hundreds of dollars already, so I think I’ve definitely gotten my money’s worth in just a few weeks.
My only minor beef is that their web site keeps logging me out while I’m in the middle of reading a series, but it doesn’t TELL you you’re logged out. You just all of a sudden discover that you’re three pages into a Preview comic and have to close it, log in, and reload the whole thing.
Also, I’m trying to buy a gift subscription for someone and it is, apparently, impossible at this point — that page is “broken”. I’m like, it’s freaking CHRISTMAS! The one time of year you absolutely do NOT want anything standing in the way of people giving you money for your product. Insane.
But that’s all peripheral, the content is great. And I haven’t even touched the older, 1960s era stuff, which should be interesting to go back and read.
Definitely highly recommended.