The Launch Week from Hell: Answering 13 Questions about ComiXology’s Big Changes

By David Harper

February 17, 2022

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Congratulations to ComiXology and Amazon. They did something previously considered impossible as they rolled out the new version of the ComiXology app and associated changes. Something I never expected, if only because of how divisive the average news item is, even in – or maybe especially in – an entertainment sector like comic books. It’s rare to do something unique like this, a feat many have tried and failed at. So, what did they do exactly?

They managed to get every comic fan to agree on something.

Unfortunately for them, that achievement was a double-edged sword, as the thing comic fans agreed on was that ComiXology grievously harmed its own product. And, for the most part, it’s understandable that the reaction was as visceral as it was. One of the great fears people have when committing to digital services like ComiXology is that they as an individual will commit to using it, and one day the product will cease to operate in the way they signed up for. That is typically imagined as a great erasure of the products you bought, as, say, your entire library of songs or movies purchased via Apple went away.

But in making its service one that no longer works in the way users were used to, ComiXology achieved a roughly equivalent sentiment amongst its customers base. And that’s where they are after this wave of changes for the ComiXology 4.0 update, including the removal of subscriptions for users outside of the United States, the comparatively comic fan friendly ComiXology.com being replaced by a clunky Amazon shopping experience, a web reader that is non-functional whenever double page spreads show up, the cancelation of all post-February 16 pre-orders, and assorted other changes. It’s honestly a lot. Too much, really.

And, naturally, I have questions. Unfortunately for you — doubly so, it seems — ComiXology did not have answers. I reached out to them and heard nothing back. With nothing on that front to lean on, I decided to take a couple days, let the information simmer within me, spend some time with the new app, and do my best to answer those same queries I had in hopes of better understanding this momentous change. So that’s what we’re going to do, starting with the relatively utopian view the company had from the start.

What were these changes initially pitched as?

ComiXology’s hype for this announcement was all about the positive back in September. “Faster, more reliable” downloading! “Fun” new navigation features! Integration of comics purchased on ComiXology into the Kindle app! There were downsides, of course, like ComiXology’s own site going away for it to be replaced by an Amazon marketplace for comics and users being required to merge their ComiXology account with their Amazon one. But in the way ComiXology and its co-founder/CEO and Amazon’s Head of Comics Worldwide David Steinberger seemed to pitch it, the pluses would outweigh the minuses, and the minuses would only be those until we got used to them.

This was announced right around when The Beat’s Heidi MacDonald came on Off Panel, and I remember telling her I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. Heidi insisted otherwise. It turns out she was correct! Always listen to Heidi!

What were they seemingly trying to do?

The objective was unifying the reading experience on the broader Amazon platform and how users read on ComiXology. They were endeavoring to match the ComiXology user experience to the one regular Amazon customers see, in hopes of making it easier for non-comic fans to discover comics, but also so it’d be easier for them 19 to read ComiXology comics on their Kindles. I’ve seen some suggest that these changes seemed as if they were ignoring the wants and needs of comic fans, and that’s probably true, at least in the sense that comic fans are an audience they already have and Amazon is looking for more out of ComiXology with this move.

Expanding its customer base and how much they buy are likely the defining goals for all Amazon changes. If there’s one thing they enjoy, it’s money. To raise the ceiling of a relatively niche platform like ComiXology, you need to attract new customers. This seems to be a step in that direction in theory.

And I should note, growing the readership is a desirable objective for comics too. Finding new readers would be great! It…just would have been better if it was less harmful to the reading experience in the process, especially considering adding new users to a flawed platform would be less than ideal.

Did they succeed?

If you consider harming the experience for existing users in an attempt at attracting new ones “success,” then yes. If you do not, then no. Time will dictate the success of this venture, though, because these changes were not likely conceived with the short-term in mind.

A look at the front page of the new comics storefront of Amazon

What were all the changes?

What were the changes? Well…

*takes an extremely deep breath*

The ComiXology site is going away, users now have to log in through their Amazon account, the ComiXology site is being replaced by an Amazon storefront, subscriptions are no longer available for users outside of the United States, existing subscriptions for many of the users within the United States are just straight up broken unless you switched to 1-Click Payments by February 10, pre-ordered comics past February 16 have been canceled, all purchases are now 1-Click Payments (so no more shopping cart), the web reader for desktop PC users has effectively become unusable due to its inability to properly display double page spreads, 20 a new version of the ComiXology app was released with a new design and tweaked functionality, you can now pinch and zoom to change the sizes of cover images in your library, in-app series organization is between mildly broken and extremely broken depending on your opinion, 21 DRM-free downloads are removed going forward, 22 Prime Reading and Kindle Unlimited have been integrated into the experience, ComiXology titles can now be read in the Kindle app, all archived comics became unarchived (and that functionality was replaced with a permanently delete function), users had to redownload all of their comics, you can now start reading a comic before it’s finished downloading, and…I think that might be it.

Is that really it?

Isn’t that enough?! Honestly, I might have missed a few, but that’s all of them as far as I’ve seen. 23

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Or even possible for them.↩
Especially considering there’s no zoom function or two page view in that experience.↩
For collections in particular, it’s not organizing them as series, instead separating different volumes as individual “series” making your library cluttered and it difficult to naturally transition between volumes. That said, this appears to be mostly resolved for me.↩
Although you can still download your previously purchased ones for a limited time.↩
They also got rid of ComiXology Submit, but that happened last September shortly after the announcement was made. I’m not counting it for that reason.↩
Or even possible for them.↩
Especially considering there’s no zoom function or two page view in that experience.↩
For collections in particular, it’s not organizing them as series, instead separating different volumes as individual “series” making your library cluttered and it difficult to naturally transition between volumes. That said, this appears to be mostly resolved for me.↩
Although you can still download your previously purchased ones for a limited time.↩
They also got rid of ComiXology Submit, but that happened last September shortly after the announcement was made. I’m not counting it for that reason.↩
It’s possible someone likes the new Amazon shopping experience more than the ComiXology site. The latter was flawed. But it was our kind of flawed, dang it.↩
I didn’t want to say “near” future, because that might be overstating it.↩
It’s possible I am oversimplifying this.↩
When I told my wife about this, she said it sounded like the “Dude” character in Free Guy, and how he was just rolled out unfinished because the boss said so. That’s a good comparison.↩
I will say, I do like the idea that they are attempting to get comics in front of new readers. There are worse goals, even if they are more than likely not doing it for admirable reasons.↩
Screenshotting is bad now because Marvel Unlimited used to remove the time and battery power visuals for the iPad when you were reading full screen, and now they stay on there. So every screenshot says what time it is on there, unless it’s a purely white page and you crop it. I hate it.↩
Hopefully temporarily, but there’s been little indication of that.↩
And by that, I mean Amazon and…well, probably just Marvel in Marvel’s case. I doubt the higher ups at Disney know that Marvel Unlimited exists.↩
Or even possible for them.↩
Especially considering there’s no zoom function or two page view in that experience.↩
For collections in particular, it’s not organizing them as series, instead separating different volumes as individual “series” making your library cluttered and it difficult to naturally transition between volumes. That said, this appears to be mostly resolved for me.↩
Although you can still download your previously purchased ones for a limited time.↩
They also got rid of ComiXology Submit, but that happened last September shortly after the announcement was made. I’m not counting it for that reason.↩

Notable Replies

b3d5f2791954395b1d1d says:

February 17, 2022

EDIT: I’m wrong. See below.

There’s another Tier 1/2 problem- the removal of the discount on purchases for Comixology Unlimited members. In the past, CU members not only got access to Comixology Originals and other free books from the CU library, but also got 10-15% off purchases of comics from publishers like Marvel, Image, and IDW.

Look at this Google search result:

Capture949×456 48.4 KB

But when you go through the new Comixology Unlimited page, all mentions of the discount are gone, and there’s no mentioned discounts on any of the product pages. All non-sale comics are full price, regardless of enrollment in CU. And this wasn’t disclosed to CU members before the switch. This is shady.

This launch didn’t have to happen like this. Any competent product owner knows that it’s much smarter to roll out new features gradually. These new features could have been rolled out one or two at a time, tested for customer acceptance and bugs, and users would be much happier. As it is, this might kill the Comixology brand altogether.
SKTCHD says:

February 17, 2022

b3d5f2791954395b1d1d:

But when you go through the new Comixology Unlimited page, all mentions of the discount are gone, and there’s no mentioned discounts on any of the product pages. All non-sale comics are full price, regardless of enrollment in CU. And this wasn’t disclosed to CU members before the switch. This is shady.

This is the first I’ve heard of this change, so thanks for bringing it up. It not being disclosed does open it up as a potential Tier 3 problem, if only because that could mean it’s a mistake. But I am guessing that isn’t the case and it’s more likely a 1 or a 2 as you suggested. We’ll see, but that really sucks.

b3d5f2791954395b1d1d:

This launch didn’t have to happen like this. Any competent product owner knows that it’s much smarter to roll out new features gradually. These new features could have been rolled out one or two at a time, tested for customer acceptance and bugs, and users would be much happier. As it is, this might kill the Comixology brand altogether.

Agreed on it not needing to happen like this. Phasing this was absolutely the play, and doing one hard cut like this brings the pain. That said, I am extremely skeptical this will kill the brand. Or, at the very least, it might stick with the brand but the product will be fine, as there just isn’t really a viable alternative, which would be necessary to kill it. If I had to bet whether ComiXology will be significantly harmed by this in three months or people will just be used to it by then, I’d bet on the latter. I’m sure they baked a negative response into these changes, and believed people would just get over it once they got used to the changes. They’re probably right.

That’s not to say these changes are acceptable. It’s just how people work these days. I remember when Disney+ raised rates last year and I saw a lot of people saying they were going to drop the product because they were upset, and then nine months later those same people were talking about The Book of Boba Fett.
b3d5f2791954395b1d1d says:

February 17, 2022

That’s not to say these changes are acceptable. It’s just how people work these days. I remember when Disney+ raised rates last year and I saw a lot of people saying they were going to drop the product because they were upset, and then nine months later those same people were talking about The Book of Boba Fett.

To me, there’s a difference. You can’t get Book of Boba Fett anywhere else- you have to get it through Disney+.

Digital comics? Well, sure, I can only get this week’s books from Comixology/Amazon. (That’s setting aside the very real issue of piracy.) But I can get just about any comic older than three months from Marvel Unlimited. And while that platform has had its own missteps, it’s in far better shape than CX. I haven’t tried the DC version, but I’ve heard good things.

If CX doesn’t correct from this misstep, why wouldn’t the bigger publishers pull from CX and sell the books in their own platform? I still think DC will do that at some point; the moves they made in the last two years telegraph their intent.

The only reason Comixology has a monopoly on new digital comics right now is because the people that were involved at the beginning of the company were incredibly smart, built a very good platform, and sold it to the right partner. But that was nearly a decade ago. They’re basically the Diamond of the digital world, and we saw in the last year how willing Marvel and DC were to make moves in their own best interest. It could happen here.

That’s my opinion, anyway. Great article!
SKTCHD says:

February 17, 2022

b3d5f2791954395b1d1d:

They’re basically the Diamond of the digital world, and we saw in the last year how willing Marvel and DC were to make moves in their own best interest. It could happen here.

This is a good point. That said, Marvel’s own app - not Unlimited, but the regular one - is powered by ComiXology. I think DC’s non-Infinite one is as well. And given how limited the growth in digital has been since it came to be (we’re talking a maximum of $160 million in revenue from direct download comics, with $90 to $100 million being the usual area) and how Marvel in particular has exhibited zero interest in developing its own channels outside of Unlimited, my bet is they’re happy to take the free money and go with it. And smaller publishers just don’t have the bandwidth to do this, or the funding.

I could see DC doing it (with the caveat that they were willing to go to Lunar because they make as much as all direct digital downloads do from the direct market alone, so there was more financial incentive), but I also think things would have to get real, real bad for that to be the case. Unless this proves to be catastrophic to usage in the mid-term, I’m skeptical, but you’ve made some good points. It will certainly be interesting to watch.

Anyways, thank you so much for reading, Ray, and for sharing the note about the Unlimited discount. That one totally slipped through the cracks!
b3d5f2791954395b1d1d says:

February 17, 2022

OK, so I’m wrong. I’m right, but I’m wrong.

You still can get discounts on books with Comixology. They just make it very, very difficult.

If you’re looking at a search listing of multiple books, they don’t show the discount. But when I click on an individual title that’s CU-discount eligible, I see the discount.

It’s terrible, but I’m wrong. Definitely more of a Tier 3 problem.

Continue the discussion at community.sktchd.com

15 more replies

What were these changes initially pitched as?

What were they seemingly trying to do?

Did they succeed?

What were all the changes?

Is that really it?

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