Marvel Digital Unlimited

[Umbran]

Folks, you comics fans want to hear about this...

For X-mas, my wife gave me something I didn't know existed - a one-year subscription to Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited. With things being busy, I hadn't gotten around to activating it until two days ago...

By the gods, folks, this is sweet stuff. Thousands of comics, reaching back to the early days of Marvel (Uncanny X-Men #1 is there, from 1963) to the fairly recent. Access limited only by the rate at which you can read and download them.

It is a browser-based system, so no downloading and keeping copies, but you aren't restricted in reading and re-reading. It's like having a huge library with 24-hour access, so I fail to see this as a problem.

The reader has several modes - pain view of one page, two pages, or a "smart panel" mode that scales images to your screen well, and has a concept of panels and flow trough a page. I'm working off a small laptop screen, so if I view an entire page at once, the text isn't very legible. I can still do that if I want though, because it gives you a magnifying glass feature as well.

I would certainly prefer having a huge flatscreen monitor that would display them at real size, but failing that, this works about as well as is humanly possible, giving me all the options I really need to enjoy the artwork.

Now, I got this as a gift, but I think the price is important for comics fans. A typical trade paperback collection of 6 issues has a cover price of $15. Maybe you can get it for $10 on Amazon, right?

Well, a one-year, unlimited access subscription runs a mere $60. The cost of 4 to 6 compilations or 24 to 36 issues. If you aren't concerned with having the physical copy there, this is a steal!

They also have a monthly subscription, I am not sure of the price, but I suspect it isn't as attractive.

 

[Felon]

I've had this for a couple of years, almost since it started. I posted my rave review way back then here, mostly to a lukewarm reception IIRC.

I think it's a pretty amazing deal considering the price point for comics, especially since I'm trying to ramp down the amount of clutter I have. I got introduced to a lot of comics I wouldn't have given a second glance otherwise, like Runaways, Exiles, and Agents of Atlas. You have way more options to sample here than you do at the shop where Comic Book Guy is constantly directing your attention to his "this is not a library" sign. There's also stuff you can't find at your local retailer. I went to Amazon looking to see if Jim Starlin's Infinity Abyss is available in TPB, only to find out that it was, but only through third-party outlets that want $100 new and $40 used.

Also, Marvel doesn't pull the same shenanigans that Hulu and Netflix do where they offer a lot of stuff, but much of it's on a limited-time-only basis so you have to cram it all in at their pace, not yours. I haven't seen Marvel pull any titles back. They just grow. Isn't that nice? I can go months without checking out MDU, no harm done.

But there is one major catch: they leave lots of holes. By that I don't mean to suggest that they ought to have every title they've ever published online, but they do seem to exhibit a bad habit of publishing just enough of a series to get you interested (and mentioning between issues that there's a TPB for sale), then they leave you hanging. Off the top of my head, Ultimate Power seems to have hit a hard stop at issue #6, and that last issue of the Sentry limited series seems not to be forthcoming after a year and change. They don't have to have everything, but once they start offering up issues from a limited series, they ought to be pretty consistent about getting the entire series out there.

I should also point out that they auto-renew subscriptions, so don't be surprised to see that $60 charge recurring annually.

As with most cloud services (where you have to be online to use them) it would be great if they'd offer a way to access issues with mobile devices. Marvel did recently make a deal with four companies to sell individual digital comics through iTunes, but that's all the progress they've made in that direction. Still, it's something that lets me hold out hope.

EDIT--Oh yeah, just remembered another great discovery: Mike Allred's X-Force/X-Statix. Complete run of a wonderful title.

 

[Dire Bare]

I'm still waiting for the DC version of this!

Come on DC, get your digital act together!!!

 

[Umbran]

But there is one major catch: they leave lots of holes. By that I don't mean to suggest that they ought to have every title they've ever published online, but they do seem to exhibit a bad habit of publishing just enough of a series to get you interested (and mentioning between issues that there's a TPB for sale), then they leave you hanging. Off the top of my head, Ultimate Power seems to have hit a hard stop at issue #6, and that last issue of the Sentry limited series seems not to be forthcoming after a year and change. They don't have to have everything, but once they start offering up issues from a limited series, they ought to be pretty consistent about getting the entire series out there.

I haven't looked at enough series yet to run into that particular problem. I suppose it would be sensible for them to hold back on certain hot titles that are still apt to sell some hardcopy - especially if they figure leaving them off the system might actually lead to such sales.

I should also point out that they auto-renew subscriptions, so don't be surprised to see that $60 charge recurring annually.

That's okay. It might shift from an X-mas gift to a yearly birthday or Valentine's gift

Still, it's something that lets me hold out hope.

The way tablets are running, they may not have to do much - just let the mobile tech catch up for a couple years...

 

[Darth Shoju]

I think I remember hearing about this from Felon back in that thread he mentions (though I don't recall what, if anything, I said about it back then). Right now it sounds really good to me, as I'm getting tired of moving six longboxes of comics whenever I move. I've gotten rid of several boxes of comics over the years, but after my friend's comic store shut down I don't have an easy outlet to dispose of them anymore. At my monthly rate of new comics, I'm quickly overtaking whatever ground I made up dumping those boxes.

Anyway, this sounds good and I'll probably check it out when I get some money.

 

[Felon]

I should mention that two years ago, Marvel had licensed DVD's that contained full runs of certain Marvel titles for 40+ years scanned into PDF format. For instance, one DVD offered every issue of the Fantastic Four and Silver Surfer series. They were ridiculously cheap considering what they offered (like $35 IIRC), so the MDU looked like a bad deal by comparison, and thus the lukewarm reaction by some. But those DVD sets are getting expensive now that they're only available through secondary markets. And the MDU is getting bigger every week.

 

[Felon]

That's okay. It might shift from an X-mas gift to a yearly birthday or Valentine's gift

Well, I bought a gift subscription for a friend back in 2008 (schmuck didn't use it) and they didn't auto-renew at my expense. Woulda been wroth with them if they had.

 

[Umbran]

Well, I bought a gift subscription for a friend back in 2008 (schmuck didn't use it) and they didn't auto-renew at my expense. Woulda been wroth with them if they had.

Well, that might be how it works with an actual "gift subscription". We went more simply - made an account for me, with my e-mail address, but then she paid. They were *very* clear that there was an auto-renew, and that we'd have to specifically take action to avoid renewing.

I'm okay with it, so long as they are open about it.

 

[ToddSchumacher]

I too tried this out when it first opened up, and I thought it was very cool too. Then I realized with the intentional omission of key issues, that this wasn't a transition to digital comics, but a marketing ploy to buy paperbacks or hardcovers.

So i quit.

I AM looking forward to Apple's announcement next week about their tablet and other companies, like Longbox, to give us true digital comics, and not offerings that are years out of date, or just a few independent publishers.

 

[Umbran]

... not offerings that are years out of date...

Out of date?

Dude, literature (granted that term is used kind of loosely for most comics, but still) isn't perishable. It doesn't suddenly go bad some time after it was published.

I haven't read it. It is new to me. It may be decades old, but that just makes it more like a period piece. I buy novels and watch movies decades old, why should comics be different?