u/WhyPlaySerious

The landscape of comics now, compared to 10 years ago, truly is fascinating. It wasn't long ago that the next 'evolution' of comic reading was thought to have been digital, namely due to the service Comixology.

Comixology, for better or for worse, felt like the next evolution of the industry. An all in one marketplace and reader for comics, it allowed you a simplistic way to subscribe to series, have them automatically billed and sent to your device at release, and available to read within the same app, with innovations like a guided panel view for those using smaller screen devices.

Pretty soon, the service had its own catalogue of original books done by some of the biggest names in the industry, some releases chose to forego print publishing altogether to be exclusively digital, and we even had Marvel start pushing digital redemption codes in their print books to provide a copy of the book digitally on their own app, running off of Comixology's services. At one point in time, there was serious discussion being made about the future of comic shops and about (not even if, but) when digital would take over physical.

And then Amazon killed Comixology and proceeded to absorb its mangled corpse into Kindle. Almost single handedly destroying the digital comics market.

Nowadays, print is supreme. There have been multiple discussions about how Marvel, DC, and all other publishers dont even look at digital sales anymore or factor it into any of their decisions since its such a microscopic fraction of their overall sales. If anything, digital is now seen as being the platform for subscription based comic services. Paying a set price monthly or yearly and being provided a catalog of comics after a set delay from the print release, like DC Infinite and Marvel Unlimited.

Recently, a new player has arrived on the block called Neon Ichiban, a service that is trying to go back to Comixology's original goal of a digital marketplace where you can subscribe, purchase, and read digital single issues all in one place. But it has some new bells and whistles. One, for instance, is a digital edition numbering system that claims that your comic is special to your account. Another is the ability to purchase variant covers for your books, something that was previously only a physical book thing. The service also allows the ability for you to have your books remarqued, including signed or even sketched on using a QR code and portal service. And one last big thing, is that you can sell your books to other readers, whether it be at a cheaper price than MSRP if you want to get something back after reading, or even at inflated prices if you for example got it remarqued.

It definitely sounds interesting, but the service unfortunately has a major skeleton in its closet, and that is the fact that it's founded by some of the former heads of Comixology itself. So for every big push and sign of faith they give the service, including partnering with Humble Bundle to be the DRM platform for the current Supergirl bundle that is very popular, there is worry that history may once again repeat itself, and a digital library built in Neon Ichiban may be lost or enshittified if the founders of the platform sell to a major company like when Comixology was sold to Amazon.

With that being said, I was just wondering what the community thought about it. Has it been on any of your radars? Have you guys tried it? Is anyone actively using it? And overall, what do you guys think of Neon Ichiban and its place in the comic book industry?

P.S, I know my posts and comments are always long (maybe to an unnecessary degree sometimes) but thanks for taking the time to read.