Yep, back online. thanks !

Markosia Bundle 8 - now on groupees:

https://groupees.com/markosia8

Kinda looking good. When I way younger I've been publishing arts on depositphotos. Now filming videos

only marginally on-topic, but -- I still can't quite get my head around how much shittier amazon has made the comixology shopping experience. Farewell to the days of actually looking through their sales pages for something to buy

I think it's practically unusable (outside of the US). I didn't buy much on Comixology anyway (most of my comics are from Humble Bundles) but now I don't even bother searching for good offers anymore ...

The way they've fucked just the most basic functionality, like...organise a sale by alphabet? Nope. Find all the volumes of a particular series, as opposed to volumes 1,3, 8, and then half a dozen other random things that have nothing to do with it? Nope. Find comics by a particular artist or writer? Good luck with that. Tell the difference between an actual goddamn "graphic novel" and issue #umpty-ump of whatever floppy? Pfft. "Oh, DC has a general sale? Well, I'll just click through 57,000 pages of DC products in no particular frickin order whatsoever, most of them not on sale anyway, in case something catches my eye." I never realised listing products in some kind of order, any kind of order for the love of god, was so computationally intractable.

It's like if you went into a bricks-and-mortar amazon and were like "Oh, I never realised how good other shops were until I came in here with the burning garbage on the floor, the cashier gave me three rusty nails and a ball of barbed wire instead of my change, and now several robots are beating me with sticks.

"Still, free shipping, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"

Amazon practically killed off Comixology. Not sure why this was the decision they made, but I don't see it changing dramatically any time soon. I just hope that from the ashes will eventually rise a new company that will do it better (and hopefully - with DRM-free support) and take back the market.
I've stopped my digital comic purchases outside of bundles ever since Comixology has gone away.

Yeah, it kinda looks intentionally, but I just cannot see any halfway logical argument for WHY they would sabotage themselves that way ... It just doesn't make sense.

I kind of understand that they wanted everything switched over to their kindle interface/storefront/file system or whatever. Maintaining two separate systems had to more expensive.

But yeah, it completely sucks now.

The worst part for me is that they force you to update if you’re connected when you load Comixology, completely bricking your app even if you don’t update. Your potentially hundreds of books all gone with no option other than to update and re-download with the much more difficult interface.

It’s getting better as they tweak it, but I’ve spent a tiny fraction of what I used to spend there. Need to cancel CU, as that discount isn’t paying for the cost anymore.

Yeah it's so FUBAR it's hard to believe a zillion dollar company would do that by accident, but, as they say, never explain by malice what you can explain by stupidity.

End of the day, everyone working there is still human -- so far?? -- and even big companies make stupid decisions. Think of how often Microsoft has released shitty updates or new versions of Windows that all their users absolutely hate. Or the many bad decisions Marvel or DC have made at different times. All it takes is one or two people in management to be some combination of arrogant, ignorant, incurious, indifferent or just really bad at their job.

On the bright side (a) I'm saving money and (b) finding time to actually frickin read some of the bundles I've bought over the years, so, silver linings, you know

Is Humble Bundle the best place for DRM-free comics, or is there a better place? Kinda sucks they mostly just do IDW stuff.

I don't think it's that much IDW? A few years ago most of the comics bundles (also on Groupees) were from Dynamite but nowadays I think it's a good mix of IDW, Dynamite, Kodansha, BOOM!, Image, Aspen, Fantagraphics, ONI, Rebellion, Dark Horse, 2000 AD, Legendary, Top Cow, Valiant, Humanoids and some others.
So if you don't need Marvel and DC I think Humble Bundle right now is indeed a very good place for DRM free comics.

about drm-free - not better place, but other places for comic-bundles:
groupees.com
indiegala.com
fanatical.com

and there are also drm-free comics on:
itch.io



at the end of the day, you have to keep an eye on the bundle-pages (or here in the forum) about new bundles - and comics you like (known and unknown publisher's)

Dark Horse has their own in house reader which also acts as their DRM service AND some comics might be region locked but I might be misremembering. Not even Image sells DRM free anymore. You're basically left with Comixology and the Shonen Jump app