I've poked around a bit more, and I'm really liking what I'm seeing from Marvel. Of course, I really would like to see current issues in this format, but I understand that they're not going to offer new material they're selling through retailers for this low a subscription rate. But for over 5000 back issue online, there's a massive piles of comics I can read now.
The Pros - They don't take up a a lot of room in my house. I'm not shuffling piles of comics from table to desk to floor, etc. I can search quickly by title character, or artist. For cross-overs, it's amazing, because all the books are indexed by which characters appear in which issues. I don't have to bag and box them. I don't have to pull boxes down from the attic, rummage through them and then later put them all back. I can access them from any computer with an internet connection. There's even an application on my iGoogle homepage that tells me what the latest digital releases are.
The art can be viewed several ways. One or two pages at a time, or "smart panels", where you can click through them, zoomed in. I have a large wide-screen monitor that rotates to a vertical format with a key-press, so this is amazing for reading comics. Much bigger and cleaner than the print versions! The word balloons can also be zoomed up with a click.
The Cons - There are huge gaps in some of the story runs of a lot of books. They're adding more every few days, though, and in no particular order, so things are getting filled in. There are no current books. You can't read the things they're advertising on the front page when you log in. I hope they add some kind of subscription plan for new books in the future, even if it's buying per issue at a much lower cost than the printed counterpart and adding them to my online collection.
It's evolving, but I'm very much enjoying the direction it's going. Hopefully DC and other publishers will come up with something similar.
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