It’s frustrating how difficult it is to buy comics online. I don’t own an iPad yet, as the main reason I will be buying one will be to purchase comics. Every week when I walk through the rows at my LCS, I come across new books that I want to try but cannot afford. In this economy, my comic dollar is maxed out, and I am having to pass up series that I know I will enjoy were I able to purchase them cheaply.
ENTER: digital comics. Even though I personally feel $2 is too much to pay for a digital issue, I’m willing to spend it since hey- it’s cheaper than $4. I’ll even sit at my desk and read the thing on my computer. Simply put, I’d like to read more books. Here are the reasons why this isn’t happening for me.
#1. The purchasing methods suck. Graphic.ly, Longbox, Comixology. They all use some type of crappy Flash-based interface to function. Us Macintosh users are well aware that Flash doesn’t play well with our toys of choice. I just finished attempting to buy a book through Comixology’s store on three different browsers. I was first forced to upgrade my version of Flash (the old version worked perfectly, why do I need to upgrade, Adobe?). Now, the store doesn’t work.
#2. The model sucks. Comics that I purchase using Longbox can’t be read using Graphic.ly, and vice versa (at least there is no easily visible solution). MP3s purchased from the Apple store can be played with Winamp or other programs. There is no option to right-click the comics in my library and reveal their location on my hard drive. If I’m migrating to a new machine, where is the folder containing my “comics” that I need to drag to the new hard drive? If the Apocalypse comes and all the Internet servers are destroyed, can I still read my comics from my hard drive (this doesn’t seem to be the case with the free samples they give- maybe it’s different when you actually drop cash on a book)?
#3. Nothing new is online. Ok, maybe I should say that very little new content is online. If there are new books being released, I’m not aware of them. In the past month, I’ve wanted to buy Wonder Woman #600 & #601, Velocity #1, Morning Glories #1, and a hand full of other one-shots and books whose names I can’t remember. None of these are available online, and I’m can’t afford the full price of a hard copy. True, there is the logic that if I can’t afford something, I should not own it. Yet, from a business model, there is a potential customer right now. I’m willing to pay for something that I know how to obtain for free. I can’t be the only one who feels the same way.
Can you tell that I’m frustrated right now 
. I do feel better after venting.
I love comic books and I believe that the people who make them deserve to be compensated for what they do. However, with regard to bootlegging, I am going to quote Chris Rock: “I ain’t sayin’ it’s right… but I understand.” And really, it’s so damn EASY to find a bootlegged copy of all the popular titles.
The question that is posed is: How elaborate of a system do we need to create for distributing these books? Because that seems to be the main obstacle hindering easy online distribution. Is DMR necessary? The books are so easy to get as it is, will having a DMR make a difference? If it doesn’t, then digital distributors should start password protecting PDFs and selling the passwords asap, because they’re losing sales every week that goes by. Apple got rid of their DMR a while ago and as far as I have heard they plan to keep it that way.
But maybe digital comics without DMR will only increase the number of illegal copies on the Internet. Who is to say. What do people think?