Down On The Upload: Downloading Avenging Spider-Man, Part 2

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is part 2 in a short series about downloading a digital comic book from Marvel’s online store. Actually, it’s a very short series considering this is the last part. You can find part 1 here. And if that doesn’t sound interesting, you can find cats talking to each other here.

After I muddled through figuring out how to give Marvel enough personal information to be able to read the digital copy of Avenging Spider-Man they’d offered to give me for free with my purchase of the print edition, and I finally was looking at the book in Marvel’s computer comic reader, it occurred to me that nothing in any of the Web pages I came through told me how to find the book again later. Lemme look at the app… aha! There’s something about subscriptions! Let’s click that!

Okay… if… what? If I feel like it? If I ask real nice? If I am pure of heart and say my prayers at night? Jesus, I was kidding about having to submit to that prostate exam…

Fuck it, let’s try that “Subscribe now” link…

What? More personal information? Okay, let me just… wait – five bucks a month!? Sixty clams up front? I thought you douchebags said it was free! I see what it’s like: the first taste is free, and the next thing you know, you’re kneeling behind a dumpster to get your digital comics!

Turns out all I had to do was go back to the Marvel store where I tried to start and sign in with the account I created on the Marvel-proper Web site, and there was my book. But nothing told me that was what I had to do. This setup was more than willing to let me poke around and “accidentally” pay five bucks a month to get my free book. And maybe I’m just a dope, but I was able to set up this Web site with an idle idea, five clicks and a crippling hangover. This isn’t my first Internet rodeo. And if I needed to stop and think to figure out if I needed to pay for my free comic, I figure five other people just paid. Granted, those people are probably still on MySpace, but I digress.

On top of it all, when it’s all said and done, this wasn’t even a free download. Because “download” implies that I actually received something. In reality, what I got was the right, provided I use the software platforms available on the particular hardware that Marvel’s okay with, to read the book whenever I choose, provided I have an active Internet connection so that I can occasionally re-authenticate with them. If I read the comic on a computer, I have no actual file to show for it because the book is streamed from their servers.

If I use the Android app (And yes, I installed it on my cell phone to see how it worked), the book DOES download… but one of the permissions that the app demands is to allow it to obtain my “coarse location”…

…which, if they meant the location where I am most often coarse, I would gladly tell them is the bar next to my local comic store. Unfortunately, what it really means is that they can use the app to pinpoint my location to within a few hundred yards…

…which will probably be within a few hundred yards from the bar next to my local comic store.

And regardless of whether I choose to use the computer or a supported piece of hardware to read the book, I can only access that book for exactly as long as Marvel continues to operate the server to which my computer or their app authenticates to. The minute that doesn’t happen, my books vanish. Which means if there is a just a loving God (or IT guy at Marvel), that server is named Mom, who ALSO once threw out all my comic books.

So in short, in exchange for a book I already own, Marvel has deigned to allow me to read the same book on the hardware of their choice for as long as they feel like allowing me to do so. Granted, it was free… assuming that you consider your name, address, email address and CURRENT FUCKING LOCATION AT ANY GIVEN TIME as information that has no value. And on top of it all, I still can’t get the book on my Nook Color.

Or can I?

Yep, that’s Avenging Spider-Man #1. On my Nook Color. Fully zoomable, pageable, and in crystal clarity. How’d I do it?

I fucking STOLE it. Duh.

Look: the main reason I decided to do this article was to see if digital comics, despite my misgivings, were a reasonable substitute for the print version. You know, the version that is easily legible, allows me to read it in the way that I want to read it, that is infinitely portable, that doesn’t try to subtly trick me into subscribing to it, that doesn’t ask me any personal questions, that doesn’t rat my whereabouts to God knows who, and that, you know, I own. The official Marvel version failed on pretty much every front.

But this copy on my Nook (Or more accurately, which was on my Nook. I deleted it right after I took the picture) does meet all those criteria. And I was able to find, obtain, convert and sideload it to my Nook in about the same amount of time as it took me to get my official version… and that’s taking into account that I never downloaded a pirated comic book before in my life, so I had to LEARN HOW TO DO IT.

So does that mean I’m saying that you should pirate your comic books? Fuck, no. I love comics. People stealing comics makes comics go away. That would be bad. Please, not to steal, kthx.

But what I am saying is that, if the Marvel experience is any indicator for the general experience of downloading comics legally, it doesn’t pass the sniff test. Comics you don’t own that you can only see on proprietary applications and approved hardware aren’t the answer, particularly not while print comics are the perfect size to fit onto a $75 scanner.

So what is the answer? Shit, if I knew that I’d be spending my millions on a staff to write this shit for me. But hideous restrictions, digital rights management and landlocked hardware options are the reasons you don’t own a Walkman right now.

But here’s an idea: just sell PDFs. They can be read on anything, the format is ubiquitous enough that we’ll always be able to read them, and you can back them up to a Dropbox or something so you never lose them. Sure, they’re easy to copy, and some people might throw them on the Internet… but they’re already on the Internet. Shit, I think we’ve just established that I could replace my weekly $100 comics take for dog dick nothing, without ever having done it before.

But I don’t. Because I love comics. And people who love comics? They fucking buy comics. You know what people who love restrictively formatted copy protection buy?

I’ll tell you when I find one to ask.