No Comics For You: Comixology Suspends Marvel’s Free Download Offer

Wow, remember the good old days when Marvel announced their Marvel #1 initiative? And they they were offering around 700 different first issues as free downloads from their comic store and from Comixology until Tuesday? You know, those good old days that started, oh I don’t know, 30 or so hours ago?

Yeah, like most time periods we call “The Good Old Days,” those days are over, at least for now. It turns out that, once the word about the free downloads got out, Neither Comixology nor Marvel’s own digital comics store was able to handle the load from the demand. Marvel’s comic store is, as of this writing, completely down, and Comixology has announced that they need to suspend their part of the giveaway until they can figure out how to handle the demand.

Oops.

Let’s start by looking on the bright side: this means that there is a shit-ton of demand for some of Marvel’s most classic, and most recent, comics. And that is good news for Marvel, it’s good news for comics in general… and hell, it might even be good news for local print retailers, because what it’s showing people is a few books using the favorite marketing method of heroin and methamphetamine dealers – the first taste is free – but it’s also showing them that digital distribution isn’t a magic bullet, and that maybe if you want to make sure you get a book? You ask your local retailer to start you a pull list.

So the big question is: since this was a limited time offer meant to expire on Tuesday, if Comixology is shuttering the giveaway for now, will you still be able to get the free digital comics you were offered? Well, it looks like it. Here’s the full statement from Comixology CEO David Steinberger:

A Message From The CEO
Posted on March 11th, 2013 – 16:07 PM by David Steinberger
To our customers:

It’s been a whirlwind weekend, and we’re fresh from SXSW where Marvel Comics launched their Marvel #1 promotion featuring over 700 free comics distributed via our platform.

We expected a high degree of excitement for the Marvel initiative – and had believed ourselves prepared – but unfortunately we became overwhelmed by the immense response. We’re still struggling to keep our systems up.

The result is that you aren’t getting your comics when and where you want.

We don’t like letting you down. Our teams are working around the clock to resolve these issues so that you can have the experience you’ve come to expect.

To that end, we’re pausing the Marvel Comics #1 promotion for the time being. For those of you that want to take advantage of the offer – you will get your comics! Until we are able to reinstate this program in our systems, please click here and fill out this simple form, so you can be informed as soon as there is an update.

We’ll be communicating with you as often as we can and deeply appreciate the outpouring of support we’ve seen from our customers while we right the ship.

David Steinberger
CEO and co-founder
comiXology

So it seems that if you’re interested in some free comics, fill out their form and hopefully you’ll be able to take advantage of it, even if they ramp things back up after Tuesday.

As a side note: this has been a weird week for businesses trying to feel out a business model that includes forcing the customer to consume their products while online. Last week, Electronic Arts released their much-anticipated Sim City video game – a video game that requires the user to be connected to the Internet in order to play – and that also didn’t go so well. And while there is a big difference between a server failure in delivering free, promotional comic books, and a server failure preventing people from playing a $60 game they paid for, there is a similarity: it tells customers that maybe they don’t want to fuck around with digital delivery systems.

Sure, this isn’t the end of the world. We are, after all, talking about a promotional giveaway that it looks like Marvel and Comixology will find a way to make good on. But if digital comics are going to be the future – and as much as I love my local comic store, where they know me by name and ask me not to offer to show the paying clientele my definition of “downloading,” I think that the examples of the music, video rental and print publishing industries set a pretty clear example of where we’re probably headed – then the distributors need to demonstrate that they are capable of meeting demand. And if a potential new customer comes in for a promotion and finds that they can’t download any books, it sends a bad message to customers about the industry.

Look, I’m not gonna lie to you: I’m a print comics fan. Sure, that paper is taking over my house, but my Wednesday trip to my local store for my books is about the best part of my week. I love the conversation with the other regulars about the books, the genre TV shows and movies, and I love that I get 10% off cover price for all my books – not just my pulls – in exchange for my loyalty as a customer. So anything I say about digital comics should be taken with a grain of salt. But I will end with this: despite the failure of servers at two different comic stores, I am able to get my books electronically.

I email my local comic store owner and ask him to pull me the issues I want.