Crisis On Infinite Midlives Podcast Episode 11: The Golden Shakeoff Caper

Yeah, I know that we mentioned the other day that we had subjects that we wanted to talk about in a podcast, but I also know that you didn’t even remotely think that we’d actually, you know, do one.

Well, the joke’s on you, because here’s Episode 11: The Golden Shakeoff Caper! In which we discuss:

• The ComiXology buyout by Amazon (in which I reference a piece I wrote about ComiXology’s licensing and lack of ability to back up your comics)
• The San Diego Comic-Con hotel registration process, and the anxiety-provoking processes around attending SDCC in general
• Deadpool #27
• DC’s new weekly comic, Batman: Eternal #1

And here is our usual disclaimer: this episode was recorded live to tape, meaning that other than adding the intro and outro music, it is presented exactly as we discussed it, with every, “um,” “uh,” cough and burp. Further, this podcast is not safe for work. Be advised that we liberally use explicit and vulgar language, although if you weren’t tipped off by the fact that our title this week includes the phrase, “golden shake-off,” you need more help than a friendly warning. Either way, use some headphones.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 58:15 — 53.4MB)

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Enjoy the show, suckers!

I See Dead People. Maybe: Amazon Buys ComiXology

So. Amazon has bought ComiXology.

I’m not gonna write a whole hell of a lot about this development, since Amanda and I have decided that this might be a good topic for another podcast (Yes! Two podcasts in less than two years! Truly it is a new and exciting age in audio-only media!), but there is one thing I would like to point out.

That thing being that our Web site traffic, which is usually pretty consistent, is up about 25 percent today. And not because of anything recent that we have posted, oh no. No, it is because a couple of years ago, I wrote a piece about a kid on Reddit who briefly posted a script that allowed people to download their comics from ComiXology and strip the copy protection so they could back up their own books. And how ComiXology landed on that kid with both feet, and how that should be a matter of concern for ComiXology customers, because without the ability to locally save their comics, they would never really own any of them. You know, if something ever happened to ComiXology.

It’s a piece that has garnered a little bit of attention; it has been highly-ranked on Google for people searching for ways to save their digital comics locally – you know, just in case something happened to the parent company to get in the way of you getting the books that you paid for – and if it even got picked up by Hacker News just a few months ago.

And it suddenly is getting a lot of traffic. Apparently because there are more people than usual trying like hell to find a way to save the digital comics that they bought. Just in case something were to happen to them. Or the company they did business with in good faith.

Fruit Forbidding: Apple App Store Refuses Sale of Saga #12

Update, 4/10/2013, 5:50 p.m.: As contributor Lance Manion pointed out in the comments, it turns out that Apple isn’t the party that censored Saga #12. It was Comixology themselves. Details at the end of the original story, after the jump.

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The Internet is an interesting place. It’s a place where, by simply closing your eyes, pounding on your keyboard with your fist and pressing the Enter key, you can see pictures, in living color, of a woman with a substance abuse problem blowing a horse.

It is also a place where you can obtain anything that can be turned into ones and zeroes that you want, completely for free, much to the consternation of major media producers. But thankfully, most of those media producers have embraced the possibilities of the Internet, making their content instantly available to anyone with a credit card – you know, adults – instantly, and at a reasonable price. And all across a medium that only fifteen years ago was best known as a delivery vector for animal pornography and autopsy photos.

Well, unless you’re trying to ply your wares through Apple’s App Store. A company and a store who have, in their infinite wisdom, decided not to accept Image Comics’s Saga #12 for sale via the iOS Comixology app due to two images of gay sex. Because God forbid that a consenting adult be allowed to decide to purchase a cartoon that includes two panels of sex acts on their iPad – a device widely used to make it possible to view and masturbate to high-definition pornography in a public toilet stall.

So, what with Apple acting in a manner similar to Wal-Mart and other prudish, yet powerful, corporate overlords who want to tell you what you can and can’t read or watch, I imagine Saga creators Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples, and their little publisher Image, have agreed to self-censor their book in order to gain access to iPads, yes?

Yeah, no.

Freedom Is Free Again: Comixology Ready To Deliver On Marvel’s SXSW Free Comics Offer

Once upon a time in a magical land known as Austin, during a festival known as South By Southwest where the peasants celebrate the coming of spring by paying nine bucks a beer to their corporate betters, the benevolent kings of Marvel Comics announced that they would bestow a boon upon the common folk: 700 classic and new tales of knights and heroes, delivered instantly into their homes, notebooks and even their pockets, all thanks to the magic of their House Wizards at Comixology, known far and wide as the most proficient magicians in the delivery of these tales (or at least amongst the last ones standing).

But alas, no sooner did the Day of Giving arrive than the secret magicks of the Wizards of Comics Delivery failed, leaving hundreds without their promised boon, and some wondering just what in the hell they had been paying the magicians for in the first place.

Which is a long and stupid way to go to say that, about a month after Comixology was forced, due to server load, to suspend Marvel’s offer of a few days of free comics, they have told those who emailed them to say that yes: they wanted the free comics, fer Christ’s sake, that they will soon see their patience rewarded.

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.

…You Rent Them: The Tale of The ComiXology Backup Script

Earlier this week, some dude posted to the Reddit Comic Book board that he had written a short Bash script (for the technologically challenged, think an old Windows batch file with ambition) that would allow you to download any digital comics you purchased from ComiXology, strip the DRM (again, for the uninitiated, DRM stands for digital rights management, which is nothing but copy protection with an official-sounding acronym to make it sound intimidating, like “FBI,” “CIA” or “DIAF”), and convert them to a format you can store locally and read on anything. Clearly this is a young man with plenty of free time to spend frittering on coding and hanging around in courtrooms.

The script author even posted a copy of the script with detailed instructions on how you could use it to download copies of the books you bought from ComiXology. Isn’t that nice? Oh, don’t go searching for it – ComiXology caught wind of it and asked the kid to delete the script.

Crisis On Infinite Midlives Podcast Episode 8: The Kick of Osteoporosis

Guess who found their microphones?

That’s right, after five months, and literally no waiting with bated – or any – breath, it’s time for another exciting episode of the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Podcast!

In this week’s episode, we drunkenly rant about:

• Digital Comics. Specifically, it was a big week encompassing the closing of the Graphic.ly Web storefront and the release of the first of Marvel’s Infinite Comics via ComiXology, so we talk about how faithful customers of digital comics get to be in the vanguard of comics publishing while eventually being doomed to wind up with fuckall for their money!
• Marvel’s Augmented Reality application, which forces you to read your printed comics through your cell phone like Commander Data or some other robotic autistic person!
• Fanboys Vs. Zombies, and how it is an awesome book if you have been to SDCC, want to go to SDCC, or want to see Joe Quesada eaten by a grue!
• The Avengers movie: can it possibly be as good as the trailers and the TV spots make it look?
• Agent Coulson: Xander of the Marvel Movie Universe?
• Hawkeye: Like a Boss? Or Like a Miss?
• SDCC Hotel Sales: big mess or biggest mess?
• Plus: Justice League Dark and The Boys!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:47 — 52.0MB)

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As always, if you listen to this show at work, wear headphones unless you want to explain to your boss why you’re listening to someone bemoan the lack of glory holes in San Diego hotel rooms! And if you can listen to the whole thing, see if you can tell the moment when the booze gets on top of us!

As always: thanks for listening, suckers!

Adventures In Digital Comics – Review Of Comixology App, Fanboys Vs. Zombies #1, And Marvel Infinite Comics

You may remember that I was very excited to review Fanboys Vs. Zombies #1 the other day. Unfortunately, my Local Comic Book Store, where the owner knows us by name and asks Rob wear his Gleek Underoos under his pants, did not have the book in stock. What to do? Take this as an opportunity to investigate the growing medium (sort of) of digital comics!

I downloaded Comixology onto my phone and an Asus Transformer Eee pad. From there, I was able to download a couple of books relatively easily to the app to read. I say “relatively” because, while the functionality is an easy “touch-the-button” user interface, it is a few long minutes before each book will appear on the device. So, there’s some wait time until gratification. And, while you can read any book you’ve purchased on any device on which you’ve installed Comixology, it appears you need to download books locally to the new devices. One digital comic book takes up 74 MB of space on the Eee pad.

Of course, once you have the books, how is the app overall for reading the books? That is the most important question after all.

Check out my video review of Comixology and the books I used it to purchase after the jump!