If you like comics, you’ll love the buffet of all-you-can-eat comic subscriptions now available to comic lovers, including new additions like Archie Unlimited and Comic Blitz.
Last week The Beat announced that Archie Comics has released Archie Unlimited, a standalone iOS app designed by Madefire where Archie fans can buy individual issues, subscribe to Archie Unlimited for $7.99 a month, and get access to digital-only Archie comics featuring Archie, Josie & The Pussycats, Dark Circle Comics, and more. This app replaces a previous one by iVerse.”Original digital content allows us to really get creative with different presentations and story combinations that appeal to very specific audiences. One of the best-kept secrets about Archie’s digital publishing program is that we’ve been creating original, digital content for years,” said Ron Perazza, vice president of digital for Archie’s.Last month another service – Comic Blitz – launched to provide comic lovers with thousands of comics from more than a dozen publishers, and last week, the company announced four additional publishers were joining the comic subscription service: Arcana Studios, Asylum Press, Blue Juice Comics and Paperfilms.Unlike Archie Comics, Comic Blitz doesn’t offer single issues or collections for sale. Instead, it offers its entire library of more than 2,000 comics for $9.99 a month, after a one month free trial, says Examiner.com. So far, Comic Blitz is only available from the App Store for iPads, but it will be launching apps for iPhones and Android soon.Comic Blitz’s founders explain their passion for comics:”Our story is probably a lot like yours. We grew up with comics. Mom or Dad would take us to the corner drugstore on the weekends, and we’d spin the racks looking for the latest and greatest comic books, graphic novels, digest and more. Whether it was superheroes, horror, or adventure stories, we fell in love. Today, our goal is to bring you that same feeling, day in and day out, with our all you can read digital comic book service.”Archie and Comic Blitz are in good company. They join other comic subscription services like Marvel Unlimited where subscribers can “unlock the Marvel universe” for $9.99 a month, getting instant access to more than 17,000 Marvel comics. Available for iPhones, iPads and Android devices, Marvel Unlimited allows users to save up to 12 comics to read offline.Marvel offers some differentiating factors though. In addition to offering Marvel favorites like Iron Man, Spider-Man and Captain America, Marvel Unlimited offers three membership plans: monthly ($9.99/month), annual ($69/year), and annual plus ($99/year). The monthly and annual plans offer the same features – streaming access to 17,000+ comics and member-only deals, while the annual plus offers many other perks including exclusive action figures, member-only events, discounts and more.Insider Take:Comic book subscription services like these bring binge-reading to a whole new level, providing a wide variety of options to comic lovers around the world. Whether readers want adventure, horror, or romance, comics and graphic novels are available for virtually every taste and at prices that beat most print comics.Though Comic Blitz and Archie’s newest app are relatively new on the comic scene, we anticipate they are testing the market with their iOS versions, and will tweak their products as they roll out Android versions. We hope they’ll also look at the Marvel model and consider different membership tiers which could attract and convert monthly subscribers into annual subscribers.Binge away, comic lovers!~ Dana E. Neuts, Subscription Insider
