Amazon will merge its digital comics storefront Comixology with Kindle on Dec. 4, which will also involve the official end of service for the standalone Comixology app.
All comics that a user owns via Comixology will be automatically integrated into users’ Kindle libraries, which requires merging an existing Comixology account with an Amazon login.
In the same announcement, sent via email to Comixology users, Amazon confirmed it’s made several upgrades to the Kindle mobile and browser apps. These are intended to make it a better experience for anyone who buys comics or manga on its storefront. These include upgraded organization and sorting tools, including a designated ‘Comics & Manga’ filter.
The announcement comes after Amazon reportedly dismissed most of the Comixology department in its January wave of layoffs.
Comixology was founded in 2007 as a cloud-based digital distribution platform for electronic copies of American comics and manga. While it did and does notoriously charge full retail price for individual issues, Comixology’s frequent giveaways and flash sales made it an attractive option for readers on a budget.
Amazon acquired Comixology for an undisclosed sum in April 2014. As an Amazon subsidiary, Comixology was initially unchanged. It went on to launch its own standalone subscription service, Comixology Unlimited, in 2016, and a publishing imprint, Comixology Originals, in 2018.
Subsequently, in 2021, Amazon announced plans to close Comixology as a service in favor of integrating it into Kindle. In 2022, that integration arrived and was instantly unpopular, with users reporting a distinctly inferior experience on Kindle as compared to Comixology’s standalone app.
Complaints included a loss of image quality, books disappearing from users’ libraries, no ability to buy comics directly through Kindle, and the quiet abandonment of Comixology’s DRM-free options.
I hadn’t yet merged my Comixology account with my Amazon login for that specific purpose, but now that the writing’s on the wall, I went ahead and did that today to investigate. All of the books in my Comixology library appear to have survived the transition to Kindle, and the image quality is okay. At time of writing, however, you still don’t appear to be able to buy comics directly through the app, and the “Comixology Unlimited” option in the sidebar is broken.
