Amazon today announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire digital comics vendor ComiXology for an undisclosed sum. ComiXology developed and distributes the engine used by most major comic book publishers in the United States, including Marvel and DC Comics for their privately branded digital services. David Naggar, Amazon Vice President of Content Acquisition and Independent Publishing said of the acquisition that “we’ve long admired the passion comiXology brings to changing the way we buy and read comics and graphic novels.
Amazon has just announced that they will acquire comiXology, a service that offers digital versions of comics from Marvel, DC, and many others. If you’ve never used it, it’s probably easiest to think of comiXology as a sort of iTunes/Kindle Store for comic books. You buy a comic through their online store, then read it either on the web or through the company’s iOS/Android apps. To date, Comixology offers upwards of 50,000 comics for sale. In 2013, the company launched a self-publishing platform for comics that allows comic creators to upload and sell their own work — a strategy which fits hand-in-hand with Amazon’s own self-publishing efforts for books. Last year, the comiXology iOS app was one of the App Store’s top performing, by gross sales. In fact, it was one of just two non-games to find itself in Apple’s Top 20 Grossing for 2013.
