ComiXology announced today that they are releasing a Retailer Tools and Pull List service that will allow retailers to create digital storefronts. What does that mean? That any comic retailer, say Floating World Comics in Portland, can create a ComiXology storefront and sell books out and split the profit (assumably) from there. Given that many retailers shared a disdain for digital comics because it cut this out of the equation, this is a nice offering from ComiXology.
But it’s also a really confusing one. Why do digital comics need another layer added between the comics themselves and the consumers. I recognize this as a good guy to retailers, but really, why do this through a digital storefront instead of the ComiXology app itself? It seems to be adding an unnecessary wrinkle, but we’ll see as more information comes out about it. Details are a little sketchy right now, but we’ll have more on this subject later.
Also, if you’d enjoy a decent discussion about this, talk to Dean Trippe on Twitter. He’s as confused as we are.