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Amazon ran Comixology straight into the ground, and now it's laying off staff
After ruining the reading experience across the app and web, Amazon is laying off the very people that could fix things
Comixology was once heralded as the place to purchase digital comic books, thanks to its worthwhile discovery, awesome sales, and easy navigability for perusing decades of books from a large assortment of publishers. While Amazon bought the company back in 2013, it wasn't until 2022 that Amazon started tossing its weight around, completely replacing the user experience on the web and app with something much closer to the Kindle interface, and it was nowhere near ready. This rushed and poorly thought-out move left the Comixology team scrambling to fix all the things Amazon broke with the switch, and now Amazon is laying many of them off.
Amazon's making ComiXology much worse with its latest update
And digital comic book collectors aren't happy
Way back in 2014, Amazon purchased ComiXology, setting its sights on digital comic books after conquering the e-book world. As one would expect, Amazon has slowly moved over a few features from the ComiXology app to the Kindle app, and so the ever-popular Guided View was added to the Kindle app in 2017.
Welcome to the latest entry in our Bonus Round series, wherein we tell you all about the new Android games of the day that we couldn't get to during our regular news rounds. Consider this a quick update for the dedicated gamers who can't wait for our bi-weekly roundups, and don't want to wade through a whole day's worth of news just to get their pixelated fix. Today we have a gorgeous spaceship/runner game, a Kairosoft manga title, a new twist on minesweeper, a pixelated puzzler, and a fencing fighter. Without further ado:
Unless you're a dedicated aficionado of rare and indie comic books, you might not have heard of The Adventures of Dog Mendonça & Pizzaboy. It's a much-loved little series that combines a sarcastic version of noir storytelling with urban fantasy - think Harry Dresden meets Monkey Island, and you're about there. Originally published in Portugal before getting an English release via Dark Horse, the series spans three volumes and a short story. Now fans can also dig into a standalone adventure game as well.
Read update
Reading books on a tiny smartphone screen can sometimes be quite a hassle. The issue is somewhat mitigated for digital books that scale text to adjust to the size of the display, but for things such as PDFs or comic books which have strict page dimensions, it's difficult to enlarge content in a way that doesn't also negatively impact the content layout or require a lot of zooming and panning around the page.
Read update
In the grand scheme of the Internet, alt texts don't really matter. FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUMENT, WHATCHA TALKIN' 'BOUT? I mean, they're only little blurbs of text that show up when you hover over an image on the web. YOUR MOM IS A BLURB. Usually, they're just the file name of the image or some insignificant gibberish tacked by Wordpress or whatever online publishing tool the website you're visiting uses. THAT'S A BUNCH OF FJAFJKLDSKF7JKFDJ! I mean, in almost all cases, they don't add anything to what you're seeing. STOP USING APPROXIMATIONS. Ok, maybe they matter if you read a certain site called xkcd... TOLD YOU I'D WIN THE ARGUMENT... WHEEEEEE SPLOOSH.
There's a new Marvel movie coming out tomorrow in the US. You may have heard about it - it's kind of a big deal. So what better time for a developer to release a new game featuring as many Marvel (comics, not movies) characters as possible. You've got to have something to do while you ignore the repeating video ad for Dave's Discount Family Insurance that plays before the trailers start up, right?
LEGO Marvel Super Heroes: Universe in Peril, a game that found its way to consoles in 2013 and other mobile platforms in 2014, has now fought its way into the Play Store. This port has managed to come in before LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga, an older title that briefly appeared on the Amazon Appstore and never found its way onto Google Play.
Feedly Updated To Version 15, Taking Focus On Bug Fixes, Better Support For Comics
In a post to the official blog a few days ago, Feedly announced a new beta – version 15 – which quickly found itself released to the Play Store. The
In a post to the official blog a few days ago, Feedly announced a new beta – version 15 – which quickly found itself released to the Play Store. The service, which has greeted over three million new users since the announcement of Google Reader's impending doom, promises a painless transition to its own backend solution once Reader closes officially in July. While said backend may not have taken hold yet, the developers have been hard at work making the app itself better and better in response to its users.
[New App] GoComics Releases Official Android App, Tickles Your Funny Bone
Maybe you're in search of a good belly laugh after a long week. Well, the GoComics app just launched on Android with a ton of officially syndicated comic
Maybe you're in search of a good belly laugh after a long week. Well, the GoComics app just launched on Android with a ton of officially syndicated comic strips and political cartoons to cheer you up. You can download the app for free, and you don't even have to create an account to get started.
Android devices are already pretty awesome comic readers. There's very little I love in the world more than watching Deadpool hack and slash everything in the universe up on the ultra-high resolution display of my Nexus 10. Though, if anything is gonna give the merc with a mouth a run for his ill-gotten money, it may just be the collective comic anthologies of properties like Star Wars, Hellboy, Serenity, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and more. Yes, Dark Horse comics are live on the Play Store.
I like comics. They're wonderful. While the modern world makes it difficult for local shops to maintain the footprint they once did, online distribution has made it insanely easy (and cheap!) for major and minor artists to gain a following and make money doing it. However, is digitally reproducing static artwork on a powerful, portable computer really the best we can do? Narr8 doesn't think so.
Not to be outdone by DC Comics, Marvel just pushed its official app into the Android Market. The app allows you to purchase and download comics featuring all of your Marvel favorites -- everyone from Captain America to Wolverine are along for the ride.