By Daniel P. Dern: As a DC fan who also reads Marvel (and other) comics, while I enjoy Marvel’s streaming comic service (not all titles or issues, and nothing less than 6 months old, but still a great value if there’s enough of interest), I’ve been hoping DC would catch up. (Hoopla Digital, free via your library card, offers a reasonable range of comics from DC, Marvel and many other publishers, but the per-month limits are, well, limiting.)
I’m hoping that DC Universe, announced recently, will feed more of my DC comic jones. I’ve gone ahead and pre-ordered, $75-ish for a year (and 3 months free as a pre-order); the launch is “Fall 2018.” We’ll see. (It looks like there’s also lotsa movies’n’video, tho whether that’s available via non-DC, ahem, channels is also Not Yet Known (by me, anyway).
The main URL is: https://www.dcuniverse.com/coming-soon/
(The trailer really doesn’t provide any info, IMHO.)
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I admit that I did expect that; given that the service is apparently going to have video streaming, it’s going to be very complicated to sort out rights issues.
I tried the Marvel streaming service for a while but gave up because, while the breadth of titles available is amazing, the web interface was terrible, slow, non-intuitive, and in all ways frustrating to use. If the DC version is more user friendly, I may give it a shot.
John – I’ve been using Marvel’s streaming service for quite a while, but mostly on a tablet, so I can’t speak to the web UI experience. The ioS app UI is OK enough — and frankly, of the various streaming/downloadable comic services I’ve tried (Hoopla, ComiXology, Kindle, and I fergets what else), Marvel Unlim’s is the least unusable of the batch… although most of this praising-with-faint-damns is, I suspect more a byproduct of MUnlim’s offerings than actual design smarts.
That said, they ALL have their share of dubious anti-usability “features.”
I’m waiting off until I get a clearer sense of how much of DC’s comics range will be available to read. I could care less about exclusive streaming series or whatnot, but something equivalent to Marvel Unlimited–with much of the existing library, and the ability to follow pretty much all currently-published books if you’re willing to wait six months to a year after their print date–would probably hook me. I’ve had the impression DC may be going for a relatively small list, which wouldn’t.
Yeah, I’m real curious about the comics, although I might be interested in some of the video (Doom Patrol!). I’m having mixed feelings about pre-paying for a year, with the explicit “no refunds” notice… suppose it tanks and shuts down? (Unlikely, I know.) In theory I have a few more days for the “cancel within a week.”
Tsk to DC, tho, for taking our money NOW for, granted, a few perks, but nothing immediate, how hard would that have been, hmmm?
Note, Marvel Unlim doesn’t quite provide “pretty much all currently-published books, six months later.” OTOH, given the general availability as collected-in-trade/hardcover book format, you can — if patient — get most anything, through your library (or interlibrary loan). If patient.
Patiently…
DPD