Back up your digital comics with a click, not DRM

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comixology DRM-free

If you’ve been wary of joining the digital comics revolution because of digital rights management (DRM) concerns, Comixology, a comics portal and mobile app, is creating a solution.

Announced Thursday at the company’s San Diego Comic-Con panel, the new DRM-free backup service will let you keep a local copy of your purchased digital comics from the likes of Image Comics, Dynamite Entertainment, Zenescope Entertainment, MonkeyBrain Comics, Thrillbent, and Top Shelf Productions. You’ll be able to save a local copy in PDF or CBZ (a comic-book archiving format) right on your iPad.

“For those out there who have not joined the comic reading community because of DRM – you have no excuse now,” said ComiXology’s John D. Roberts in a statement. “We’re excited about the launch of DRM-free backups today and look forward to announcing more innovative features as we move ahead with our mission of making everyone on the face of the planet a comic book fan!”

It’s super easy to download local backups of these DRM-free comics to your Mac or PC via the Comixology website. If you’re already a Comixology member, you can head to the Backups tab in your account and then just hit the backup button to save your chosen format to your local hard drive. You can even search the entire library at Comixology for the DRM-free comics on offer right now.

Comixology has over 50,000 comics from more than 75 comics publishers, along with really fantastic viewing tech, which lets you read your comics panel by panel on your iPad or iPhone, letting you tap through each story sequentially to see every lovingly illustrated scene and dialogue bubble.

Now you’ll be able to see all your comics, whether backed up or not, from within the Comixology app on the web, iOS, Android, Amazon Fire, and Windows phone.

Here’s hoping the feature is a success, and the big comics publishers like DC and Marvel step up to the plate and let us back up the comics we’ve purchased through the Comixology store, too.

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