Amazon Begins Publishing Comics With SF Adaptations

Yesterday, Amazon announced that, in addition to their book publishing efforts, they will be publishing comics. Jet City Comics (“jet city” is a nickname for Seattle, where Amazon is headquartered) launched with Symposium #1, a Kindle comic that’s a “sidequest” to the Foreworld Saga, a shared-author alternate history series.

Their serialized publications will be available for the Kindle before print collections are sold on Amazon.com and “other comics retailers”. (Will comic shops want to sell them? Bookstores have previously refused to carry Amazon publications.) The titles discussed so far — see the first link for the full list — seem to be tie-ins to better-known prose works, with nothing except this launch release coming out until October. Print doesn’t appear until 2014. I guess comic adaptations of novels are still a viable business, although very few are exciting or break new ground. It’s mostly a way to sell something else to an existing audience more interested in the brand name than the comic medium.