Previews’ Digital Comic Shop Catalog Is Here — For $4

Diamond Previews logos

As I mentioned in my most recent Previews roundup, the comic shop ordering catalog has gone digital for consumers. (The fact that the business owner uses the same catalog as the end customer is a long-standing structural problem that goes along with the blurry line between fan and professional in the comic industry.)

If you visit www.previewsworld.com/digital, you will find that it costs $3.99 a month to be able to shop, and Diamond Distributors (the owner of Previews) has typoed the latest, May 2018 catalog as still belonging to April.

Previews Digital launches

However, the DC and Marvel Previews and Image promotional magazine (the “companion publications”, as Diamond puts it) are free to anyone. And older issues of Previews are free, now that the ordering cycle has passed, so that users can “get a taste of what Previews has to offer”. Beginning next month, “fans will be able to purchase Previews digital codes from their local comic book shop for a discounted price.”

As with DC and Marvel comics, if you get a print edition, you can get a free digital copy. Because print is still primary for those folks who’ve been in the business a long time. There’s also a Previews app now.

Note that this is online, not downloadable. You still have to be connected to read the catalog, although the interface has a download link. If you click it, you get the charming message, “Not allowed to download PDF!”



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