OK, so my last post was an off the cuff comparison of the Pullbox downloadable comic service and the new Top Cow/IGN venture into the marketplace via Direct2Drive. I figured if I’m going to complain about Top Cow’s approach, I should have more than speculation to go on, so I signed up to use both services to compare them side by side. We’ll be looking at the ease of use of the services, their consumer friendliness and the quality of the comics themselves. Which service will reign supreme? Let’s find out…

Let’s start off with Direct2Drive, shall we?

First, you need to create an account or log in. Fair enough. Then you need to turn off your pop-up blockers, which doesn’t bode well. In the meantime, I’m waiting for an email so I can verify my email address….there we go!

So, now I’ve got my pop-ups enabled and I’m all logged in. Let’s select the comic - we’ll go with Midnight Nation #2, since I bought #1 way back when and never got beyond it. Add to cart, and done. Now, let’s go to checkout.

OK, now it’s time to enter my credit card info and then type in the codeword. Place order…and it’s telling me my credit card number is invalid. Let’s re-enter it and place order…and it just killed Safari. Relaunch the browser, and cool - my order is still there in the cart! Re-enter credit card info one more time, click to place the order and…bam. Order’s processed.

I’ve got a nice little invoice screen now, along with a link to download my comic. This leads me to a second page with another link to get my comic. Now it’s telling me I need Adobe Reader version 6.0 or higher, but it can’t find it…despite the fact that I’m currently rocking 6.0. Let’s download 8.0 and install it and see…

5 minutes later, still downloading…

And we’re all installed. That was freaking painful! OK, now let’s try downloading my comic again. No go - I have to relaunch my browser once again in order to install all the needed components.

Relaunched, everything is installed and…nothing. Ah - there’s a link to force the download. Should have done that earlier, but better late than never. OK, downloading the comic, finally. Got it on my hard drive, clicking to open it and…

Goddammit, what’s this? Now I need to download Adobe Digital Editions? I swear, it’s like IGN and Top Cow don’t really want me to read this thing. OK, let’s do this. Agreeing to yet another terms and conditions list that I have no intentions of actually reading…

OK, so that’s installed. Now let’s open the comic already - I need me some JMS! Openng, opening, opening - over a minute to open a single comic, and my machine’s not exactly slow (iMac 2 GHz Intel Core Duo with 1.5 gigs of ram). Loaded!

And I have what appears to be 23 pages of solid white. Not a single image or word to be seen. Fantastic!

Looking through their knowledgebase not only turns up no solutions to this problem, but apparently there’s no comic download support at all that I’m able to locate. Trying to open a support ticket now…and they want me to open another account just to get support? Frankly,that’s more hassle than my 2 bucks is worth. Congrats Top Cow/IGN - you win, I give in.

OK, now, it’s time for Pullbox (No Whammies, No Whammies, No Whammies…)

OK, so let’s give one of my favorite writers from the 80s a try here and download the first issue of Mike Baron’s Night Club. 99 cents seems fair enough. Select CBR format, add it to the cart, and there it is. Now, let’s check out…

OK, signing up for an account. Good to go - that was painless!

Time to check out. Entering my credit card info, clicking to purchase. Confirmation screen, OK…and now I need to wait for an email with a download link. Hmm. I would have preferred a direct link here, but alright, this is pretty simple so far.

Got my email with the download link - looking good! File’s downloading now. 30 seconds later, it’s on my hard drive. Clicking to open it…we have comics!!! Not only does the comic open easily and quickly, but it looks amazing to boot.

The Conclusion:

So, it seems pretty obvious that Pullbox just stomped a mudhole into Direct2Drive. Even setting aside things like being required to disable my pop-up window blocker (which turned out to be a moot point with nary a pop-up to be seen) and having to force the download of my file when they were unable to verify I had the correct software installed, the fact is D2D’s entire process was far more difficult than Pullbox’s. That alone would cause me to give the win to PB, but when you consider the fact that after all that headache I still was unable to even read my comic, the end result isn’t even close. Pullbox wins on the interface front, ease of use, available formats and most especially the ability to read my comics wherever I please. See, D2D has this little clause built into their ToS:

Note: You will only be able to use Midnight Nation comic on the computer you first install it on. Reloading Windows or formatting is also considered a second computer install and will disable your guide. Please feel free to print out your Midnight Nation comic book.

How insane is that? Compare this to Pullbox allowing me to download as many copies as I want over a three day period and my ability to transfer my files from one machine to another, or download the file on multiple machines (I tested it on two in my house), and it’s obvious which company has the customer’s best interests in mind. The only complaint I have about Pullbox at this point is the 3 day download period. Hopefully that’s a limitation within the current system that they’ll work out later, because I’d hate to be the person whose hard drive crashed after downloading comics from them for months or years on end.

Direct2Drive
Ease of use - 2/5
Consumer friendliness: 0/5
Comic quality: 0/5

Pullbox
Ease of use - 4/5
Consumer friendliness: 4/5
Comic quality: 5/5

UPDATE: Direct2Drive decided to abuse my account information and create a support account without my permission.

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