From now until the end of Tuesday, you can download up to 700 free Marvel comics from the Marvel.com comic store and hugely popular digital comics marketplace Comixology. That is, if you can get through.
As soon as the massive promotion was announced at Marvel’s SXSW panel on Sunday afternoon, comics fans rushed to make use of the deal. Glitches quickly began to appear during the ordering process, and by Monday morning the site had crashed completely.
The Marvel1 promotion is geared towards first issues from hundreds of popular Marvel comics, including various Avengers titles, Deadpool, Spider-Man, and The Fantastic Four. Authors and artists are already weighing in, with Hawkeye writer Matt Fraction urging fans to email the ComiXology support team and specifically request his comic.
The #Marvel1 and #Comixology tags on Tumblr and Twitter are predictably full of complaints and rumours about when the site will be available again, interspersed with the occasional frustratingly jubilant post from someone who managed to download hundreds of comics before the site went down.
As for ComiXology itself, the company’s Twitter account has been inundated with so many questions that it’s set up two new support accounts to answer all the messages. At the moment it seems that @cmxsupport is the one to follow, with @superiorcmx and @cmxhelps acting as backup whenever one of the other accounts is sent to “Twitter jail” for breaching tweet limits.
If you’re one of the people patiently waiting for updates from Comixology.com, we suggest giving their servers a rest and checking out Marvel’s regular weekly set of free comics, which should still be available on their site.
Image via @comiXology
