Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  This week, Bennett looks at the new comiXology Unlimited service and the plethora of Disney comic licenses in the U.S.

You have no doubt already heard the news that comiXology launched comiXology Unlimited (see "ComiXology Launches Amazon Prime of Comics"), a $5.99 monthly subscription service that allows you to read comics from over a half dozen publishers (Image Comics, Dark Horse Comics, IDW Publishing, BOOM! Studios, Oni Press, Kodansha Comics, Fantagraphics, Valiant Entertainment, etc.).  It  received the amount of attention that  you would expect in both the entertainment (Entertainment Weekly, The Hollywood Reporter) and business (Forbes, Business Insider) news sections of the Internet.

It is a legitimately big news story, but it's definitely not the "Netflix for Comics," which is what a lot of news pieces have been calling it.  Because such a thing would, of course, include the publishers’ new releases.  I believe that such a service is an absolute inevitability but we’re nowhere near being "there" -- yet.  I'm not foolish enough to try and predict exactly when this will happen, but it’ll probably be immediately preceded by the intermediary step of Marvel and DC (or maybe Image and Dark Horse, trying to get a jump on them) offering digital copies of their weekly releases on a subscription basis.  But it will happen; I know I'm very often wrong, but I'm fairly confident about this one.  It’s going to happen.

Of course, such a service, when it does happen, will be direct competition for brick and mortar comic book shops, which isn’t the case for comiXology Unlimited (CU).  As a comiXology spokesperson told Business Insider, CU is "about helping readers find an entry point into the medium, with a focus on partnering with publishers to fill the service up with first volumes and introductory storylines."  That’s something which can only ultimately aid the direct sales market by bringing in new readers looking for the new releases.  And although it’s explicitly not intended for Comic Book Guys such as me, I’ve already started my 30-day free trial of CU so I can check it out myself.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

When I was growing up, a license to make a movie, toy, and/or TV show into a comic book was by its very nature exclusive, but that isn’t the case anymore.  Given just how many properties and franchises Disney now has, it’s not surprising that the company has divvied up the American comic book rights between a number of publishers.  IDW Publishing has the classic characters (Mickey, Donald, Uncle Scrooge); Papercutz is doing graphic novels of some Disney European material, and last week I wrote about Minnie and Daisy BFFs, a series where the characters finally get the chance to be more than Mickey and Donald’s girlfriends (see "Confessions of a Comic Book Guy--Here They Come!").  But I neglected to mention that they’re also doing another Disney property,  X-Mickey, a series Papercutz describes as "Ghostbusters meets Duck Tales," one I’ve wanted to see translated, and in print, for years.

Marvel has produced some exceptional tween-skewing Disney Kingdom comics based on park attractions, the latest being The Haunted Mansion.

Then there’s Joe Books, a company that’s been keeping a low profile but producing some surprisingly good comics.  Like Darkwing Duck.  I was never all that crazy about the animated series that it’s based on, but the work of James Silvani and Aaron Sparrow has definitely made me a fan of the comic.  The funny animal superhero antics are fine, but I also like the way the characters seem like actual characters, especially the one between Darkwing and his adopted daughter Gosalyn.

As I mentioned last week, upcoming in July Joe Books has an ongoing Frozen series and in August the first issue of Pirates of the Caribbean, a franchise which I know also has more than its share of fans. I know I’m looking forward to reading both of them.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.