Just over six months after Barnes & Noble and DC Entertainment fell out very publicly over DC’s decision to back Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet with a hundred DC graphic novels that were available exclusively through Amazon’s digital storefront, the two have announced a partnership that will bring dozens of DC titles to Barnes & Noble’s Nook Color and Nook Tablet devices. The shift reflects that DC has a similar philosophy to Marvel, who brought their material first to the Nook but did not embrace an exclusivity deal, saying that Nook was the first but not only format they were interested in exploring.At the time, a number of sources suggested that the window for digital exclusivity was only about three months long, which would have seen it end in late February or March.”Our goal is to reach the broadest possible audience and this new partnership with Barnes & Noble brings Batman, Superman and many other iconic DC Comics and Vertigo characters to the millions of NOOK Tablet and NOOK Color readers,” said Jim Lee, co-publisher of DC Entertainment, who famously teased Superman: Earth One on the Kindle Fire in a PR event for Amazon shortly before the device was on the market. “The new Zoom View feature makes our comics even easier to read, and emphasizes the graphic and artistic storytelling that is paramount to our art form.”That feature, according to Barnes & Noble, is a new one created for Nook Comics. It sounds like it’s very similar to the Guided View technology employed by ComiXology, and it requires an update for Nook users before comics that use the feature will be compatible with the Nook Color and Nook Tablet readers. The update is available already at the Nook Support site, and will start to roll out “over the air,” meaning that it will require no action by the user, tomorrow. As with Marvel’s e-comics, the black-and-white Nook readers will not be compatible with DC’s books. Although they do play comics by smaller publishers who sell in PDF or EPUB formats, that content must be side-loaded from a computer download.Android tablets that support the Nook app will also be supported although, like previous Nook Comics for Marvel and other publishers, it appears at first glance as though Nook’s iPhone and iPad apps will not.
