Beyond the question of what the future is for ComiXology is a second, arguably more difficult, question: just how far does the future of ComiXology extend, anyway?

In the wake of extensive January layoffs that saw Comixology lose somewhere in the region of 75-80% of its workforce, many of the remaining workers were placed on a short-term contracts, with multiple sources telling Popverse that the majority of those contracts expire this summer. Additionally, Popverse has been told that a further round of layoffs will be coming to ComiXology this fall — a prospect that seems particularly daunting once you realize that the staff there likely only numbers less than 30 individuals.

These staffing cuts, paired with the fact that ComiXology ended its longstanding relationship with Marvel to maintain the standalone Marvel Comics app — a decision that Popverse has confirmed came from ComiXology, not Marvel — certainly hasn’t done anything to calm customer concerns that Amazon is considering wrapping up ComiXology entirely into Kindle and its larger digital concerns.

Neither has the fact that, during the initial integration between ComiXology and Kindle in February 2022, what was intended as a new, dedicated ComiXology page within Amazon.com instead was labeled 'Kindle Comics' — a pre-existing brand that Amazon had been using prior to the integration. That was an error, according to people close to the matter speaking anonymously, and one corrected as quickly as possible. This past weekend, some ComiXology Unlimited subscribers received emails about price increases to their Kindle Unlimited subscriptions — even though they did not actually subscribe to Kindle Unlimited; this, too, was a mailing error, Popverse has been told.

It would, perhaps, make sense to shutter ComiXology from Amazon’s point of view. The department is now absent much of the institutional knowledge that it used to have, following not only the significant layoffs, but also last year’s departures of the final of the co-founders, David Steinberger and former Head of Content, ComiXology Originals, Chip Mosher, as well as this month’s departure of Mosher’s replacement, Bryce Gold. (Steinberger’s fellow co-founders had earlier departed in 2015 and 2021, respectively.)

Additionally, there’s an argument to be made that the ComiXology brand, as it currently exists, has been hurt to such a degree by the layoffs, and earlier the awkward integration into Kindle, that Amazon wouldn’t be losing a great deal if it did decide to shutter the name and fold everything into Kindle officially. Kindle Comics is a name the company has used in the past, ComiXology's Guided View technology has already been integrated into Kindle, and they're already encouraging people to make their own digital comics using the Kindle Comic Creator service.

Besides, as has reportedly been rhetorically asked by executives inside Amazon, where else are ComiXology customers, who have entire digital libraries that can’t be moved elsewhere at this point, going to go…?

No one Popverse spoke to for its reporting on the current state of the company was willing to make any decisive bets on the longterm future of ComiXology — but none were willing to state that they’re confident that Amazon has an end date in mind, either.

For its part, Amazon released a statement that at least suggests ComiXology isn’t going anywhere in the short term, with spokesperson Lindsay Hamilton telling Popverse, “We will continue to serve our digital comics customers with a dedicated Comixology team. We’ve made a number of updates to our reading and shopping experience in the last year, and are always looking for ways to further enhance the experience.”

Members can read Popverse’s full Amazon reporting right here.