Is Amazon Buying the Digital Comic Book Industry? ComiXology is by far the market leader on e-comic-book sales and distribution. It's essentially cornered the market on digital comics, selling titles from DC, Marvel, Fantagraphics and all the other major American comics publishers. Now comics gossip blogger Rich Johnston says that ComiXology might be in for a big change:

Bleeding Cool has been hearing rumours from senior comic book industry figures, who expect a sale to go through for digital comic distributor ComiXology in three to six weeks...But who would buy such a company? Well, the second part of this rumour, which suddenly gets a lot hazier, is that the buyer could be Amazon.

This purchase certainly seems like Amazon's style. It wouldn't necessarily make them a lot of money, but it would make them a monopoly in a publishing field. I've called the Amazon PR phone line for comment, but I also suspect that the Amazon PR phone line is connected to an answering machine in an abandoned warehouse in Belize. More likely, if this rumor is true, we'll hear about it when it's announced.

Tablets Are the Future! In other local tech giant news, Microsoft unveiled Office for iPad today. It was the first major public appearance of new Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. But why did Nadella reveal the apps in San Francisco? Why not make the big announcement in Seattle? Where's the hometown love from Microsoft?

This Makes Aberdeen's Kurt Statue Look Good: The cover for Bluwater's Kurt Cobain tribute comic book is maybe the ugliest comic book cover I've ever seen.

What's Your Favorite Poem? For all of April and half of May, the Seattle Public Library will be asking Seattlites to share their favorite poems online and in SPL branches around the city. Winners will be selected to read the poems onstage with Robert Pinsky on September 18th. The rules of the contest:

Poems must meet the following criteria to be considered:
Reflect the aesthetics, culture and diversity of Seattle.
Written by a published poet.
An English translation must be available for poems written in other languages.

Hey Kids! Comics! Bleeding Cool says the newest Batman collection is going to come with a mask of the Joker's face, which has been cut off and reattached where the Joker's face used to be. Jesus Christ, DC Comics. We get it. You're big, grown-up adults. Now can you quit it with the fucking ridiculous gore?