Another quick review update of Comixxx Archive before my most recent membership expires. I already mentioned the redesigned interface last year, so this time I really only have two things to bring up – the first is that the collection of adult comics has, as you would expect, grown since last time, now weighing in at nearly 3,400 comics, or more than 121,000 pages.
The second is that the site network you previously got gradual access to for every month you stayed a member, now is accessible in its entirety right away. However, there is some overlapping content on some of the sites, and to me at least Comixxx Archive for the most part has the most interesting collection. Overall though, still an excellent choice for fans of erotic comics.
I just rejoined Comixxx Archive for the first time in over a year, and aside from still providing an overall excellent and very large collection of Western erotic comics, more improvements have happened this time around than in the year between my original review and my first update in 2008. First of all the comic book collection has grown in size rather than shrunk a bit as the case was last time. Since my last update the collection has grown from 2,806 comics/80,592 pages to a current 3,042 comics/102,151 pages. And usually two new comics are added every single day (which means some must still have been removed along the way, otherwise the number should obviously have been even larger).
Additionally the member area design has been redesigned to be more suitable for higher screen resolutions, rather than the old outdated 800×600 design (the tour page still looks the same though). The actual gallery pages also benefit from this, although for the larger comic books I still prefer to just download zip files and use my favourite local image viewer, instead of the online gallery browser. I was also quite pleased to see that Comixxx Archive is now part of a bonus arrangement alongside ten additional large toon/hentai/manga/3D babes sites from the same company. You don’t however get access to all of them immediately, instead you get to select one of them from within the Comixxx Archive member area after joining, and then you will be able to do the same for every month you remain a member. Not quite as good a deal as most site networks, but considering even Comixxx Archive alone was well worth the price tag, getting access to one extra site of your own choice right away, plus the possibility of more down the line, is certainly not something I’m going to complain about.
Comixxx Archive is still updated with a new comic book every day (some have disappeared over the last year though, perhaps due to licensing issues, which explains why the total number has only gone up by a little over 50 since my original review), and it’s still a fantastic site for fans of Western erotic comics. Aside from the new content there have been a few minor improvements to the site interface, but otherwise this is still pretty much the same package I reviewed a year ago – which in this case is obviously not a bad thing at all.
Comixxx Archive offers more than 2700 scanned erotic comic books (a total of over 80000 pages, some comics only 4-10 pages long, others 80+, and, as indicated above, no hentai here) on a pretty neatly designed site, so needless to say I pretty much love this site, and Comixxx Archive can without a doubt keep me entertained for many hours. I’ve already been downloading comics from a number of my old favourite artists, several of which I recall reading in original comic book form more than ten years ago. A new comic book added every day, though given the significant variations in length that could mean anything from several four page updates in a row to large 100 page updates. Overall though, you probably aren’t likely to get bored quickly given the current size of the site. The scans generally look great and the resolution is quite impressive on many comics, as high as 1300×1800 pixels in some cases, and in many others somewhere around 1000 x 1500. Much better than the downsized 600×800 or so pages I’ve seen on some other erotic comic sites. You do get only low to medium resolution scans in some or possibly even many cases at Comixxx Archive though, but overall the quality is good.
There are several way to read the many comic books. You can either browse through (or go directly to) the pages online, use the slideshow feature (you can adjust the speed to any number of seconds between pages) or download entire comics in zip files to view offline how and when it suits you. Aside from the “in-comic” navigation mentioned above, the site features at Comixxx Archive are decent but certainly not remarkable. Aside from a search field where you can enter specific search terms (which isn’t always that useful as most comics are only labelled with an often rather generic title, and a preview image, rather than a full description), you can choose from a somewhat limited number of main categories: hardcore & softcore, BDSM & fetish, fantasy & sci-fi, horror comics and finally art galleries.
Additionally you can choose a language instead, French, German, Dutch, Italian or Spanish. Oddly enough English isn’t a available as a filter option, although a significant part of the collection is in fact in English. And no, the other five languages aren’t optional translations of all comics, meaning you may very well find yourself having to settle for enjoying the images rather than the stories in a lot of cases. Well, most regular porn get away without storylines and chatter, and fortunately in my experience, quite a lot of erotic comic books can also easily be enjoyed by visuals alone
Cons: Comixxx’ navigation and search options could be better as suggested above. The monthly price is 5 dollars above the typical $30 “maximum” porn site price, but I definately still think Comixxx Archive is well worth the £34.95.There are rumors that various hentai and erotic comics sites don’t always bother too much with aquiring licenses for all the content they offer on their sites, or to put it more bluntly, they steal it, knowing that artists and the original publishers are apparently only very rarely bothering with copyright lawsuits.
Honestly, don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of saying whether this applies to Comixxx Archive, and I would certainly prefer not to accuse anyone of theft based on nothing but rumors and speculation, but it actually was an issue that made me give some serious thought to whether or not I should review this site (and the same thing applies to the hentai sites I’ve reviewed in the past). Both Comixxx Archive and some of the hentai sites I’ve reviewed have been up for several years though, so it doesn’t exactly look like they are going anywhere.
I made my choice though (obviously), so I’ll leave any further ethical speculations up to you, whether or not there’s actually any foundation for them in the first place. BTW, the site got closed down. Sorry folks.
