If you’re a regular here, you may have noticed a few recent changes to the site. They’re a part of our ongoing attempt to make DCComics.com, VertigoComics.com and MADMagazine.com the best websites they can be. We want our guests to have a great, user-friendly experience here, whether it’s your first time visiting or your fiftieth.

We cover all aspects of DC Entertainment here on the site. However, comic books will always be the heart and soul of DC and Vertigo, and we realize that’s true for many of our readers as well. Therefore, we’ve now made it easier than ever to buy new comic books and graphic novels through the DC Comics and Vertigo websites, regardless of whether you prefer your comics in print or digital.

We’ve always had page listings for all of our recent comic books and graphic novels, which you can find and access through our Comics section. They include the book’s solicitation info, including its onsale date and the writers and artists who worked on it. However, there really wasn’t a great way to buy the books through these pages. Until now, that is…

Here’s how it works. Let’s say you were interested in buying the recently released BATMAN ETERNAL VOL. 1. Here’s what the book’s page looks like on DCComics.com (we’ve cropped the image a bit, but you get the idea).

You see that big green bar in the middle of the page? It includes the book’s list price, as well as a button that says “Buy Now.”

If you click on that button it expands the bar. Here’s what that looks like.

You’ll see that the first option available is “Print,” and that’s what you’re seeing displayed above. If you’d like to buy the print edition of Batman Eternal Vol. 1, you can choose to buy it on Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

You might have noticed that the Amazon button above says “Buy Now.” That means that if you were to click on it, you’d be taken directly to Batman Eternal Vol. 1’s page on Amazon. Add the book to your shopping cart and you’re well on your way to reading it! Barnes & Noble’s listing, on the other hand, says “Check Availability.” That means our site’s unsure if it’s available there. If you click on the Barnes & Noble button, it’ll take you to their website’s homepage, where you’ll have to search for it manually. That doesn’t mean you can’t buy the book there, just that you’ll have to take this one additional step.

Now, say you wanted to buy the digital version of the book…

If you click on the “Digital” option, this is what you see. So many choices! Again, you’ll notice that some of the listings say “Buy Now” and some say “Check Availability.” This works the exact same way for digital as it does for print. If you click on a listing that says “Buy Now,” it’ll take you directly to Batman Eternal Vol. 1’s page on that site. One more click and you could be downloading and reading it! If the listing says “Check Availability” (like it does for the iBookstore and Barnes & Noble), that means the button will take you to its homepage and you’ll need to search for it on the site manually.

As a bonus, you’ll notice that some listings even have the price displayed right on the menu, giving you the opportunity to do some comparison.

Finally, suppose you prefer to support your local comic shop or indie bookstore. We absolutely understand and support this sentiment, so we wanted to make that a bit easier for you as well. If you click on third top-line option, “Find a Store,” here’s what you’ll see.

If you enter your zip code in the Comic Shop field and click go, you’ll be taken to Diamond’s Comic Shop Locator, which will display all the nearby comic shops in your area. The Indie Bookstore field does much the same thing, only in this case it displays independent bookstores using Indie Bound’s Indie Store Finder. Both of these make it a snap to find an independently-owned store near you and purchase the book there.

Please note that these locator tools do not take into account whether the shops have the book in stock. They’re just displaying the stores closest to you. So in this case, there’s no guarantee that they’ll have Batman Eternal Vol. 1 ready to buy. You may want to give the store a call to ask before you head down.

No matter which option you prefer, we hope our new buy button makes discovering and buying a great new DC or Vertigo comic a lot simpler for you. Happy reading!