Local comics retailer Dark Horse is diving full-on into digital comics distribution this month, with the launch of the Dark Horse Bookshelf, a new digital store that's notable in part for its price point: single issues will sell for $1.49 or less. (Bundled single issues will be priced differently, addressing at least one of the issues raised in this kvetchy Kotaku article about the problems with iPad and iPhone comics.) Dark Horse's is a cloud-based system, with comics living at digital.darkhorse.com and accessible to anyone with a browser, while standalone iPhone, iPad, and eventually Android apps will also allow users to download the comics.

Premiere titles announced so far: Beasts of Burden, BPRD, Conan, Dr. Horrible, The Goon, Grendel, Hellboy, Lone Wolf & Cub, Mass Effect, Serenity, Terminator, Troublemaker, Umbrella Academy, and Usagi Yojimbo, with more promised after the store launches. (There's no official launch date yet, though the terms "in January" and "in a few weeks" have been bandied about.)

Dark Horse is currently running a promotional contest in conjunction with the store's launch—sign up for their newsletter for a chance to win every title released digitally 2011. And starting on Monday, Dark Horse and Dark Horse's retail arm, Things from Another World, will be starting "Digital Comics Month" online, "interviewing influential publishers and distributors of digital comics and sharing their news on The Blog from Another World."

(Let's all take a moment to reread Erik's article about comic book retailers and digital comics before we freak out about how this is going to be the death of local comic book shops. Okay... now commence freaking out.)