Today at ComicsAlliance, I’ve written a beast of an article where I talk about my total crush on my new iPad and its possible impact on the comics industry.
I was just talking yesterday about how I don’t think my writing style has changed much since I went full-time to CA, but this is really the kind of piece I don’t think I ever would’ve written on my own. Here at the ISB, my goal was always to be funny first and foremost (which is largely still my goal when it comes to doing CA pieces), which occasionally led to me stewing on topics for weeks at a time until I put on my Serious Cap and wrote a five-paragraph essay, and we all know how well those go.
This, however, is just me really excited and trying to be informative and going on and on and on, which I suppose isn’t that much different from how I usually review comics. I can’t really tell.
Yo, the serious stuff is good, man, keep it up. That piece you wrote on the Joker a while back was awesome, and everybody loved your “DC Nostalgia kills ethnic minority” bit recently.
Really great article Chris. I’m glad you picked up on the pan-and-scan problem of Guided View, which I’m feel destroys composition and pacing. The fact the iPad can avoid it is good news.
However, I still feel that you’re losing the sense of page to page pacing to some extent. For example, do you think that you’d lose some of the magic of the Watchmen or Promethea issues where the page layouts repeat, mirror or rhyme with each other across an issue? Without being able to flip the pages back and forth or physically manipulate the pages to compare them, would that kind of craftsmanship come across? I know it’s a tiny complaint and really only comes into play with the handful of creators who experiment in that way, but it’s been on my mind since digital comics were first proposed.
my goal was always to be funny first and foremost
And – one day – I’m sure you’ll achieve that goal. (I kid)
So it seems like for artists like Bryan Hitch, who often do double page spreads or panels that stretch across two pages, Comixology’s app doesn’t work that well. Are double-page spreads actually readable if they’re reduced down to a size slightly smaller than a normal comic book page?
Also, regarding those DVD collections that Marvel did, you can *cough* copy the pdf files on the DVD to you PCs hard-drive – or straight onto the iPad – and view em with a PDF viewer. *cough*
And, erm, the Annihilation TPBs collect at least 9 comic books each, at a price of $16.49 (on Amazon – it’s $25 in the stores). At the flat rate of $1.99 per issue this equates to at least $17.91 if bought online to read on the iPad. So Amazon is cheaper and you get the bonus material. Perhaps not the best example.
Anyway, excellent review/commentary. I didn’t know about the collections of Mage and Invincible – so that’s a bonus! Cheers.