Well, these are my initial thoughts with my admittedly limited experience reading digital comics on the iPad. There are lots of other solutions out there and I will do another roundup in the coming weeks, I promise. There are other issues that are worth discussing too; for example, apparently, customers who use Marvel's Digital Comics service on the web do not get free copies of the same books Marvel's Digital on the iPad. That kind of stuff drives customers crazy–it's understandable from a business/technology point of view, but for the customers, digital comics are digital comics, you know? Also, how can you share comics that you buy? A big part of the experience of printed comics is lending or giving them to friends. As far as I can tell, none of today's apps support that fundamental transaction.
Good piece, Mike. I hope you revisit this as more and more improvements come.
One thing I wonder about with digital comics is the sense of ownership. The rumors of the iTunes Cloud whereby users can simply stream music and movies rather than download them is a very interesting and compelling innovation. Still most of us fans prefer to own our floppies, bag them, board them, etc. I wonder how this will change the "collectivication" of comics.
What does everyone think? In a world where we all have iPads and all of our comics were available on them, would we prefer to purchase (downloads) them or have them streamed?
I wrote about digital comics a few months ago (http://www.straight.com/article-299459/vancouver/comic-publishers-sketchy-digital-future) and the sense that I got was that the reason we’re seeing so many herm "classic" books versus recent comics is because the publishers are really trying to ease the retail community into this. They’re looking at digital as a way of reaching new readers, who might not care about current stories. To these, somewhat mythological, new readers it doesn’t matter that Civil War or House of M are years old because they’re still all new to the new readers.
Meanwhile for readers like those on sites like this we’ve read the books in floppies, maybe already bought the trade and the hardcover. I downloaded (the original) New Avengers #1 and realized that I’ve bought the book four times now.
I’m glad to see DC going day-and-date with at least one comic (JLA: Generation Lost). I’m afraid that trying to coddle the retails through the digital revolution is going to make it harder to catch up later. An app like ComicZeal lets users read any comic saved in either .cbr or .cbz format and so it’s really easy to get free pirated comics. If that’s what people get used to, it’ll be as struggle to get them back to paying $1.99.
Which, and I don’t think you mentioned it, isn’t a bad price. If all comics were out-day-and-date for that price I’d certainly go completely digital. Which is exactly what the retailers don’t want to hear.
First, they need to sell these in a non-proprietary format. I need to be able to read the comics on my Notebook or iPad. 2. $1.99 for a digital comic is still too pricey, they need to be $1-$1.50 per issue even more so if it is a proprietary format. 3. Dive in feet first! Meaning sell every single new issue in digital format and just make the plunge.
mike–how do you feel about the weight of the iPad? and by that i mean reading through a whole comic and not getting fatigued? Whenever i’ve played with one at the apple store, it always seems a bit heavy as i’m trying to read through a publication. After about 4 or 5 pages in it just starts to feel awkward and uncomfortable which definitely affects my reading experience. Just curious how you or others felt about that…
@wallythegreenmonster: I’m not Mike, but I’ve got no problem with the weight. I’ve read multiple comics in a row on it without a problem.
I totally agree on you “directed comics” thought. I first encountered this on the PSP Comics app which, because of the screen size, this was the only way to read comics. It really does add a whole other level to storytelling. I hadn’t tried in on my iPad, but will give it a shot after reading this.
Also – while not great for new releases, i have read the entire Dynamo 5 run on my iPad, and have switched from trades to the iPad for both Walking Dead and Invincible. They’re pretty close to being current.
Thank you for this review, Mike. I’ve been considering an iPad and this informed my decision. Now I’m just waiting on day and date releases.
Nice piece Mike. I’m excited for the future of digital comics, but am waiting for it to form just a little bit more before I take the plunge. Maybe with the second or third version of the iPad, I’ll be ready. It sounds like some great progress has taken place though.
Guru! Gang Starr!
Mike – great article on the iPad and comics! I went to visit a friend who lives in Chattanooga, TN and he has had an iPad for just about a month. He’s convinced that this is the future of reading – and he’s 66 years old. He let me play with his iPad to my heart’s content. I downloaded the Marvel app and read a free issue of the early Avengers. It was beautiful. The colors were lush. It was easy to read. I loved the zoom in and out function, as well as the navigation function. It was sweet. I could easily see paying $1.99 and reading all my comics on the iPad. But alas – I am still addicted to my floppies for now. But in time, I can easily see making the transition.
I love the comics on my iPhone, specially the old school ones. I imagine it will be better on the iPad.
I’d love to have a ipad to read comics on, but atm it’s horrible on iphone. I absolutely detest the guided view, and it’s far too small to read any other way. But the potential is all there.
I got my mitts on an iPad recently, and have given the comics apps a thorough spin! I have to say straight off – I love it. I’ll talk about my experience with Comixology’s ‘Comics’ app first, then add my thoughts on the others at the end.
The ‘comics’ app on the iPhone was a bit of a gimmick for me – the guided system although making a story perfectly followable just lost a lot of the impact you got from the artwork, and reduced it to a ‘only if I’m on the go’ type thing. The iPad counterpart however, is stunning. You can easily view a full page and even a full double page without needing to zoom or pan, and the art just looks beautful. The colours really pop, I honestly think comics have never looked so good. Text is all perfectly legible, and the story follows really smoothly thanks to the lack of ads breaking things up. Double pages do require a 90 degree turn of the device to view legibly, and the constant turning could prove tiresome in a comic such as powers where the format changes from 2 page to 1 page frequently. Also (with powers in mind) text that is upside down or spiralled would require the device to be locked before turning it so that the page does not automatically re-orient. Small issues I’d say, since the majority of comics won’t have this problem.
More plus points to mention are the lack of ads (thus far). I can read a full story uninterrupted and for the same price! Downloading comics can be done quickly and easily and purchases are carried across to all devices you have synched to your itunes account – iphone, ipad, ipod touch. You can delete and redownload at no extra cost, meaning you don’t end up with an unmanageable stck of comic boxes slowly devouring your home. You seem to get all variant covers with most issues as well, which is a nice bonus.
Negatives would be the random selection, as mentioned in Mikes review, sporadic releases and lack of sorting options. All of your purchased comics are just listed alphabetically, one after another, with no easy way of scrolling past large numbers. My 70-odd strong catalogue of Invincible comics is a real bitch to scroll past if I want to read a jonah hex. I actually found navigating to the store and finding the comic in there rather than in my library was an easier way to open it up.
One addition to the library of comics on offer that I think are great deals are the TPB style collections – Invincible vol 1 and 2 a key example. These are dirt cheap and don’t clutter up your collection – I hope more comics are added in this format in the future.
iVerse reader is pretty similar to Comics, only with a much poorer catalogue and clunky functionality.
As far as the other apps go – DC and Marvel – I have no idea why you would buy from them. Purchases made in these apps are NOT synched with your comics app purchases, and so you’d have to keep them seperate at all times.
It seems these apps are taking off, both Marvel and DC seem to be investing quite heavily in it and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a much faster turnaround from new comic to the comixology store in the near future.
@ChrisMorley There are some books that are exclusive to the Marvel app, Gravity for one. Any comic that you buy in the DC app that is also in the Comics app can be viewed in the Comics app. Haven’t tried it with Marvel yet, so far the only series I’ve wanted to try is Gravity and it’s Marvel app exclusive.
You can also view any non-Marvel publisher on the Comixology web interface.
@wallythegreenmonster: The weight really isn’t an issue at all. I have been reading quite a bit on it, both comics and regular text and it doesn’t bother me one bit. Standing up at the Apple Store will make it weird sure and I can see that being a little fatiguing but trust me as someone who’s had once since 2 weeks after launch I’ve never had a problem.
Also for you other readers out there, Comic Zeal Reader is pretty awesome and lets you load other formats for reading.
I feel like everyone is catching up to me finally. I’ve preferred digital comics for 5 years now.
I might be reading comics on a doohickey in ten years or so. I bought my first mp3 player last year.
@JumptingJupiter – Welcome to the World of Tomorrow!!!
I’ve got extensive time with the iPad as well (though oddly enough my worktime productivity has decreased).
It’s almost perfect. I think most of the flaws in the actual comic reading will change as creators adjust (what’s the point of a double page spread on a screen in which it will look smaller than a single page one?) Another problem easily rectified is pricing. I think there needs to be more trade sized books than single issues. Atomic Robo for $4, all of the Dark Horse books, and honestly a lot of the independent stuff is priced very well. Make the album/trade pricing cheap and those that need their quick fix pay their $2 or whatever. $2 is too much, $1 seems to be cutting it too close (and since $1.50 is not possible), then do a $5 for 4 issues system and decrease the dollars to issues ratio as issues grow in count for the album. So $7 for all Walking Dead trades, $5 for the first two Invincible volumes, $6 for the third, and so on. Basically just the number of issues+$1. Price accordingly for extra pages, but do not charge for anything that isn’t a story page. Tis a slippery slope.
Looks like I’ll buy one in about five years. Maybe six.
Selection is the problem. I have all the apps and desperately want to buy my issues this way but there’s just so little there and I have no idea what the future schedule is like. They need to get on the ball with this. But so far it’s far more than I could ever have expected from the big guys.
@nmoline. Comixology allows you to view any comic you bought on their web viewer too. So it works surprisingly well on laptop and notebooks. So far this is my preferred way of reading digital comics.
I agree with rafterman, there aren’t enough new books out there and the ones that are new seem to have a really weird pricing model ($6 Iron Man Annual vs the $5 one in stores). Comixology does a great job at making a schedule for print books on their website, it would be nice to see a digital one so I don’t have to wonder what day and at what rate they are going to release their books.