iPad Comics on the iPad

[kjk]

http://www.panelfly.com/ipad/

A new Panelfly family member - iPad.
On the iPhone, Panelfly revolutionized digital comics with is patent pending narrative navigation engine and offered an unprecedented user experience. Now, without hinderance of the smaller screen, Panelfly will once again change the experience of digital reading forever on the iPad.

Looks nice!

[kilron]

yep. comic books seem like the perfect marriage for the ipad. lets hope the comic book publishers agree. could be a great selling point for some.

[Crowl]

Since the tired old e-ink vs lcd argument won't stop shitting up the other thread, maybe if anyone wants to discuss comics on the ipad they could use this older thread instead?

[scottjl]

comics are nice, but i'd rather see some good graphic novels released. the watchmen. 300. etc. can't say i would go for the monthly comics.

kind of surprised but all i seem to see are marvel and some indy shops. time warner/dc is going to be late to the game.

[lilman]

Originally Posted by scottjl

kind of surprised but all i seem to see are marvel and some indy shops. time warner/dc is going to be late to the game.

DC needs to get into the game already. I'm sure the big publishers have had their entire collection scanned long before the iPad released. Now they just have to prepare a store, a reader, and perform some processing on the scans for the panel follow mode like they have in the Marvel app.

I hope the industry moves towards a hard/soft copy hybrid distribution system, so that when you buy the hard copy of a comic you get a download code to obtain the digital version. I'm still not persuaded to pay $2 for a digital copy of a single comic... I rather buy a hard copy omnibus and get a lot more comic for the money.

[kjk]

I'm pretty impressed with Marvel's free app...they seem to totally get it-almost makes me want to start reading comics again.

[scottjl]

marvel's app is just a rebranded version of comicxology

[Trubu]

Originally Posted by kjk

I'm pretty impressed with Marvel's free app...they seem to totally get it-almost makes me want to start reading comics again.

The app is really nice (as is its progenitor, Comixology), but they need to improve the selection dramatically, and get stuff that's a lot more recent up. I understand they don't want to cannibalize print sales, but there's no reason they couldn't have books from 2-3 months ago available.

Still, they're way ahead of DC, who has apparently decided that if they keep their head in the sand long enough, this whole Internet fad will blow over.

On another semi-related topic, are there any good apps/sites that aggregate daily newspaper strips?

[scottjl]

Originally Posted by Trubu

On another semi-related topic, are there any good apps/sites that aggregate daily newspaper strips?

yahoo's app does a few, but it kept crashing on me so I deleted it.. was the only interesting thing i found in it too..

[dmaul1114]

I haven't had the Yahoo app crash. It does have some comics. TV Listings which are useful too (if you watch TV anyway). And of course entertainment news--which I didn't care for, but others may.


More on topic, the one issue I have with the Marvel app (and Comixology too of course) is in most comics the text size is too small in full screen.

Fine in the panel by panel mode, but then the art work gets pixelated. And comics are just meant to be seen a page at a time IMO.

So they need to find a way to make the fonts a bit larger, or it's just another reason for needing a screen an inch or two bigger for some purposes like comics, A4 PDFs etc.

Seems like it would be easy enough to alter the font sizes though. And comics do look amazing on the iPad otherwise.

[lilman]

Originally Posted by dmaul1114

More on topic, the one issue I have with the Marvel app (and Comixology too of course) is in most comics the text size is too small in full screen.

Fine in the panel by panel mode, but then the art work gets pixelated. And comics are just meant to be seen a page at a time IMO.

So they need to find a way to make the fonts a bit larger, or it's just another reason for needing a screen an inch or two bigger for some purposes like comics, A4 PDFs etc.

Seems like it would be easy enough to alter the font sizes though. And comics do look amazing on the iPad otherwise.

I think the Marvel comics are scans with either info on where each panel is and the order of panels, or maybe the app is able to detect panels from the scans. Either way it looks like the text is just part of the scan and not its own font entity, meaning that when you zoom into the panel the text (and everything else in the panel) will get fuzzier.

A slightly larger screen would be nice for full size comics. I also like viewing a comic as a page rather than go panel to panel, but I think the panel to panel mode is a nice compromise for a smaller screen or people with poor eyesight.

[Crowl]

If you look at some of the previous iphone and android comic apps, they all seem to do some kind of panel to panel thing due to the smaller screensize and that is just with regular scanned images so I very much doubt the scans for this marvel app require any additional info either.

[Crowl]

Originally Posted by lilman

The marvel app on the ipad is just a rebranded version
I hope the industry moves towards a hard/soft copy hybrid distribution system, so that when you buy the hard copy of a comic you get a download code to obtain the digital version. I'm still not persuaded to pay $2 for a digital copy of a single comic... I rather buy a hard copy omnibus and get a lot more comic for the money.

Marvel's choice of pricing on the ipad seems all the more odd when they already have an alternative subscription system on the pc called digital comics unlimited that is a lot better value at $10 a month or $5 a month if you pay 12 months upfront.

You could understand this difference if the comics on the ipad were almost up to date with the paper editions, but they are no newer than the other system so the only logical conclusion seems to be that they have spotted a chance to rip people off as they want to play with their new toy rather than making a serious effort to encourage digital editions, unless anyone knows if apple puts any kind of restrictions that might prevent them bringing over their subscription model?

[dmaul1114]

Yeah, I realized they were probably just scans. Just saying they'd have to do something else to get me to read on a 9.7" screen. Especially at the pricing. $2 is just too much for a comic I'll read once and never look at a gain.

But on that front, the only way they could do that type of pricing is to jump out of the App and in to a web browser like the Kindle App does.

Apple requires in app purchases to be priced at values ending in .99 cents currently. So there only options are .99, 1.99, 2.99 etc. And I'm pretty sure apps can't sell subscriptions at the moment--not sure if they could sell subscriptions via websites, but I don't see how Apple could regulated that since it's not within app.

So that would require Apple loosening that restriction for them to offer a subscription or prices per issue other than .99, 1.99 etc.

[Flub]

I go to my local comic store every week and spend a considerable amount of money on monthly comics (Mostly DC but some Marvel and others). Since I don't keep my comics anymore (After a while I either give them away or recycle them) and anything I do want to keep I buy in trade form or hardcover I'd love to be able to just once a week hit a button and have all my comics deliverered electronically to the iPad I'm getting at the Euro launch in a few weeks.

C'mon comic book companies. Make it happen!