Digital comics

I'm a tech lover. I like the latest and greatest devices, a lot (in fact, I am writing this on my iPad 2).

I am also a comic book nerd. Every week, I pick up the new books on my list, (in fact, I am sitting in my favorite comic book shop as I write this on my shiny iPad 2).

So, obviously I am going to start reading digital comics, right? Nope. I just can't get into them, right now. It isn't out of a love for holding processed tree carcasses, it is because digital comics read poorly on tablets.

There are two ways to read a comic digitally:
1) View the full page, which involves zooming in and scrolling to read text that may end up too small.

2) View the comics in a panel by panel mode that decides how much of the page I look at at any one time, and leaves every comic paced as if the reader feeling as though they're hitting a stop light every ten seconds.

Both of these lead to a much less than fun reading experience.

In stark contrast, I have abandoned almost all paper "real" books for the eBook format. While I will admit that it is much easier to reformat the written word to the screen of my tablet, comic books won't win my digital viewing time until they find a way to format their stories in a way that can be read as fluidly as good old fashioned funny books. I have no doubt it is coming, but until it does...


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad