Robot 6
Slash Print | Following the digital evolution
Tablets | Gizmodo reports on the long-rumored Apple Tablet device, saying that Apple “is in talks with several media companies rooted in print, negotiating content for a ‘new device.’” In addition, Apple has also applied for a patent on a “multi-touch surface that could accommodate two full hands and distinguish between palms and individual fingers for typing, gestures and more,” according to the Apple Insider.
Scott McCloud comments on the potential for such a device to change comics: “Most of today’s comics publishers are likely to jump into the pool with their clothes on—print-style pages intact. But if Apple’s gadget is anything like what’s being described, we could see a shift over time from point-and-click fragmented delivery, like what we have on the Web today, to more continuous spatial metaphors of the sort a lot of us turn-of-the-century mad scientists were playing with. Should be interesting.”
Digital comics | You can read some of Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener’s excellent Atomic Robo comics, including the Free Comic Book Day stories from the past few years, at the Nuklear Power website.
Motion Comics | Eagle One Media has released Street Fighter and Voltron motion comics on iTunes.
Webcomics | Fleen interviews Schlock Mercenary creator Howard Tayler about his recent appearance at a Success in Comics seminar in Las Vegas.
5 Comments
agent_torpor
October 2, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Great. Largely thanks to Apple’s Itunes Store, we’ve reduced our music purchases to soulless mouse-clicks, debit card transactions, and bit-transfers over ethernet. Now they want to do the same to our printed media.
Say no to the Apple hegemony.
Julian
October 2, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Also: Driven by Lemons on an iphone. Interesting times.
Kurt Busiek
October 2, 2009 at 2:16 pm
>> Largely thanks to Apple’s Itunes Store, we’ve reduced our music purchases to soulless mouse-clicks, debit card transactions, and bit-transfers over ethernet.>>
Because using bits of paper and metal to purchase heat-pressed vinyl was rife with soul?
I have to admit, I’m less concerned with how much soul my method of purchasing has, rather than what I’m buying with it. Go content!
kdb
Julian
October 4, 2009 at 12:42 pm
@Kurt
I used to feel the same way… but then I realized that, yes, the building, people, and atmosphere that comprise my local record, movie, and comic store all have much more soul than their online counterparts and I would much rather pay a little more upfront to support what they do than worry about a solely monetary bottom line.
Kurt Busiek
October 4, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Being glad of content in multiple forms isn’t worrying solely about a monetary bottom line, though.
You could make the same argument about any previous format displacing (at least partially) the primary formats that flourished before it, but that’s not a reason to refuse to go past the scroll or the buggy whip.
I like my local comics store, too, and I spend plenty of money on comics retail, But I’m delighted to have my Kindle, too, and if the iTablet (or whatever it’s called) gets me access to more comics in different ways (like that Zot! comic that can’t be effectively reprinted on paper, say, or a collection of SON OF TOMAHAWK that’ll never be collected on paper because the economics don’t justify it), then I’m glad of the new technology.
Demanding that we stop now and be protectionist of existing distribution strikes me as unproductive. Support your local comics store all you like, but electronic distribution isn’t “soulless.”
kdb