What Are eBooks Beyond PDFs? Part II: The Comics Version
A while back, I blogged the question that a publisher asked me: “What are eBooks Beyond PDFs?” Then and now, I wasn’t sure of the answer, especially for elementary books.
But today’s release of the iPad reminds me of one genre that is adapting its original product to fit new digital players. That’s the comics business.
As BoingBoing points out, Marvel is releasing a free app that will allow the iPad to function as a comic book reader. (Check out the comments for some interesting perspectives on how readers want eComics priced … and the naivete of not realizing that the cost of comics is more than distribution!)
This builds on free, existing iPhone apps by Marvel and Comixology that also permit comics to be read onscreen. Both free and paid comics are available.
The iPhone apps generally permit one panel to be viewed at a time, with the iPhone’s ability to zoom in on a specific panel adding additional functionality. But what the iPhone could not do well is show a panel in the context of the other panels on the “page.” The iPad’s larger screen size permits that — and, unlike our laptop or desktop monitors — lets us see pages in the portrait view that mirrors the print edition.
In other words, eComics are taking advantage of new technologies to explore the potential of what the comics-reading experience can be. It’s looking at how digital and print comic-reading can be different experiences.
Scott McCloud is a comic book artist and author whose works were brought to my attention by a friend. (For those of you who, like me, are more techie than comics-lover, you may know him best as the guy who created the comic that introduced Google Chrome to the world.) He’s been predicting this for years.
He points out that early pictoral storytelling — drawn on cave walls, inside Egyptian pyramids, along the Bayeux Tapestry, or up Trajan’s Column — relied mostly on story, with the format changing over time. (Bayeux moves left to right in a continuous row of images, whereas Trajan’s images swirl up the column.) The way our eye reads comics or graphic novels on paper (left to right, then moving down the page) was a convention mandated by print. There are other ways to view pictorially-driven stories. And monitors can act as a window that isolates one bit of content at a time.
I can’t explain this as well as he can. For a condensed summary, check out his 2005 TED talk on the topic.
But better than that, give yourself a mini-course in comics. McCloud is best known in the comics community for three informational comic books.
Understanding Comics is the first and best-known in the series. If you only have time to read one book that unpacks the visual and print vocabulary of comics, this is the one to read. If you’re one of those educators or who, like me, started buying comics and/or graphic novels because you had a hunch kids liked the, but you couldn’t explain why, you need to read this book. You’ll gain a lot of concrete reasons why pictoral storytelling is valuable. One of the key takeaways for me (and I’m not going to tell all of them - it’d spoil your delight) is that when students’ eyes travel from one panel to the next, they might see an action in Panel A and a reaction in Panel B. How did the story get from A to B? the comics-reading student isn’t reading between the lines, but he or she is reading between the panels, synthesizing A and B into “what A plus B means.” It’s natural synthesis practice, and it happens many times on a page.
Reinventing Comics connects McCloud’s interest in technology (inherited from his father, a computer engineer expert) to comics. He discusses the digital future of creating, distributing, and viewing comics. It includes a succinct overview of the Internet’s development, the growing commerce on the Web, and the ways in which Web life is revolutionizing the creation, purchase, methodology, and more of the comics industry. I read this book last in the three, but it’s not one to miss. McCloud may be an expert in comics, but his approach to examining how technology has fundamentally changed things applies far beyond the comics industry. His clarity of approach, his humor, and his use of iconography to help us visualize ideas makes this valuable.
Making Comics is his most recent book. After years of studying comics, graphic novels, and manga, McCloud synthesizes the many ways in which text and image can - jointly or in tension with one another - tell stories. There are many takeaways that will help enrich what your comics/GN-reading experience is like. You’ll learn how to extract more messages from each panel. If you’re a high school or YA librarian, consider this one for your collection. If you’re an elementary or middle school or children’s librarian, consider this as a reference volume for you.
And if you’ve got an iPhone or iPod Touch, consider downloading one of the free apps (each comes with the option of downloading some free comics) and see what that experience is like.
Enjoy!