comics_02_store-4f75931-introArs Technica’s Charles Jade has a fairly long piece looking at what the new double-resolution retina display on the iPad 3 might mean for comics. Most interestingly, it has some comparison screenshots of comics at the old and new resolutions. While the resolution doesn’t make too much of a difference to the art, I was surprised how much clearer it makes the speech bubble fonts—at the old resolution, the letters are downright fuzzy, but at the new they’re much sharper and clearer.

Jade also talks to Jeremy Tarney, CEO of the comic book store Ultimate Comics, about the effect digital comics are having on his clientele. Tarney said that most of his customers are the sort of people who prefer collecting physical items. He also said that people didn’t seem to care too much about the free digital comic codes some publishers have begun bundling with their books.

"It really doesn’t seem like most people care that much. When they first started doing it they made a big deal about it," Tarney said. "They bagged the issues so you couldn’t get the code out without buying the comic… people didn’t like it… you couldn’t flip through to see if you liked the artwork before buying."

At the moment, Jade concludes, digital comic book readers are “outliers” and most people still prefer the printed form. I’m not too surprised, though I do wonder whether that will begin to change once more tablets follow Apple’s lead with higher-definition screens.

5 COMMENTS

  1. Speaking of improved resolution: There was a time when all comic books were printed on coarse, ground wood paper stock. Now they use high finish opaque stocks with a bright white color. The electrostatic pigments provide deep color saturation.

  2. I don’t have any comparable anecdotal evidence (which is what this is) to share about serious comic book collectors and digital vs. paper comics, I stopped collecting comics several decades ago when it became too business-like/commercial. To me it was always about the story, not the collecting.

    For the actual entertainment value, I think digital comics are a wonder advance/direction. If only they weren’t so expensive, there are at least a dozen titles I would love to read. But there certainly is something about the sensual aspect of reading comics – the feel of the paper, the smell of the ink, etc. that digital media can’t compete against. Yet.

  3. Notice that the paper advocates always mention feel and smell; the embodied content and the screen advocates always mention the good story;the disembodied content. Comics are both. A more useful discussion would look at the paratext identity of the formats; comics, newspapers, magazines, books and study the intersections, interplays and interdependences of the delivery methods. It would also be helpful to get accurate descriptions of the attributes and deficiencies of the various delivery modes.

    I have a book about this stuff.

  4. Comic book fans who read comic books on paper and have done so for years are always going to produce a result like this. It’s like night following day.
    The Comic book producers need to consider the market they haven’t captured yet rather than barricade themselves into their existing model.

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