Posts Tagged ‘Comics’
Kindle for iPad adds children’s books, comics, graphic novels
Amazon on Thursday updated its Kindle application for iPad, adding support for children’s books, comic books and graphic novels purchased for the Kindle platform.
The addition of Chinese search engine Baidu to iOS later this year will give Apple a cut of advertising revenue from the popular website.
A new concept for an improved iPhone camera system would allow users to reconfigure or even replace the lens for optimal pictures.
Comics, barcodes: 5 things you likely didn’t know your iPhone could do
Comics, barcodes: 5 things you likely didn’t know your iPhone could do We take a look at the iPhone to find the practical and obscure applications that you probably didn’t know your iPhone could do. Read more on Deseret News
Report: New iPhone comes in September, and details out on iPad 3 Apple Inc. (AAPL) plans to introduce a new iPhone in September that boasts a stronger chip for processing data and a more advanced camera, according to two people familiar with the plans. Read more on Houston Chronicle
News: iPhone 5 to sport new design, coming in August? The next-generation iPhone will not be a minor update, according to a new report. Citing a reliable source, Boy Genius Report states that contrary to previous reports which called for an iPhone 3GS-like update, the next-generation iPhone will feature a “radical” new case design, although no additional details regarding the design were available. The report goes on to say that Apple may be … Read more on iLounge
Related Posts:Beyond Biff, Bam, Pow: 10 Graphic Novels To Enjoy With Kids of Every Age
Comic books, graphic novels, sequential art or manga; whatever you call them, illustrated books are a great way to tell a story. I’ve been reading comics for most of life, except for a brief period from age 12 to 16 when I though I was too old for them. Boy was I wrong. I’ve been reading comics to my kids almost since the day they were born, mixing them in with other storybooks and eventually novels. One of the great things about reading comics is that graphic stories cut out all of the boring “He said” and “She said” stuff. If you combine this with distinctive voices for the different characters, your kids will always know who’s saying what, making stories much easier to keep up with. Here are a few of their favorites, roughly arranged for age appropriateness from younger to older readers. 1. Owly – Andy Runton Owly by Andy Runton Don’t let the insanely cute art and lack of text fool you: there’s some great story-telling going on in Owly . With the aid of his friends Wormy the Worm, and Scampy the chipmunk, Owly roams about his forest home facing challenges, overcoming obstacles, but always trying to help out. Winner of the 2006 Eisner Award for “Best Publication for a Younger Audience,” Owly escapes coming off as saccharin sweet by showing Owly dealing with problems most kids encounter, helping teach them how to persevere and overcome disappointment. One of my favorite Owly stories has Owly building a birdbath and entering it into a contest. Although he is very disappointed when his does not win, Owly is later delighted to discover that his is the bird bath the birds actually prefer swimming in, rather than the birdbath the judges chose as the “winner.” This teaches kids that there are actually more important things than winning a contest. It may seem odd at first to “read” a book without words, but what I do with my kids is point to panels and talk about what’s going on, explaining some of the pictograms that the author uses in place of speech. Even better is when your kids begin “reading” the stories to you, explaining what they think is happening. You can purchase the Owly series from Top Shelf Comics in the single issue magazine format or as part of the 5 collected trade paper backs. 2. Tiny Titans – Art Baltazar and Franco Aureliani Tiny Titans by Baltazar and Franco The only Super-hero comic books I have in this list, Tiny Titans has short vignette stories with characters drawn from the youth of the DC Universe. The stories rarely go on for more than a few page, generally telling a story to get to a punch line at the end. This format makes it easy to read a few stories before bed time or the entire issue as time allows. The jokes are often really bad, but if you love bad jokes (like me and my kids do) they can be really funny, especially if you are a fan of the DC Universe (like me and my kids). My favorite schtick is having the Monitor (from Crisis on Infinite Earth ) as the Hall Monitor (hahahah) who is constantly being thwarted by the The Anti-monitor (bwahahaha), and Lunch Lady Darkside makes the Tiny Titans take their exams early, leading to the Finals Crisis (BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA). There are a lot of inside jokes, but whether your kids have read the DC books or not, there are plenty of great groaners in every issue that they will get. You can get a free preview online of the monthly Tiny Titans magazine or purchase the two collected trade paperback volumes Welcome to the Treehouse and Adventures in Awesomeness . 3. The Little Endless Story Book – Jill Thompson The Little Endless Story Book by Jill Thompson Although The Little Endless Storybook might be classified as a story book (thus the title) I’m including it in this list because it uses characters based on one of the best comic series ever: Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman . Little Endless uses characters Jill Thompson created as an artist for the original Sandman series—basically cute wide eyed versions of the Endless: Death, Dream, Destruction, Despair, Desire, and Delirium. The story revolves around Delirium’s dog Barnibus who loses his mistress one day—not hard to do, since she’s a wee bit scatter brained—and has to visit all of Delirium’s brothers and sisters (the Endless) looking for her. If you’ve ever read any of The Sandman series you might be asking how this could possibly be a children’s book, especially since it says “Recommended For Mature Readers” on it’s back cover. I can only assume that this warning was because of the original source material. I’ve been reading The Little Endless Storybook to my daughter since she was 6, with no ill effect. Well, she did dress as Delirium one Halloween. But she didn’t get lost. At least not for very long. The Little Endless Story Book is available in hardback , but it’s only $9.95 (US). What a deal! 4. Magic Trixie – Jill Thompson Jill Thompson makes the list again with the story of a little witch named Magic Trixie. Trixie whose friends include a Werewolf, a Mummy, a Frankenstien’s Monster, and Twin Vampires—is precocious as she learns the ins and outs of witchcraft from her very cool witch parents and struggles with her monster school lessons. Magic Trixie is full of energy and a lot of fun to read, but also shows kids as having relationships and interactions, having to learn about the strange habits of other families. For example, when Trixie spends the night, her friend Loupie (yes, she’s a werwolf) her family likes to stay up all night howling at the moon, a bit later than Trixie would like to be up, especially on a school night. There are three Magic Trixie trade paperbacks available. 5. Here Be Snapdragons – John Kovalic & Liz Rathke Here Be Snapdragons by John Kovalic and Liz Rathke GeekDad’s own cartoonist-in-residence — John Kovalic — makes the cut, but as an author. Along with Liz Rathke taking care of the art duties they have created a wonderful collection of stories about a group of young roll-playing gamers, with the occasional cross over of characters from John’s other series about gamers, Dork Tower . These are stories about the power of imagination, but always with a little twist when reality stampedes in through the door. My favorite is when the kids goth baby sitter, Gilly, helps the kids pull together last minute Halloween costumes. All is fine and dandy in their imaginations, but the final results leave a bit to be desired. There is currently only one volume of Snapdragons , but my daughter is hoping for more soon (hint, hint, hint John and Liz). 6. Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures – Various Based on the cell animation style of the Genndy Tartakovsky series rather than the current 3D animated stories, these books deal with the earliest part of the Clone Wars in the Star Wars universe that happens almost immediately after Star Wars: Attack of the Clones . Although the stories stand alone, they are full of action and adventure, recapturing what was always best about the the Star Wars universe: a sense of the mystery and majesty in a galaxy full of exotic planets and people. There are nine volumes of Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures available in trade paperback . 7. Bone – Jeff Smith Bone by Jeff Smith Bone is that rare bread of epic fantasy and light hearted humor that will keep you as interested in the story line as your kids are. The main character is Bone whose appearance is not unlike a cartoon bone from Tom & Jerry. He is accompanied in his adventures by his two similarly cartoonish cousins Phoney Bone and Smiley Bone who, for some reason, my son always insists I do with an Elvis voice. Despite the cartoonish nature of some of the characters, the characterizations are always strong in this book. The first volume, “Out of Boneland”, begins with Bone and his cousins fleeing to the other side of the mountains from their home land—yes, it’s called Boneland— when Phoney is caught in some shady scheme, a reoccurring them in the story. The cousins become trapped in the new land by a sudden snow storm—the entire blizzard falls in a single panel of the book in one great big “WHUMP”—and begin to make friends (Rose and Thorn), enemies (the horrible, but stupid “Rat Creatures”), and some uneasy but important allies (Lucias and The Great Red Dragon). Bone can be purchased in nine volumes or as a single massive Omnibus edition . I recommend the individual volumes, though, as they are easier to read to your kids in bed. 8. Myth Adventures – Phil Foglio & Robert Lynn Asprin Although commonly thought of as a multi-book fantasy series, my first exposure with the Myth Adventures stories was when I found the first three issues of the comics at a convention. Although I later grew to love the Robert Lynn Asprin books, it was Phil Foglio’s black and white comic adaptation of the first novel that won me over. I have never laughed as hard in my life as I did at those first few issues, in large part due to his incredibly expressive artwork. The story revolves around Skeeve, a magicians apprentice whose having a hard time with the basics, until his master, Garkin, is assassinated in the middle of summoning a demon. Hilarity ensues when Skeeve’s new master (the same demon who was being summoned when Garkin is killed) looses his powers and has to rely on Skeeve’s unsteady abilities. This is one of my daughter’s favorites, but, alas, I could only find a few of my back issues. So, joy of joys the day we found the entire Myth Adventures series collected and colorized in a single trade paperback . 9. Sugar Sugar Rune – Moyoco Anno There is a lot of great manga on the shelves, but, to be honest, I find it a little difficult to read to my kids. It’s not the whole left–to–right reading thing, but the nature of Japanese sequential art visual language that I find hard enough to follow while I’m reading it, but even harder when I’m reading it out-loud. So when my daughter brought me a copy of Sugar Sugar Rune and insisted I read it to her, I sighed and tried my best. Much to my surprise it turned out to be a great read. Like Magic Trixie , Sugar Sugar Rune is about witches. However, unlike the aforementioned story, there are multiple witches (Chocolate and Vanilla) who are best friends. There’s only one catch: they are competing to be Queen of the Magic World and only one of them can win. There are 8 volumes in the series. I recommend starting at the beginning . 10. Girl Genius – Phil & Kaja Foglio Girl Genius by Phil & Kaja Foglio Phil Foglio strikes again, this time with Girl Genius, a steam-punk extravaganza he is creating with his wife Kaja Foglio. This is a fascinatingly detailed world full of clanking technology, floating airships, and early 19th century styles. The story centers around Agatha Clay and her quest of self discovery, as the ditzy young girl grows to realize that she is a lot smarter than she had thought. Agatha is a “Spark”whose had her intelligence inhibited so as not to reveal her true identity as the heir to a great lineage of thinkers: The Heterodynes. My daughter especially relates to the character of a brainy girl trying to make her way through the awkward phases of growing up. The Foglios moved Girl Genius online a few years back, forgoing individual printed issues, helping to pioneer online comics. You can read the entire series on the Web Site , with regular updates. But I would highly recommend buying the issues in PDF format , and then reading them on an iPad or laptop. If you are more *ahem* technologically challenged, you can purchase printed versions of any of the nine volumes . 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Pow! DC Comics Launches iPad Comics App
Pow! DC Comics Launches iPad Comics App Just over two months later, DC is finally ready to take the wrapper off of its iPad app. As with the Marvel app, developer Comixology is behind DC’s entry into the space, so we’re likely to have the same manner of dynamic pane-by-panel reading that highlighted Marvel’s app.
Related Posts:DC Comics Joins Marvel on iPad
DC comics are now available from Comixology, the commercial comic book reader for iOS devices and the web. The second of the big two publishers joins Marvel, Vertigo, Dark Horse and a slew of smaller publishers and imprints to make Comixology the easiest place to find e-comics. Most of you will know Comixology as the “Comics” app for the iPhone and iPad, but any Flash-capable browser can be pointed at the Comixology site and used to read anything in your collection in a rather excellent online reader. Try this on a big monitor and you’ll forget about paper forever. Comixology doesn’t offer every comic you might want, nor even every new release, but the addition of DC at least means there is one place to go on, say, you iPad no matter what you are looking for. Now you can buy (and in some cases download free) series like Batman (including the superb Batman Year One), Frank Quitely’s All Star Superman, Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, Green Lantern and others. Best of all, Comixology is free in the App Store and online. And if you don’t care to download DRM’ed content of any kind, check out out list of the best Comic Apps for the iPad which can be loaded with your own scans. DC Comics Launches Digital Publishing: Partners With Comixology [Comixology] See Also: New iPad Options For Comics Fans Comixology: iPhone Comics Done Right Panelfly Comic-Book Reader for iPad Comic Books on the iPhone? No Thanks Top Five iPad Comic-Book Apps Reviewed Shazam! Marvel Comics for iPad Read the rest of this entry »
DC Comics Joins Marvel on iPad
DC comics are now available from Comixology, the commercial comic book reader for iOS devices and the web. The second of the big two publishers joins Marvel, Vertigo, Dark Horse and a slew of smaller publishers and imprints to make Comixology the easiest place to find e-comics. Most of you will know Comixology as the “Comics” app for the iPhone and iPad, but any Flash-capable browser can be pointed at the Comixology site and used to read anything in your collection in a rather excellent online reader. Try this on a big monitor and you’ll forget about paper forever. Comixology doesn’t offer every comic you might want, nor even every new release, but the addition of DC at least means there is one place to go on, say, you iPad no matter what you are looking for. Now you can buy (and in some cases download free) series like Batman (including the superb Batman Year One), Frank Quitely’s All Star Superman, Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, Green Lantern and others. Best of all, Comixology is free in the App Store and online. And if you don’t care to download DRM’ed content of any kind, check out out list of the best Comic Apps for the iPad which can be loaded with your own scans. DC Comics Launches Digital Publishing: Partners With Comixology [Comixology] See Also: New iPad Options For Comics Fans Comixology: iPhone Comics Done Right Panelfly Comic-Book Reader for iPad Comic Books on the iPhone? No Thanks Top Five iPad Comic-Book Apps Reviewed Shazam! Marvel Comics for iPad Read the rest of this entry »
New iPad Options For Comics Fans
Comic book fans with iPads: You have two new reasons to get excited today. A new application, Comic Viewer , has just been approved in the App Store. And today’s update of the popular e-reading app Stanza enables it to work on the iPad — and, more importantly, to display comics. Comic Viewer comes at a reasonable price of $5, compared to the $8 you have to spit out for Comic Zeal , another comic-reading app. Still, that’s five bucks more than you’ll be spending on either the Marvel or Comics apps, which are currently free. Comic Viewer, developed by the same guys who made the popular Kevin Smith iPhone app , has most of the features found in other comic book readers: The ability to load it up with CBR and CBZ scans, transfer files via iTunes file sharing, and read in landscape mode. The problem is that the application doesn’t offer anything radically new or better to distinguish it from the competition. It doesn’t have Comic Zeal’s over-the-air syncing ability, or Comics’ bubble-by-bubble navigation. Worse yet, it’s less than polished. You can pinch to zoom in, which makes reading the text easier, but then you can’t scroll or pan around the screen. You have to zoom out if you want to move onto the next image. It does a solid job of displaying content in landscape mode, unlike Comic Zeal, which mostly fails to recognize double spreads. But you can’t zoom in at all while in landscape mode, making it virtually impossible to use. A neat feature is an integrated web browser used to download content. That’s much less annoying than, say, the Kindle app, which launches Safari to browse the Amazon store. So how does Stanza fare? Stanza is a popular e-reading app on the iPhone, and its appearance on the iPad should get us all excited. Just like most document-handling apps, you can use iTunes to transfer your files and load up your comics selection onto it. Though not primarily a comic book reader, it does a good job of displaying CBR and CBZ files. In fact, it might be the snappiest of all the comics apps out there. Comic Viewer and Stanza join a growing selection of comics readers on the iPad. Yet there isn’t a clear leader of the pack. Comics and Marvel, built on the same Comixology platform , make digital comics look beautiful, but they suffer from a limited selection and lack of flexibility. Other readers are far from perfect, with annoying little flaws often hindering the reading experience. Perhaps we’ll have to wait for the Panelfly app , due to come out this summer. (Photo: Comic Viewer, Denvog.com) Read the rest of this entry »
Does marvel comics offer supscriptions for the ipad?
I just bought an ipad, then I quickly got the marvel comics app. It seems there are all these issues that I have to buy individually. And most of the comics available are old ones, not current issues. Does marvel offer subscriptions for that app? If they do, where can I get one?
Related Posts:Stanza for iPad Adds Comic-Book Support
We’d all but given up on Stanza, our favorite iPhone e-reading app ever reaching the iPad. It seemed that Amazon had bought out Stanza only to kill it and reduce competition for its own Kindle for iPad. It turns out we were wrong. Today, Stanza was updated to version 3.0, and will now work on the iPad. Seasoned Stanza users will be comforted that little has changed in the book-browsing and reading interface: it is still as slick and customizable as ever, and you can still add your favorite third-party book repositories. In fact, in use it really just feels like a big, non-pixelated version of the iPhone app. But there are some pretty cool new features, too. First is support for comic-books and PDFs. Yes, you can now read any of your CBR, CBZ or DjVu scans in Stanza (on both iPad and iPhone). It isn’t a great comic-book reader, but it gets the job done, and it’s fast. This feature is also why you are reading this post right now instead of my top four iPad comic-book apps, which will now be a top five and appear on Monday. You can also get files into Stanza via iTunes, just as you can with any other document-based apps. Better is that any e-books you may already have in Stanza can be gotten out and copied to your computer (perhaps for later use with iBooks). At a stroke, this makes our guide on rescuing books from Stanza redundant, although you may still like to use it to clean up your metadata. Stanza 3.0 also reports itself correctly to the iPad OS, telling it that it is ready to open EPUB files. This lets you open books direct from the web or found elsewhere on the iPad, such as in email attachments or inside Dropbox. The king is back! It might not be as pretty as iBooks, but in terms of features and flexibility, Stanza thrashes Apple’s offering. Free, available now. Stanza [iTunes] See Also: How to Transfer Your Stanza E-Book Library to iBooks for iPad … Stanza v2.0: The iPhone's Best E-Reader Just Got Better Free Software Turns the iPhone Into an E-Book Reader Interview: Stanza Brings Online Bookstore to the iPhone IPhone Stanza Downloads May Top Kindle Sales Hands-On With Stanza Update: iPhone E-Books Get Even Better … Read the rest of this entry »
Robot 13: A Hero Is Built
I wanted to put in one more mention of Robot 13 in case you haven’t seen it already. I’d gotten a chance to preview the first issue before it was released back in August, and got a look at the iPhone version via Robot Comics. There are three issues available at this point, and each one has had at least one massive battle as well as a smidgen of history. Thomas Hall and Daniel Bradford are doing a slow reveal, telling Robot 13’s origin through half-remembered dreams and sort of a Greek chorus. They pull from mythology for their beasts, too—so far Robot 13 has faced a Kraken, a phoenix and a Cyclops. I’m sure there will be plenty of others. The artwork is captivating; Bradford makes great use of shadows and silhouettes. His artwork has a very angular, blocky quality to it, very stylized but somehow not flat. Again, though, I’m reminded of Hellboy , particularly with the big red man on the cover of this issue. (Even the bumps on the Cyclops’ head call to mind Hellboy’s sawed-off horns.) But the story is certainly different. If you liked your mythology mixed with a heavy dose of action, Robot 13 just might be the amnesiac cyborg hero you’ve been looking for. Having seen the two versions, I definitely prefer the print version, because the tiny screen of the iPhone just doesn’t do justice to the big splash panels (and pinup galleries at the end). Of course, I imagine it will be available for the iPad soon, at which point I might have to change my mind again. Parents should be forewarned, though: most of the baddies have lots of teeth, and while the violence is fairly stylized and somewhat cartoonish, there’s still a bit of bone-shattering and limb-rending, so you’ll want to steer little kids away. You can order the print edition directly from Blacklist Studios (look for the store link at the bottom) for $3.99. Issue #1 is already sold out, but #2 and #3 are still available. You can also get the digital versions from Robot Comics and Panelfly , depending on your platform. Disclosure: Blacklist Studios provided review copies of the first three issues. Read the rest of this entry »
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