Digital Comics Watch | Dateline

I can't exactly remember how I stumbled on to Flashback Universe. I imagine it was a google search for "digital comics" or something close to it that brought me here. Having all ready downloaded CDisplay I was eager for digital comics to read with it that were on the up & up and I was astounded when I found the FBU.

Raven & RuneWraith in particular grabbed my attention and I can remember scouring all of the available downloads to get another few pages of either character. Sadly there is precious little of either of them in the current offerings.

That brought me to the Character page, which in turn led me to the extra's page, and that in turn led me to the donate page. You see where I'm going here? You had to donate to get a peek behind the curtain. I wanted to look so I donated. It was my first Paypal transaction ever, in fact I had to get an account and do all that goes along with that to make the donation.

That got me Jim's email. :)

Jim's life has never been the same, you can be sure of that that.

I began emailing him a couple times a week. First it was about the FBU and clarifying questions to make sure I understood the entire "line" of comics. Then I began emailing him ideas for other books he could do. I was intrigued to find out that Jim and Pierre have created a lot more characters than whats shown on the web site and I wanted to know more about them.

I wanted to know why he hadn't done a "who's who" type of book which I personally loved.

I subscribed to this blog and I can remember when he started doing the Paper Comics Death Watch. Since I'm also a gadget freak I kept running into gadgets and other tech that I thought could be used, or adapted to be used in comics. I would send Jim links to them, sometimes they'd show up in the PCDW posts. Sometimes not.

After the 20th suggestion or so Jim asked if I wanted to write a post on his blog, maybe do a column. This only emboldened me further so I began pitching comics to him. Some intrigued him, others not so much, but I eventually intrigued him enough to actually do a Raven comic (which is scripted, finished, & turned in).

Soon after Jim began listing me on the contributor page.

The bloging I've done, until recently, has centered around "Digital Comics". That is: comics read on a device rather than printed on paper. The news in this department has been lacking as of late. Let's review:

TABLETS
For the last year or so we've been blogging about tablets. Sometimes it was nothing more than rumors, but they seemed like strong rumors when we passed them off to you. Some looked, and still do look really cool:

The Plastic: A flexible tablet no thicker than a sheaf of paper updated through RSS over wifi. I'd still love to have one.

The Courier: A tablet from Microsoft designed to take on the iPad head on. This one might of had two screens that folded up.

Touchbook: The tablet where the screen and the keyboard separate. I tried to buy one, what a mess.

Crunchpad: Rumors of this one hit the internet before the iPad even launched. The pedigree of the people behind Crunchpad seemed just right. Everyone was sure this would get made.

Where are they all now? They may be in development, or some stage of it, but what about comics? Nothing really.

DIGITAL READER(s) WEBSITES
Within the same year we've brought you news regarding websites with built in comic book readers, or branded reader software that could be downloaded.

Comics XP: They pitched bridging the gap between comics delivered over the internet to a reader and comics bought at a comic book shop by selling digital comics on SD cards at comic shops. I thought it was clever.


Carbonated Comics: There really hasn't been much movement over at CC at all. On twitter they've stated that it's been tough to do what they're attempting and it looks like their right.

Longbox: The iTunes of digital comics with a built in marketplace. Two or three announcements regarding Longbox made quite a splash - even at the SDCC.

Where are they all now? They may be in development, or some stage of it, but what about comics? Comics XP has a single page web site up stating that they will return with an update coming soon. Carbonated is still up and offering comics. Longbox is nowhere to be found.

DIGITAL COMICS COMMUNITY/ MARKET

We've blogged about completely digital initiatives such as Wowio, Zuda and others even fewer of you will remember. Team FBU even had a few comics pitched to Zuda. Some got in, some didn't.

Where are they all now? They may be in development, or some stage of it, but what about comics? None really.


OTHER
I blogged about a few other things one could classify as "Digital Comics". One in particular has actually continued to move right along if not get larger in scope: Podcasting.

The Red Panda Adventures: Keeping 1930s Toronto safe from gangsters, racketeers and power-mad supervillains - Thrill once again to the tales of that Masked Man of Mystery; The Red Panda! All-new tales of two-fisted pulp justice!

Batman: The Ace of Detectives: Is an ongoing monthly serial adventure based on the modern incarnation of the character in DC Comics.

Justice League Heroes.

Playing for keeps.

COMIC APPS
This area, by far, has seen the most news. Comixology, PanelFly, Graphic.ly, Iverse, ComicZeal and more have all been reported on here at the FBU and all over the net over and over again. So much so that we've become quite picky about which Comic App news we bring you since it's all over the place for you to find.s the comic book industry, as a whole, better or worse because of any of the items listed above? Are readership numbers up? Are sales up? Are comics more attractive to younger people? Ladies? Citizens outside of the U.S.?

We can't answer that yet. It's too early still. One things for sure though, we'll need more than another year (give or take) to make a determination one way or another.


If team FBU were to put out another comic book how would all of you prefer to receive it? A CBR file? A PDF file? A comic book app? Have any of you read any of the FBU comics on the ROBOT COMICS app/system? Do you like that? What about a "floppy" that we've cursed to death by 2015 here at the FBU? Would any of you like to read an actual paper comic book in your hands? Are any of you listeners of audio fiction? Podcasts? Would you be interested in a Tales of the FBU podcast?

We'd love to know what you think, honestly.

Have a great weekend,

Caine.

Comics on the iPad

In honor of the nice folks over at Comic Zeal using our comics in some of their recent news update we here at the Flashback Universe thought that you'd like to be informed & updated on the subject of comics on the iPad.


COMICS: Reading


COMIC ZEAL
"The iPad is just perfect for Comic Zeal, there was never a question that I’d be creating a version of Comic Zeal for it. There are three things I’d like to address today, first I’d like to take you through the Comic Zeal 4 interface, then we’ll talk about importing comics and we’ll talk about upgrading and versions last."~comiczeal



They go on to explain..

"Comic Zeal 4 is able to read CBZ,ZIP,CBR and RAR files natively. So you can just fire up SyncDocs on your PC or Mac, drag in a whole bunch of CBZ files and import them into Comic Zeal. Comic Zeal will still need to process the comics and resize the images, although they’re now 60% larger than they were before. This process is going to be optimized and tweaked once we get our hands on a real iPad. At the moment we have no idea how long it will take to process the comics and it could be that on release, using Comic Zeal Sync is still the best option."

CBR
"CBR News reached out to many players from across the downloadable comics sphere for early reactions to the news of the iPad and found many responses as to what the next step for publishers and content providers will be. Although one thing was generally agreed upon, fans can expect everyone to get..."~cbr

NEWSARAMA
"As Apple announced it's iPad device today, Comics by ComiXology, the leading iPhone application for buying and reading comics, already has an interface for the bigger iPad screen in development."~newsarama

WEEKLY CRISIS
"In theory, the iPad, and the slew of alternatives in the pipes, has a lot of potential for changing the comic book industry. Currently, there are multiple comic book related apps available for the iPhone that can be ported over to the iPad at launch. These include the likes of comiXology and Robot Comics, among others."~weeklycrisis

BRAIN STORM TECH
"Now that we’ve all seen the iPad and debated its design merits, let’s cut to the chase: This thing will rise or fall on content. If Steve Jobs can get a bunch of cool books and apps on the thing, we’ll want one. If not, we won’t. Where will His Steveness get some of those books? I say the same place he’s gotten so many movies and TV shows for iTunes in the past: Disney."~brainstormtech

CRAVE
"One of the key features of the new Apple iPad is the introduction of Apple's new iBooks application, which promises to be both an e-book reader and a storefront for digital books. This obviously leads to a comparison between the iPad and that other famous e-book reader, the Amazon Kindle. But it seems to me that the only real advantage the iPad might have over the Kindle is that it's in color, which doesn't make much of a difference with simple black-and-white text. But what about books that depend on color, art, and illustration? Indeed, what about graphic novels and comic books? Is the iPad the perfect platform for digital comics?"~crave


COMICS: Making


We've covered different" digital tools", available now here & here, that should be known to any up and coming comic book creator. With the iPad on the way here are a few more that could, hypothetically (we don't have an iPad to test our theory), aid you in creating, marketing, & delivering comics on the iPad from start to finish:

CLICK METER:
Web analytics is important to keep track of your websites. ClickMeter is a link tracking tool that focuses on tracking links for your website so that you can monitor relevant clicks. This app quickly sees which of your links are more efficient in driving incoming traffic to your site.

FLIXTIME:
Creating your own video or photo slideshow is a cool way to share your pictures with friends, family, readers, fans, and sponsors. Flixtime is a web app that lets you create videos from photos in just three easy steps. All you need is to choose your photos, upload a tune, then click render to create your video.

PICMELEO:
There are a number of excellent image editors online and Picmeleo is no different when it comes to ease-of-use and number of features. It is a light-weight photo editor that lets you crop and scale images, adjust color and brightness and apply various filters.






COMICS: Devices




The iPad isn't the only name in the game. There are lots of tablets, some out now, some slated to come out this year, others still in development. The "wordle" above names but a few of them. We've blogged about upcoming tablets here & here on the FBU before. You really can't scan the internet without running into it.

MASHABLE:
"The Apple iPad cat is officially out of its bag, but it’s not going to be the only tablet game in town. There are a number of other devices out there..."~mashable

WIRED:"We’d be naive to think manufacturers were twiddling their thumbs while Apple pimps out its iPad. Sure enough, there could be as many as 50 tablet devices from competing..."~wired

Really the only question unanswered is when and how are DC going to get in the Digital Comics game? Do any of you have any ideas or theories? What about thoughts regarding comics on a "pad" or "slate"? Will the bigger screen enable more of you to enjoy comics digitally?

We'd love to hear your thoughts.

Have a great weekend,

Caine

Comics on Windows 7 Series Phones?

Recently, Microsoft announced that they were getting (back) into the mobile phone business in a big way with the introduction (read - replatforming) of their Windows Phone 7 Series phones. Yesterday on Engadget, many of the partners for this new platform were presented (Pandora, Netflix, Shazam...).

Among the screenshots was this one of what is apparently a Digital Comics reading application showing scenes from Civil War.

At this moment, we are unsure if this is an existing digital comics app (ported from the iPhone) or if this is something Microsoft created wholly on its own.

UPDATE - the app appears to be developed by Graphic.Ly whose Digital Comic viewing application has been discussed by Caine here before...

From NewsFactor

Another new app designed for Graphic.ly -- a community for purchasing and discussing comic books -- will enable consumers to buy digital comics and view them on a Windows 7 laptop or carry them around in their pockets on a Windows 7 phone. The app includes a hardware -accelerated deep zoom that can deliver high-resolution imagery over low bandwidth. So whenever the user elects to pan in on a comic graphic, deep zoom is able to pull down the right resolution.

Interesting - so Graphic.Ly is getting quite a jump on this aren't they?

In Defense of Paper

Editor's Note: We spend a LOT of time here talking about Digital Comics. Today we change it up a bit as Caine presents his thoughts on the merits of Paper comics. - Jim

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What is it about paper comics that we love so much? Why isn't the comic book industry all ready fully or largely digital?

I could go on and on, listing items about the experience of sitting down and enjoying a comic book and explaing the digital equivilant to each of those items, but I'm not going too.

The fact is, there are qualities about comics printed on paper that can not be duplicated by their digital counterparts. No matter what.

It's these qualities that keep the paper comic book industry alive and will keep that industry thriving in one capacity or another for the foreseeable future, and more than likely beyond.
What are they?

In a word: Relationships.

TACTILE RELATIONSHIP
Think of your first memory with a comic book, for most of us it will be in our childhood. Children learn,in part, through examining tactile relationships. We touch things. We covet things of great intrest or value (and who doesn't value their copy of Amazing Spiderman 129?). We keep them with us, always handling them so they are handy and easy to get at.

Sure your comics on the iPhone are handy, easy to get at, and handled quite a bit but not in the same way.

There isn't that link between you and the comic, a link you've shared for years (possibly many, many years), with a piece of your childhood. It's relationships like those that are fused with memories that will live a lifetime. When was the last time an iPhone app infused a memory?
In no way could the situation be completely explained here by the likes of a comic blogger like my self but none the less, the tactile relationship we have with our "things" is an important one.

COMMUNITY
Regardless of how active, how amazing, how easily accessible an online forum may be there isn't one on line that could replace the experience of going down to your local comic shop, hanging out with other comic fans like your self, and discussing comics until your blue in the face.

I look forward to digital comics via Longbox, Robot Comics, Graphic.Ly, ComiXology, et al and more on my gSlate (google's follow up to the iSlate) on a national wireless network some day but it's comforting to know that if I want to I can go somewhere with my best pals (or kids) and go buy a comic that can be shared as a group.

Have a great weekend!

- Caine

Caine's Digital Toolbox 2

Back in the Summer, Caine gave us a nice rundown of some great Web Resources for Comic Creators that are available on the web. So, today we are posting a follow up to that popular article, going over more tools that every Digital Comic Book Publisher/Creator/Provider should think about keeping handy, put these links in your Favorites as you begin working on your next comic!

MOTION COMICS
Love 'em? Hate 'em? Haven't given 'em much thought until just now? Motion Comics are just that, comics in cinematic motion which one could loosely label as "animation". They're tough to do well. You have to time them just right with the appropriate amount of images set on a timeline that matches the audio files. Lots of software, such as Adobe Image Ready, can be used to produce animation that looks quite good but now you don't have to... check out VoiceThread!


With VoiceThread, group conversations are collected and shared in one place from anywhere in the world. All with no software to install. A VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to navigate pages and leave comments in 5 ways - using voice (with a mic or telephone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam). Share a VoiceThread with friends, students, and colleagues for them to record comments too. Users can doodle while commenting, use multiple identities, and pick which comments are shown through moderation. VoiceThreads can even be embedded to show and receive comments on other websites and exported to MP3 players or DVDs to play as archival movies. ~VoiceThread

While producing "Motion Comics" is not VoiceThread's intended use, the tool seems tailor made to get it done.

WEB SITE CUSTOMIZATION
Making a webcomic? Hosting a digital comic? Running an interactive fan forum? No one wants a plane Jane vanilla web site that looks like everything else thats all ready out there. Completely customizing your website however can require quite a bit of design training. Now with typekit customizing at least one portion of your site, the text, has been made easier.

Add a line of code to your pages and choose from hundreds of fonts. Simple, bulletproof, standards compliant, accessible, and totally legal. We're working with foundries to bring the best possible fonts for your website. Your fonts will be served from a robust network built with hundreds of servers worldwide. ~TypeKit

BONUS - If you're into fonts, and you've not discovered BLAMBOT then you should check them out. They offer both paid and free fonts and are supported by an active forum. Many of their fonts are used by professional comic publishing companies and will give your lettering a slick look you won't get with your standard freeware fonts.

BRANDING & BRAND MANAGEMENT
With you comic comes a publisher or publishing company. Whether you're a one man operation cranking out one comic a month, or a group of people who do a bit more you'll have a brand that requires some amount of management (if nothing else you'll want to spread the word about your comics on sites like twitter and facebook).

ListiMonkey allows you to monitor your brand and its products on twitter (focusing on twitter's new list feature).

Monitor Twitter Lists for keywords. Get free email alerts whenever a keyword appears in Twitter Lists of your choice. ~ListiMonkey


MASS MARKET APPEAL
Doing everything you can to get your comics into the hands, or feed readers, or mobile devices of your fans? Always on the look out for ways to generate new fans? Why not translate your web comic or blog into other languages?

Google Translate tools offers some cool translation tools for both webmasters and the average internet user who wants to read webpages in different languages. The three tools offered by this service are Google’s website translator, translation bookmarklets and the translation feature in Google toolbar. The website translator lets you translate your site by creating a drop down translation widget. It generates a snippet of code that can be easily added to the site. ~MakeUseOf

I plugged a FlashBack Universe post into the translator as a test and here's what it gave me without any need for instructions at all.



Think of all the untapped markets brimming with fans out there....

Have a happy Holiday,

Caine

Tablet Rumor Rundown

Today Flashback Universe presents a unique slant on the illustrious; much rumored, and often hyped, (every digital techno nerd's fantasy come true) mobile hand held computing device. Called many things: iTablet, WebTablet, iPad, HandHeld, & even the wifi touchscreen multi media device, rumors of it's near existence saturating the Internet make it the next SMALL thing in the field of Internet usability.

The iTablet:
"We are working to develop new products that contains technologies that our competition will not be able to match. I cannot discuss these new products, but we are very confident in our product pipeline.

Apple believes that the software is the key ingredient. We believe that we are many years ahead of the competition and we welcome any and all competition as long as they do not step on our Intellectual Property.
We plan to deliver state-of-the-art products that I cannot discuss today and are very excited about the products in our pipeline." ~ZDNet

With pictures, pattens, announcements, the lack of announcements, and even phony viral video footage all over the Internet for the last sixteen months the iTablet is definitely the largest & hottest tablet rumor all over the web. Seemingly developed as an extension to Apple's all ready successful mobile device department, the iTablet seeks to fill a niche most would label "needed". All who wait patiently, and some who don't, hope that they'll be able to do 85% of what a desktop will do but on the go while using the iTablet. This includes movies, music, COMICS, ebooks, content management, and even a camera has been mentioned.

Heat Factor: 10
It's HOT. You couldn't really avoid hearing about the iTablet even if you wanted to! People want it yesterday, some want to develop for it seeing $$$, and some are clambering Apple for it on an almost daily basis.

Vaporware Quotient: 1
It's NOT vaporware (to the best of our knowledge). There has been far too much information about it's hardware and other physical technology, including new pattens and many unnamed sources, for this hot item to fizzle into obscurity.

Kill Factor: 8
The general consensus across the Internet is that it will KILL all other tablets currently being developed right now. Sadly, this may include it's little brother the iPod for lots of people. It will also most likely be a huge contributor to the oncoming Paper Comic Apocalypse in 2012 (as predicted by the Mayans.)

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The Courier:
"Courier is a real device, and we've heard that it's in the "late prototype" stage of development. It's not a tablet, it's a booklet. The dual 7-inch (or so) screens are multitouch, and designed for writing, flicking and drawing with a stylus, in addition to fingers. They're connected by a hinge that holds a single iPhone-esque home button. Statuses, like wireless signal and battery life, are displayed along the rim of one of the screens. On the back cover is a camera, and it might charge through an inductive pad, like the Palm Touchstone charging dock for Pre.

Until recently, it was a skunkworks project deep inside Microsoft, only known to the few engineers and executives working on it—Microsoft's brightest, like Entertainment & Devices tech chief and user-experience wizard J. Allard, who's spearheading the project. Currently, Courier appears to be at a stage where Microsoft is developing the user experience and showing design concepts to outside agencies." ~Gizmodo

HF: 7
Well, if the commenters at Engadget are anything to go by, this concept video pretty much sold them on the device.

VQ: 7
Unfortunately, during his interview with Engadget, Steve Ballmer said he had never seen the video and claimed to have no knowledge of any plans of making such a device.

KF: 6
The ability to be able to read comics two pages at a time would be cool, as it would preserve the beloved two page splash, but the screens look tiny. Turning the device would give you a big one page viewing are, but that hinge strip in the middle sort of plays havoc with reading comics tall.

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The Crunchpad:
"I’m tired of waiting – I want a dead simple and dirt cheap touch screen web tablet to surf the web. Nothing fancy like the Dell latitude XT, which costs $2,500. Just a Macbook Air-thin touch screen machine that runs Firefox and possibly Skype on top of a Linux kernel. It doesn’t exist today, and as far as we can tell no one is creating one. So let’s design it, build a few and then open source the specs so anyone can create them.

Here’s the basic idea: The machine is as thin as possible, runs low end hardware and has a single button for powering it on and off, headphone jacks, a built in camera for video, low end speakers, and a microphone. It will have Wifi, maybe one USB port, a built in battery, half a Gigabyte of RAM, a 4-Gigabyte solid state hard drive. Data input is primarily through an iPhone-like touch screen keyboard. It runs on linux and Firefox. It would be great to have it be built entirely on open source hardware, but including Skype for VOIP and video calls may be a nice touch, too." ~TechCrunch

While the above statement implies that the Crunchpad's development has been born out of necessity. The buzz surrounding it is really more indicative of a fanboy's dream machine come to life as the device has been spearheaded largely by a single individual not particularly known for hardware. Like the iTablet the Crunchpad has also permiated the internet over the last sixteen months with pictures, video, and plenty of speculation over it's intended use, it's intended market, and price point which seems to continue to climb.

HF: 7
It started out hot. The announcement of the Crunchpad were quickly followed with doubt and speculation, most of it surrounding the area of hardware production, many bloggers stating that it was MUCH harder than people thought.

VQ: 9
Unfortunately, with climbing potential costs, plenty of setbacks, missed target dates, and missed announcements its looking more and more like the Crunchpad may very well be Vaporware.

KF: 5
Wile originally presented as a hybrid webcomputer the Crunchpad is looking more and more like a fancy netbook built on an unfamiliar operating system, with flashy underpowered hardware that will get killed by some, if not most, of the other mobile handheld products out there unless the price point comes way down.

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The ARCHOS 9 PC Tablet:
NOTE: This is not a prototype or a concept design. This is an actual device that can be purchased now.

ARCHOS once again is leading the way in innovation with the introduction of the Netbook of the future, the ARCHOS 9 PCtablet. The new ARCHOS 9 PCtablet combines the performance of a high end netbook with breathtaking aesthetics, excellent ergonomics and a tactile interface on a superb screen.

Pure lines, extreme thinness (0.67''), 800g and a stunning black finish, the ARCHOS 9 PCtablet pushes the boundaries of elegance and simplicity on a Netbook, fulfilling the expectations of the most mobile users. It provides all the power and comfort needed for daily usage.
With this ultra-light and thin PCtablet, you can watch you videos (including Full HD format), browse the web, “video chat”, or write your mails or documents.." ~ARCHOS

HF: 9
With a 9 inch screen, and HD Video capability, this looks like not only a great solution for reading comics, but for videos as well. The downside is, well, it looks like the screen only works in Landscape (wide) mode, which means you might have to do some wrangling of your comic viewer to read pages in tall mode. (A quick test by me proves that CDisplay can do this very easily.)

VF: 0
Like I mentioned above, Achros are the first ones out the gate with a full sized Tablet device that should be perfect for reading comics on it.

KF: ?
The price is about $550, and the bulkiness is just a little bigger than what one might want in a tablet device. However, the Archos 9 comes loaded with Windows 7, so it's basically a full blown netbook, which makes it more robust than a simple proprietary tablet device. This could make its way into the Corporate world in a big way, which would drive the price down.

PLUG - This would make a great time to mention that Robot Comics has developed a Droid comic reader that can be used on the Achros 5 (their 5 inch Mobile Internet Device) as well as many of the new Android phones coming to the market right now.

These are far from the only tablet devices getting talked about on the internet but they are some of the most promising. (Actually, of late, there has been a new tablet device announced about once a week.) 2010 promises to be an interesting year for comics as these tablets make their way to the market place.

Have a great weekend!

- Caine

Caine Interviews: Carbonated Comics

A few weeks back we posted our first Digital Comics Spotlight centered on the digital comic book distribution site: Carbonated Comics . Recently we were able to interview Nicole, Adam, AJ, and the team over at Carbonated about their site and it's services:

1. What is Carbonated Comics?
Carbonated Comics is a technology company dedicated to providing publishers and artists a way to safely publish digital comic books and other media through a hardware independent platform.

2. Does Carbonated Comics see 'printed comics' and 'digital comics' as separate entities? Are the printed & digital markets separate?

The digital comic book industry is an extension of the printed comic book industry in many ways. The most exciting aspect of the digital industry is how it opens and redefines the market for both emerging and established publishers. For small press and emerging publishers, digital comics allow them to get their work out to the world with unprecedented ease and very little of the overhead associated with printed comics.

For established publishers, digital distribution allows them to make their entire body of material available with none of the costs associated with creating reprints or with graphic novelization. While there are many points where these markets cross over, we believe that those who savor the tactile experience and collectability of printed comic books will continue to support that market, and those who have embraced digital formats will greatly increase the demand for digital content. Digital and printed comic books are not mutually exclusive, and we have had a great deal of feedback from customers who said that they would be interested in titles that were available in both formats.

3. What types of services does Carbonated Comics provide for its clients?

Currently, Carbonated Comics offers several services, with more on the way. We currently offer:
http://www.carbonatedcomics.com/ – our secure storefront and the portal to our publisher and collaboration zones.

Protection of IP – Our clients can take advantage of our secure file format to distribute digital comics in a manner that helps to protect their intellectual property. Our secure format (CCX) is not simply a renamed archive file, but is a security enabled and fully encrypted distribution platform. This helps greatly reduce the risk that a comic book will be pirated and distributed without permission.

Digital Comic Manager – The Carbonator is Carbonated Comics premier software product for reading and managing a digital comic collection. The Carbonator is compatible with many standard digital comic book formats such as CBR and CBZ, and is the native reader for our secure multimedia capable CCX files. The Carbonator is the only digital comic manager that allows you to take full advantage of the multimedia components of the CCX file format including soundtracks, voiceovers and DVD like commentaries.

Digitizing service – After speaking to many artists, publishers and content owners about digital distribution, we have discovered that one of the greatest roadblocks with publishing digital content is getting all the various types of content into a standard format. To help our publishers overcome this barrier,Carbonated Comics offers our professional digitizing service for free to all of our clients.

Collaboration zone - We offer a ‘Looking for Work’ and ‘Job Fair’ feature on our website. This allows content creators and publishers to connect to each other and start collaborations. Content creators can list themselves as Looking for work, and publishers can mark themselves as Looking for workers.

4. Are there any restrictions on the types of comics that Carbonated Comics will publish (such as length or content)?

We do not have a requirement or any restrictions for the length of a comic that we will distribute. Whether it is a single strip or a 1000 page epic, we can make it happen. Our only restriction on content is that we are currently unable to host and distribute content of a graphic pornographic nature.

5. Are there any restrictions on the types of creators that Carbonated Comics will publish for (such as established or non)?

We realize the value of all types of publishers, from the huge corporate mega-publishing houses down to the self publishing ‘one man show’. Small press and independent publishers are vital to the survival of the comic book industry and we are more than happy to work with anyone who embraces the art form.

6. Are there any plans to publish printed comics as well?

Carbonated Comics is a primarily digital distribution and technology and e-commerce company. At this time, we do not have plans to pursue comic book publishing.

7. Is Carbonated Comics looking at any non-web based markets (such as disks)?

We do not currently have plans for physical media distribution, but we are looking at many non-traditional distribution venues as well as our current development for the iPhone. While we do not plan to distribute physical media as a commercial endeavor, our technology would make it quite easy to do so, especially for promotional materials like convention freebies.

8. What are some differences, if any, that Carbonated Comics has from some other services out now such as Comicsxp, Drive Through Comics, Wowio, and Crispy Comics?

The primary difference between Carbonated Comics and our competitors is that we are a dedicated technology services company. Each member of the Carbonated Comics team brings an average of 12 years of technology expertise to the table with backgrounds ranging from banking and e-commerce to aerospace and defense.

We are committed to the security and service required to make the digital comics industry as safe, secure and user friendly as possible while maintaining the agility to meet the ever changing demands of the industry.

9. What steps has Carbonated Comics taken to ensure success when other similar services (such as eyemelt) haven't been able to make a success of digital comics?

There are a few key factors to success in the digital comics market. The first is solid technology. Many of the failed or struggling companies out there who have tried digital distribution have relied too heavily on older technologies such as Adobe PDF or CBR/CBZ. While these technologies succeed in getting files out the door with sequential pictures, that is all they have to offer.

We have taken the approach of designing our technology from the ground up specifically for the comic book market. By offering such features as synchronized soundtracks (music, voiceovers, sound effects, etc.), DVD like “directors commentaries” and multiple viewing formats (page by page and frame by frame), we have opened up the possibilities for a truly new comic book experience.

The second key factor to success in the industry is the one-stop-shopping approach that we have adopted. Our goal is to make it as easy as possible for artists and publishers to take advantage of digital distribution. This is why we have such straightforward relationships with our publishers. We offer free digitizing, free hosting (it costs nothing to distribute through our website), no hidden fees (like transaction fees or bandwidth usage fees) and we claim absolutely no ownership over content, stories, characters or trademarks. Our compensation model is based purely on a share of the sales, with a vast majority of the profit from a digital sale going to the content owner.

10. Where does Carbonated Comics see the digital comic book industry in five years, and where will Carbonated Comics fit in?

With the growing market for devices such as eBook readers, smart phones, netbooks, gaming systems and the like, as well as the expanding market for digital content in general, we see the digital comic book market as having a very bright future. More and more companies are looking at digital content as a primary means of distribution, as opposed the novelty that it was 5 years ago. We at Carbonated Comics are a very adaptive and forward thinking group and we plan being around for the long term!

Thank you Carbonated Comics, we look forward to great comics coming from you for quite some time...

Digital Comics: Longbox Wish List

NOTE: Like many people, we here at Flashback Universe are eagerly awaiting the launch of Longbox Digital Comics viewer. If you haven't seen any of the articles so far about Longbox, then this paragraph from http://longboxinc.com/ should bring you up to speed nicely

Longbox Digital is a device and hardware independent platform for the secure distribution, sale and enjoyment of digital comics. LongBox will be launching on Macintosh and PC computer systems in Fall of 2009, with handheld devices, eReaders, and game systems to follow. This site is under construction, and will be updated in the coming weeks.

...or you can check out the video below!



LongBox Digital - Pre-Beta Screencast from Rantz Hoseley on Vimeo

Caine's Longbox Wishlist:

Here are the 5 things I would like to see with the launch of Longbox Digital...(and if these features can't make it to the launch, then please consider adding them to the version 2 spec list. :) )

1.) Top Notch Reader

As you can see from the screencast there's a lot too Longbox: a news feed, comic rankings, a flash based featured list, a subscription button, a library button and lots more. I hope that the reader provided to Longbox users is top notch with both a "heavy" and a "light" version to choose from. Both should have all the "usual" bells and whistles you can find in most of the readers on the market now: panning, rotation, zooming, scrolling, page jumps, library, thumbnails, rating system, comments, & "last page read" data stored internally so you can pick up a book right where you left off.

The "heavy" reader could be built into Longbox with quick and easy access to all those great Longbox services like the news feeds and subscription button running alongside the comic you are reading. The "light" reader wouldn't, it would be streamlined and centered around the enjoyment of the single book loaded inside it. A user could go from "light" to "heavy" and not miss a beat.

2.) Comment Integration

If comics are rated (such as a four star system) and the software allows for comments then why not integrate the two? If you're interested in Boom! Studio's THE INCREDIBLES, you'll more than likely put that into the search box to see if there's a preview to look at before purchasing it right? Why not list user comments, integrated in real time, right along with the preview? They could be tagged by user name, include the users ratings of the book, and easily be turned on or off at a users request based on preference. It would almost be like a built in letter page. Remember those?

3.) Formatting

What good would it be to have the best damn comic book reader in the business if it didn't read all comic book file formats and more? Off the top of my head: .cbr, .cbz, .rar, .zip, .pdf, .jpg, .tif, and why not motion comics as well (maybe only in the "heavy" build though) for those who like them. This way Longbox can read digital comics the user has all ready acquired (legally of course), and allow publishers to submit in a multitude of file formats.


4.) Built In Chat

If you're reading Image's The Walking Dead 7, you may wonder if 1 - 6 are worth going back and reading first. You may wonder how many other fans are reading this same book right this second? You may (or may not) be interested in a more interactive comic book experience. Why not let us chat amongst other fans? What about a chat on opening weekend with the creators them selves? If your going to do that, why not include twitter or facebook aps in the mix?

5.) Mecca Marketplace

Sure, Marvel has its back issue on line catalog. DC has Zuda. Image, Darkhorse, Boom! and others have made use of Myspace in the past but there isn't a single place where all digital comics can be found. That includes self published comics, foreign comics (outside the US), and webcomic integration as well. I hope that Longbox is so industry shattering that everyone feels as if they HAVE to be a part of it.

Now it's your turn - what features or expectations do you have for Longbox?

What do you want to see from Longbox?

Have a great weekend!

- Caine

Digital Comics Industry Spotlight 1: Carbonatedcomics.com

Gentleman start your engines because the time trials for the pole position in the race to deliver you your digital comics in a pleasing, easy to use format/setting that is profitable to publishers has begun.

Of course you knew that, Darkhorse and Boom(among others) partnered with MySpace to kick the digital comic book industry into gear. That was followed closely by Marvel putting up its digital library for subscription, and then DC'S Zuda imprint/competition. However, did those events kick off a"Digital Comic Book Industry"?

You may or may not of heard of other sites/services such as WOWIO, DriveThroughComics, EyeMelt and other newer services such as Comicsxp, the much buzzed about Longbox and our subject of this weeks blog post: CARBONATED COMICS.

Will these services, some having yet to even launch, create a"Digital Comic Book Industry"? I'm here to say: YES. The first step is upon us as of right now.

Their Site:
Simple, cross platform, and to the point http://www.carbonatedcomics.com/is an extremely easy (and attractive) web site to click on. Their focus is clearly on comics. A list of available "featured" comics runs down the center of the page. Down the right are searchable categories and down the left are the few tools they offer. Prime among them is the CARBONATOR, Carbonated Comics Comic Reader Software which you can download or obtain via CD from the website (or event where they may be handing them out - such as Dragon*Con this weekend).



Their Reader:
The Carbonator shares several features with other popular readers such as the file types it will open/read, thumb nails for each page, mouse controls and hot buttons to customize how the comic fits on the screen and is enjoyed by the reader.

The folder that the Carbonator last read from has its contents displayed as thumbnails in the main window. Along the left Meta Data can be displayed, below that are the player controls. The software is streamlined and, like their web site, focused on your enjoyment of the comics.

It does take a minute for all the pages to populate, but once you click on "Player"...

Things start happening (ignore that little box up in the top left, its the screen capture control box..oops). After taking it for a spin I have to say the Carbonator does a great job at delivering you the comic page by page, or even panel by panel if you choose to read that way.

The Carbonator does have its draw backs. The largest of them is that the comics them selves take a minute to load fully in the side panel. In addition, the tutorial in the "help" section doesn't seem to be functioning 100% as of yet (I tweeted that to @ccomics and they assured me that this has been addressed and will be fully functioning soon).

Whats nice about it though is how streamlined it is. There isn't a lot of advertising or branding built into the reader, the menu at the top is purposefully sparse and to the point, the button controls at the bottom are general on purpose and it all functions just as you think it would upon opening it.

By that I mean the right arrow gets you to the next page, the left arrow takes you back to the previous page, and the +/- buttons make the page larger and smaller.

But that's not all. By holding down the control key you can rotate the pages with the mouse and by holding down the Alt key you bring up a magnifying glass that can be dragged across the screen to get a better look at the page in a 2X3 inch clear window. The magnifying glass, although a bit surprising at first, I found to work well. It allowed me to zoom in on tiny details without moving/zooming the enitre page.

All in all, a nice experience that was easy to use with little instructions, and very enjoyable.

On a side note, when you download the Carbonator, you'll notice a button on the control panel that looks like it controls the audio volume of your comic books. When I asked about it, I was told that yes sure enough it was for volume control and future downloads will have dvd style audio commentary.

Comics:
While their initial offering does not yet contain anything from the "Big Three" publishers I found a fairly moderate variety of titles and genres to choose from. Also, it would seem that nearly half of the books in their current roster are free for you to enjoy. NOTE: In the example images, I was using a comic that is not, at this time, offered at Carbonated Comics.

In addition to comics they offer a regular newsletter and are active with social media including Twitter, Facebook, and ComicSpace.

Tools:
They host a forum for fans/readers to conglomerate and probably get help. A detailed help page. A sellers application when you're ready to sell your own comics (That's right I'm talking to you Jim). and even a free Digitization Service to assist the creators in getting their comics in the .CBX format.

If you haven't clicked over there yet then you should seriously consider it. Or, if your near Dragon*Con go check em out in person.

Have a great weekend,

Caine

What's Up with Wowio

Digital comic book fans should remember WOWIO:

"WOWIO is today the only source where readers can legally access high-quality copyrighted ebooks from leading publishers for free. Readers have access to a wide range of offerings, including works of classic literature, college textbooks, comic books, and popular fiction and non-fiction titles." ~Wowio

The digital content providers who were, at one time, purchased by PLATINUM STUDIOS (who also own the Drunk Duck webcomic site) copyright holders of "Hero by Night", "Atlantis Rising", and "Unique".

It was just a few years ago that Platinum, seemingly on fire as it scorched through the comic book industry making its mark, had BIG plans for wowio. The development of a digital comic book distribution system. Many readers may remember this, some may have even been a member/subscriber of wowio's.

I can't recall if any PLATINUM products were ever released through wowio. If so, they've been quiet for the past year, not the kind of press I'd be looking for when thinking of an industry changing publishing and distribution platform. In fact, the last stories I remember hearing about wowio had more to do with money being owed, than books being published here & here .

Today, less than two months away from the launch of another digital comic book distribution system, known as Longbox we sat down and spoke with Brian Altounian CEO and President of Wowio, LLC. about the state of digital comics, its past, its future, and a bit more.

To be fair, I did not ask Brian about anything financial and have no updated knowledge, one way or another, regarding debts owed by wowio. As far as this blogger knows, they've all been paid, I simply mentioned them as they were the last public stories I remembered hearing about them...



Q.) Are you still owned by Platinum Studios?

No. Platinum acquired WOWIO in July of 2008 but has narrowed its focus this year to be strictly on its core film and television business. I personally formed a holding company that acquired 100% of WOWIO from Platinum on July 1 of this year.

Q.) How has that effected the evolution of wowio?

When it was acquired by Platinum, WOWIO’s business plan was changed to a more sustainable model. Initially, WOWIO was providing free downloads of books in an effort to bring a large readership and a broad mix of publishing partners with the hope of attracting advertising dollars. The problem was WOWIO was paying the publishers regardless of the existence of paying advertisers, a model that you can imagine was not sustainable.

We changed the model to allow publishers to set the price of a download so if the reader wanted to download the book, there would be a revenue event for the publisher even if the download was not sponsored with advertising. In addition, we created a web-browser reader that would allow for free online viewing of the material in its entirety.

We did this to answer our publishers’ requests to find a solution to the distribution “channel conflict” the publishers had in some territories, where digital downloads might conflict with their distribution deals. The added benefit to this browser reader is it expanded our readership globally as we now have readers from over 188 countries worldwide.

Q.) Can you speak to why you offer your content in the pdf format?

3 reasons:

1) Ownership. Unlike the agreements that other providers have with publishers and readers, we believe that the downloaded file of an electronic book should be owned by the reader and the delivery of an eBook as a pdf file provides that. Once the file is downloaded by the reader, we will not betray the relationship by wirelessly removing the file from the readers’ devices, unlike Amazon.

2) Ubiquity. A pdf file doesn’t require a designated device to download and view. Adobe is widely available as free downloadable software and pdf files can even be viewed on most handheld and wireless devices – this allows WOWIO books to be viewed by the largest amount of readers on the widest selection of devices.

3) Transmedia. At WOWIO, we believe that the wired, digital environment creates a new opportunity for a much more immersive and enriched reading experience. Additionally, pdf files have the capability of showcasing additional content within the file such as audio and video clips, as well as live web hyperlinks. We encourage our publishers to include additional content so the WOWIO eBook is NOT just an electronic version of a printed book but a richer experience.

An example of this is the WOWIO version of the public domain title “War of the Worlds” which, in addition to the full text from the novel and art from the original serial magazine release, it also has an audio clip of the 1937 radio broadcast of Orson Welles’ staging of the play, a newsreel video clip of Welles after he testified in front of congress and an additional audio clip of Orson Welles and author HG Wells discussing the impact of media on society – obviously, a much deeper experience than just reading the black and white text.

When the WOWIO ebook contains the equivalent of “DVD extras”, it becomes a differentiated product for the reader. Live hyperlinks throughout the text can also take the reader to online resources to extend the text as well. PDF files, downloaded by the reader, are currently the only eBook format to provide all of that capability.

Q.) Are there any plans to offer content in any other formats?

Yes we are exploring other formats for specific audiences that would extend the immersive experience even further, such as an audiobook format. We will have more to announce shortly.

Q) Would you say that wowio is in the comic book business? The periodical business? Something else entirely?

The print publishing business is experiencing unprecedented dropoffs in sales and distribution outlets for print material of all kinds such as comic books, graphic novels, books, newspapers, magazines and periodicals. While WOWIO remains one of the few outlets for the digital distribution of comic books, I still consider WOWIO to be in the content distribution business.

Our new motto at WOWIO is “Books. Evolved.” The internet has become both a resource for content and related material as well as a distribution channel – the smart approach would be to create an offering that takes advantage of that. We believe that the rich, immersive reading experience that WOWIO offers our readership is also a unique opportunity for our publishing partners to deliver content (and generate significant revenues) in a new and exciting way.

Q.) How would you define or classify "digital comics"? As a seperate entity from its paper counterpart? A part of an entire industry?

Well, since you now know my view on expanding the delivery of content to include audio/video, etc., you can imagine my sense of digital comics. I think there are a lot of variations of formats and functionalities that encompass the digital delivery of comics that it CAN be an extension of its print counterpart or contain enough additional content to be considered its own stand-alone version – either way, the delivery capability of the internet has created the opportunity for comics creators to reach a broader audience, which can include readers/viewers whose appetite for comic material may be entirely different from the traditional print comic book/graphic novel consumer. Feature film adaptations of comic material have already proven that notion throughout the years – in the end, it’s the storytelling appeal of the material that will sell.

Q.) What factors will those involved with digital comic books need to get a handle on, in order to see digital comics succeed into the future?

I am a firm believer and proponent of the Long Tail Theory ~wikipedia:The_Long_Tail that describes the amount of revenues that can be generated along a longer time frame, yielding substantial results for smaller players who can be innovative in their marketing efforts. Limited shelfspace among dwindling distribution outlets, as well as lower overall demand relative to the major players, make it nearly impossible for smaller, independent comics creators to sell their wares.

The same holds true for the digital comics creators. The key to success here, then, is the creative marketing efforts employed using viral marketing campaigns amid the various online social networks to reach as broad an audience as possible. A story, well told, will appeal to a large audience over a long period of time. The other element of the Long Tail theory relates to what we call “genre-slicing” – that is, fans of a particular genre of material will consume almost any content that fits within that category.

Horror fans will consume, share, discuss, and blog about books, movies, games, comic books, and digital comics within that horror genre. SO, I believe that digital comic creators will need to create a great story or series of stories, produce them in multiple formats to reach a broad audience, and then aggressively market them virally across online social networks and genre destination sites to reach their specific fan base, who will, in turn, add to their marketingefforts.

Q.) What sort of things does wowio have in store for us in the future?

Well, as I have mentioned, we are exploring additional media elements such as audiobook and other formats for our readers to broaden their collection of material. We are exploring new revenue-generating opportunities for our publishing partners. We are looking at new corporate sponsorships and we recently launched a new non-profit initiative that will expand our readership greatly. Look for new announcements to come out over the next couple of months.

---

Sounds like Wowio has a lot going on!
Thank you for your time Mr. Altounian!

Caine

The Tablet Revoluton

Digital Comics are making the news nearly every day now - Whether it's some new online only comic on Marvel's Digital Comics Unlimited site, another company putting their comics on the iPod or most recently, the huge support the comics media has given to LongBox. But so often, in the comments section of such articles you will encounter people complaining because they don't want to have to read their comics in front of the computer.

like this one from iFanboy.com

i appreciate this technology, i really do. but the same goes for comics as for books, i just can't read them on the computer. it's not comfortable, and it's strains my eyes more. now if they come out with a kindle like device them i'm all for it, as i do own a kindle and it's great for books, because it's most like paper. the same needs to be true for comics in order for me to switch.

Well, I understand that complaint, and today we are happy to provide news round up of some of the upcoming options for reading digital comics planned for 2010...

Dell MID/Tablet Device on the way?



Last we heard, Dell was secretly at work on a handheld / MID that would challenge the likes of the iPod touch, but it turns out it may also have its eye on the Kindle and the still emerging e-reader market, or the two may be one in the same -- or neither, but bear with us for a minute. According to Wired's Gadget Lab, Dell is looking to shake things up...ENDGADGET

iTablet to be unveiled in September?



Much of the speculation around an "iPad" -- a rumored 10" Apple tablet -- has portrayed it as an Amazon Kindle-killer or a large-screen iPod touch, but there's a strong case that such a product could effectively serve as a replacement for – or a compelling complement to -- Apple's non-platform sleeper Apple TV. Apple faces a dilemma in moving iPhone apps to a larger screen size or higher resolution. It must either scale them (ugly), ask developers....ENDGADGET

iRiver build an iPod Touch killer?



Put this one strictly in the rumor basket, but if the apparently loose-lipped product manager at iRiver's Australian distributor is to be believed, the Korean company has the iPod Touch, Amazon Kindle, and even Arrington's CrunchPad firmly in its sights.
Accordingy to Current.com.au the iRiver hopes to launch an Android-based iPod Touch rival next year, they also hope to soon test a new iRiver e-book reader and Internet tablet. Is a three-way Web Tablet Battlemodo between iRiver, the possible Apple tablet and the CrunchPad looming...... ...GIZMODO

Meanwhile, more details about the CrunchPad surface....

We’ve been working hard behind the scenes on the CrunchPad since our last update in April, and have just about nailed down the final design for the device. We’re showing the conceptual drawings here today. In another few weeks we’ll have the first working prototypes in our office.

This launch prototype is another significant step forward from the last prototype. The screen is now flush with the case and we’ve decreased the overall thickness to about...TECHCRUNCH

Barnes & Nobles teams up with Plastic Logic to counter Amazon's Kindle

It's not exactly an e-book reader of its own as previously rumored, but Barnes & Noble's announced an alliance with Plastic Logic in which it'll serve as the "exclusive eBookstore provider" to the long-in-development e-reader, which unless we're playing with semantics here means any and all digital literature...ENDGADGET

Sony revamps its eReaders

I guess Sony's been a little jealous of all the attention the Amazon Kindle e-readers have been getting lately. The company just announced two new portable Readers, the PRS-600 and 300, a.k.a. the Reader Touch (left) and Reader Pocket, respectively. The Touch, available...DVICE

Quite a selection of devices coming down the pike this year! It's no wonder Wired has declared 2010 the year of the Tablet. Currently, the iTablet has gone from an item of idle curiousity to one of the the biggest rumors floating the internet right now...

Analyst Predicts Apple Will Unleash Touchscreen Tablet Next Year
Rumor: $800 Apple Tablet Coming in October
Financial Times Confirms Apple Tablet for September
How an Apple Tablet Could Pit iTunes Against Amazon.com
Large-Screen Kindle Won’t Mean Squat if Apple Tablet Arrives
Rumor: 10-Inch Apple Tablet Landing in Early 2010
Rumor: Mac Tablet Coming Fall 2009

I for one would love to have any one of these, as long as they read comics in an established or new file format. I'll be keeping my eye on the "plastic", particularly its second version...

Have a great weekend,

Caine