Digital Comics

by Bruce Lidl

With the Google I/O developer conference taking place, it was a big week for Google, with a series of announcements touching on a number of their business initiatives. Maybe the biggest is the release of their Nexus 7 tablet device. Built by Taiwanese hardware manufacturer ASUS but sporting the latest version of the Android operating system (“Jelly Bean” or 4.1), the Nexus 7 is Google’s first serious foray into the tablet space, and in hardware generally. Apple’s dominance in the tablet space with the iPad remains essentially unchallenged right now, and the Nexus 7 is not likely to change that significantly, but it does demonstrate that Google, like Microsoft and Amazon, with their Surface and Kindle Fire tablets respectively, is not going to surrender the space just yet.

So now we know that Kindle exclusive is really OVER, as DC has officially announced that DC graphic novels will be available for B&N's Nook. The comics, which include the 100 favorite such as WATCHMEN as well as the new launch of New 52 collections, will be readable in a new "Zoom View" format—which is B&N's version of comiXology's guided view.

We told you about the now Legendary webcomic The Oatmeal having an amazingly sarcastic response to a threatening legal letter and starting a charitable fundraiser. Then we told you that the lawyer who sent the initial letter decided to sue Matthew Inman (of The Oatmeal), the charities he was planning on donating to, and Indiegogo (which he was using as a fundraising tool.) If you thought the strangest was over, this affair has done nothing but snowball since then. Yes, while following the links spinning out of this story, I came across Batman's point ears in a place I really wasn't expecting to see them. We'll get to that in due course.

Disney comics is a complicated topic. Disney bought Marvel, but the BOOM! had some of their licenses. BOOM! lost the licenses, but Marvel didn't exactly come charging out of the gate with a lot of Disney titles. If you were paying attention to job listings, you'd also see Disney was hiring comics editors and digital comics people for their publishing office in White Plains (which is about to move to Burbank). It looks like we're seeing their first product: the "Brave Interactive Comic."

Add another player to the growing list of digital comic app providers. Madefire has been in skunkworks mode for probably a year, hiding out in Berkley . Last fall I bumped into one of their executives at a tech event and after hearing his description, it was pretty obvious this was what Liam Sharp had been setting up. Boy, did his eyes pop out when I said "oh, so this is the new Mamtor." And, if we're honest, this is Liam Sharp taking his Mamtor concept (which was a perfectly reasonable idea) and moving it into a more independent format.

Actor Thomas Jane is a nerdlebrity we give a pass to because he's definitely a real comics fan, and gets choked up talking about Jack Kirby and was pals with Dave Stevens and so on. His Raw Studios production company (which is co-owned by Tim Bradstreet)has just partnered with Comixology for digital release of Raw's comics, and to promote it he's doing a pretty cool thing on twitter.

Last week, we told you about the webcomic, The Oatmeal getting sued for defamation and The Oatmeal's hilarious response. I was also wondering what the response of the lawyer filing the suit was going to be. He's suing the American Cancer Society and the National Wildlife Foundation. Oh, yes. This just got even stranger and it's making some waves in legal circles.

Today's Kindle app update for both iOS and Android has received little notice inside the comics world, but it now includes comics and children's books.

Bryan Q. Miller's comic-book continuation of the Smallville series brings a few familiar people face-to-face with Tom Welling

The Oatmeal is a well known webcomic that crosses over into mainstream coverage with some regularity. And that's happened again. The short version is: some time ago, The Oatmeal had a dust up with a website called "FunnyJunk" over a bunch of The Oatmeals comics having been appearing on that site without authorization. Roughly a year later, FunnyJunk has sent a letter from a lawyer wanting $20K for defamation to avoid a lawsuit. Suffice it to say, The Oatmeal is a bit incredulous.

iVerse is tweaking their Comics+ app and is in the middle of a roll-out of some new features and a little rebranding.

DC is making a bigger leap into the digital comics space... tomorrow (6/7/12). They're starting an original series of weekly Batman digital comics, titled "Legends of the Dark Knight." The $0.99 comics will be out of continuity adventures, with each issue debuting on Thursday. They aren't skimping on the creative teams, either.