Digital Comics

Best known for his hectic DRAGONBALL series, Akira Toriyama is probably one of the most successful cartoonists of all time. His first big hit was DR. SLUMP, a slapstick humor strip about an inventor who creates a little girl robot who is hopelessly naive about the world. Hijinks ensue. Hijinks that anyone who likes FAMILY GUY will appreciate. This is not sophisticated humor but it is energetic, wildly imaginative cartooning at the highest level. It's also world building in the classic McCloudian-approved way, with the setting of Penguin Village, like Springfield or Mr Roger's Neighborhood, a friendly place filled with colorful characters.

At his panel tonight at C2E2, Mark Waid revealed the details of his ambitious new Thrillbent digital comics portal. It's a new entrant in the original digital comics race, but one with some heavy hitting talent behind it—in addition to Waid, John Rogers is a founder, and artist Peter Krause, who previously teamed with Waid for IRREDEEMABLE, will be collaborating on a new strip with him.

Since the story broke in USA Today, DC has put out a press release with more information on their new original digital comics, which you can read below, but the short version is that the Ami-Comi comics, in addition to being written by Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti, will be drawn by the following artists:

DC has finally pulled the trigger on their long-gestating original digital comics line, USA Today tells us. Several new projects are going to launch in addition to today's launch for SMALLVILLE SEASON 11, by Bryan Q. Miller and the ongoing BATMAN BEYOND and BATMAN: ARKHAM UNHINGED webcomics. Here's what's new:

Marvel continues to pull out all the stops for promoting Avengers Vs. X-Men. If you've been on Facebook, particularly if you've been playing the Marvel: Avengers Alliance game, you may have noticed some comic book down the right hand side of the page. Ads that look like these:

And so the orphan comics begin...one of the three most prominent comics reading apps is getting out of the app business, as Graphicly has just announced they're focusing on transitioning all kinds of material— not just comics—into ebook format for tablets. You can read the whole announcement below, but basically all of the books your purchased through Graphicly apps will still be readable—you just won't be able to download the apps any more. That leaves comiXology and iVerse in the comics app business...for now. Ebooks are a huge and growing market and lots of print publishers are trying to get their products into the new platforms. Graphicly has been moving more and more into offering self-authoring tools, so it all seems like a natural progression. And where does this leave such comics-centric acquisitions as iFanboy? Developing...

The internet is crossing international lines! Or at least it is with 2000 AD, the essential UK anthology, which will soon be available digitally only 2 days after it hits UK newsstands. Not quite day and date but better than the two weeks it takes physical copies to get to the US. Copies can be purchased at 2000 AD's own store; subscriptions can be purchased via Clickwheel. In addition, 2000 AD publisher Rebellion is working on their own digital comics platform for later this year.

ComiXology's collection of media mavens continues with the addition of Peter Levin to the advisory board. Levin is the CEO of Nerdist Industries, and has worked with Nikki Finke and the Angry Birds in the past. Other advisory board members include ICv2 CEO Milton Griepp, former DC publisher Jenette Kahn, and former ZDNet head Jeff Ballowe. So as you can see, this advisory board doubtless has a lot of advice.

Once upon time there was a webcomic called Goats. It was reasonably popular, to the point Del Rey published three print collection. Then the dark shadow of despair passed over Goats.

After braving the (for Southern California) biblical rain storms in getting from San Diego to Anaheim, I rushed past the bewildered cheerleaders and volleyball players to make what was promised as a panel full of pyrotechnics.  Mark Waid versus David Steinberger of comiXology over the appropriate price point for digital comics.  Same as print?  An iTunes like $0.99 flat price for everything?  Somewhere in between?

Andy Ihnatko has a new iPad and he also has a beta of comiXology's new app optimized for the new retinal display and he says it rocks. Not only that, but comiXology will be upgrading all of its offerings to the HD format...FREE.

Mark Waid has been teasing his upcoming webcomics project(s) for a little while now. The same stuff that got him involved with this digital Nova comic Marvel's putting out in relation to Avengers Vs. X-Men. As of today, you can download a free sample of his upcoming format.