Touched. Comics for the iPhone generation.
One of my first memories of ‘owning’ content and dare I say interacting with it – was when me and my sister were granted a comic allowance!
I was a Beezer Boy… and well… my Sister (tom boy that she was) was a Beano Boy (later to convert to Buster – I think all comics in the 70s/80s had to begin with a B)!
This was a highly engaging weekly experience – which began with the sound of the heavy(ish) sound of our comics arriving through the letter box! Swiftly followed by a sprint and high chance of carpet burn!
You might get a free gift (a ‘parp’ whistle!), and you would quickly flick through to read this edition’s story from your favourite character! Easily digested, on demand (well… once a week through subscription) entertainment!
Just as everything else has evolved considerably in the 25 years (ouch) which have passed – comics are about to be given a new lease of life.
Marvel Entertainment will begin selling digital ‘In-Motion’ comic books through iTunes, it was announced yesterday at the Digital Media panel at New York Comic Con. The new digital model of storytelling has been created to satisfy the changing scope of media to new technologies and will feature panels that animate scenes and add spoken dialog from voice actors.
Although I’m sure the feeling of excitement which was sparked by that papery thud on the doormat will not be achieved by the download status bar – I’m pretty confident that combining rich content around nostalgic comic book layouts and devices with Apple’s ‘Touch’ interface will deliver a brilliant experience for today’s kids (and adults!).
Category: Culture, Mobile, user experience 2 comments »
February 11th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Interesting – though I’m not sure what comic book purists will make of it.
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It’s a whole new medium really, rather than just a digitised comic; animated scenes and audio makes an interesting contrast to traditional comics…
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On one hand there’s arguably a more immersive experience, sound being something that can make the difference between (literally) just looking and really being involved with something, but on the other you’re losing a lot of the draw of physical comics. The feel; the texture; the manual turning of pages…
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I saw a great talk by Andy Clarke last year about comics where he made the point that some of the most important events, the ones that really draw readers in – the ones where the interaction takes place between comic and reader – take place between frames. The empty spaces are where your imagination takes over, whether you’re reading Watchmen or the Beano – you decide how characters move, how they sound, how they get from one place to another…
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Are these new comics a bad thing? Surely not – but the next time you’re watching/reading/listening to your multiplex, multimedia all-singing, all-dancing super-comic in eye-blistering 3D HD, take a second to remember those blank bits of paper that really made you think.
June 14th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
Never bought the Beano or Beezer as a kid much, though me and my brother used to get the Beezer Annual every year, my son gets the Beano now, some old classics in there but lots of new characters that I don’t really like the art on !!