Techno/Marketing/Creative Gun For Hire
If I didn’t see it for myself I might think it wasn’t true, but there is indeed a new comic book featuring Sarah Palin in a Steampunk adventure. You could create a lot of different comics with Sarah Palin, but somehow the Steampunk genre fits well. I don’t think I’ll get or read the comic mostly because I don’t want to add any more monitory value to her name in any way even in jest. Still, I think it’s cool.
What feels like a very long time ago, and maybe it has been, I started a project inspired by Julien Smith to read a book a week for the year. I love this goal and was very excited to take on the challenge. I am a bit embarrassed to have to report to you now that I have fallen down greatly on the goal. I have many excuses and here are some of them. The move was a killer of course. After packing all day and dealing with the general stress of closing the house deal and moving out, I was left exhausted by the end of the day. That’s really the main reason and once you take your eye off the ball, it’s pretty much all over.
That’s not to say I haven’t been reading at all. The second reason for my shortcoming is that I have become obsessed with comics and graphic novels. I have been reading alot actually, just about every day, but not traditional books. I have been absorbing comics as fast as I can get them. It all started for me with The Walking Dead, a fantastic black and white zombie/end of the world comic that is now going to be a series on AMC television. It’s a super compelling and addictive book and it drew me in to the whole larger world of comics where I have found several series I am loving. Here are a few of the things I am reading thus far.
The Walking Dead: Much better than your traditional zombie comic. Plenty of violence and gore, but a real human element to the story is the main driver.
The Unwritten: A interesting comic that’s hard to explain. A writer of children’s books much like the Harry Potter series has gone missing. His son is often mistaken for the lead character in the books and the words themselves seem to have a power to them. His son is basically trying to figure out who is after him and why and what is the mystery surrounding his father.
Transmetropolitan: Spider Jeruselem is a disaffected journalist who rails against the system with his column. Partially psychotic and often out of control, this is an adventure into urban decay, politics and other social commentary.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Who knew! Joss Whedon himself continues the story from right where the tv series ended. This is the actual continuing story of Buffy but in comic form. I actually like it better as a comic.
This is only a short list. There are many others and several one off graphic novels I have read as well. I don’t know how to classify these as they are not traditional books and they are so short in their single issue forms. What I will do it call it even. For the past few months I have not technically posted a book a week, I will consider all my comics as time served. And we will start again from this week (yesterday).
I hope you are doing well with your own book a week project. Don’t give up, the year is young!
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=2de629d0-2009-41a2-966c-bd6072858da4)
I’ve been saying this for awhile now, comic books on the Apple iPad are a massive opportunity. The large color screen is perfect for this kind of content. I would even argue that it’s a big strategic advantage the iPad has over the Amazon Kindle. The Kindle is the perfect device for black and white books with it’s superior e-ink display but when it comes to content like comics or color magazines, the iPad can do things the Kindle can only dream of. As a comic book lover, I’m pretty excited about the possibility of comics on the iPad and I would seriously consider getting one if for no other reason than to read comics.
There are indications now that Amazon may try to make a new Kindle with color and multi-touch technology, bringing it much closer to an iPad. I think it’s very dangerous for Amazon to rush headlong into a competition with Apple on their own turf. Maybe the smart play is to remain the dominant player in black and white e-ink technology and let Apple have the rest. Amazon’s strength has always been traditional black and white books, not magazines or comics. Here’s an even smarter play, make a full iPad version of the Kindle reader. Amazon needs to remember their focus, they are a bookstore not a hardware manufacturer. By making a great Kindle reader for the iPad, they stand to sell more books from their online bookstore, even possibly cutting into Apple’s store.
2010 will be THE year of the tablet computer as Sony has also said they want to enter this market. No doubt there will be others. 2010 could also be THE year traditional publishing makes the turn to digital distribution. People have been predicting the death of traditional publishing for years now. These new tablet machines go a long way to bringing that prediction to pass.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=dbf87d5c-aa0f-4445-837c-aca1fa18ea79)
Image via Wikipedia
One of the things I truly love about these stores is that they are so niche and the staff really knows there stuff. It reminds me of small, independent book stores of old. Today, the small bookstore is all but gone, replaced by the megastores. These stores are huge and cater to the masses. The staff is friendly enough but you’re really not going to be able to get down into an in depth conversation about a particular kind of book and what they recommend. No fault on them, it’s the nature of the beast. But comic book stores are small and dedicated to a particular crowd and the staff really knows their comics which they are happy to talk about. At the same time, I found no snobbery or ill will toward newcomers. There is a passion and excitement at these stores and that breads sales.
Comic stores are also unique in that they specialize in a product that has not yet been duplicated digitally. With all the fancy eBook readers and web tablets, no one has produced a device that can replicate a full color comic in all it’s glory. This puts them in a better position than the rest of the publishing industry which is daily being eaten alive by digital technology.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=3ea5b830-f8ab-40c9-a6ef-ca2e0dc21651)
Recent Comments