iPad, the future of publishing & Digital Comics

 Ok, first off I don’t claim to be an “expert” on these subjects, but I do have some views, thoughts and opinions. Plus I’ve seen and read a fair amount of discussion, hype and downright propaganda about the wonders the iPad will bring us.

The first thing I’d like to touch on is what I see as the Pros and Cons of the iPad as it may reveal a few places Apple dropped the ball in my opinion, then I’ll get into some thought on how iPad may or may not change the publishing world including us comics people.

PROS:

1. The Screen, let’s face it, like the iPhone the screen is the biggest feature of this new device, it’s a good size, clean bright and we know how well the touch screen works.

2. Light Weight, nobody wants to tote around a heavy tablet.

3. Long Battery Life, supposedly it’ll run up to ten hours depending on what you’re using it for.

4. Loads of cool Apps in the iTunes store currently and you can be sure there will be more with this new device in mind.

5. Wireless and 3G Features, ya’ gotta be able to surf and tweet while at Starbucks right?

CONS:

1. Price, $ 499 for the entry model with only a 16 gig drive and it might not have wireless? Or $ 900 for upper end models for a bigger drive and wireless and 3G

2. The need to pay for monthly 3G service ($360 a year aprox) and if you have 3G on your iPhone too that’s a total of about $ 720 a year.

3. 3G tends to have a download cap (5 gig), go over and you pay a lot more.

4. No GPS ? really? You’re kidding right, like I don’t have need for GPS and Google Maps?

5. Bluetooth? Haven’t heard for sure if Bluetooth will be supported or not.

6. No USB Port, ok you can carry around a little doggle gizmo to hook up USB, but do you really want to carry yet another item?

7. No Camera, and no video camera either, unless I can port my iPhone into my iPad and have direct control over the phone’s camera and video then not having a camera sucks. But then having to a carry a cable to port the phone to the pad would suck too.

8. Touch Screen is nice but … I’d like the option of using a stylist too. iPhone’s in Asia have this option, why not here?

9. Only runs one App at a time, no multitasking here.

10. Can’t run off the shelf software, sure Apps will get bigger and better but you’ll be a slave to Apple’s approval and profit machine.

11. Still no FLASH support, how many web sites and web Ad companies use Flash? A million, two million, ten million?

12. No built in Kickstand to stand it upright for demos movie watching and other stuff.

13. It’s not a phone too? Why not? Why do I have to carry two devices instead of just one?

* Update, less that 24 hours after writing this article I've read rumors that Version 2 of the iPad may have not only a Camera, but maybe Video Phone capabilities as well. Visions of Star Trek devices come to mind.

I’m sure I could think of more Cons, but Apple didn’t claim the iPad was a “do it all device” or did they? … They did say it’s a revolutionary step forward. I don’t know, I guess while the iPad seems cool on the surface I expected a lot more. At the moment I think I’d rather spend the money on a decent Tablet Laptop with a Stylist.

So now that we’ve looked at the device itself, let’s look at how the iPad will or won’t change how we read (and maybe pay for) books, newspapers and maybe even comics.

I think most people have seen that print publishing world has been suffering losses in advertizing and newsstand sales revenue over the last few years and given the amount of information and news one can get for free online it shouldn’t be a surprise print papers are suffering. Newspapers and magazines alike need to look to revamp their concept of what publishing is and how they earn their revenue stream from it.

How this will be done at this point is anyone’s guess, some ideas have been the ability to add video to articles, link to secondary articles, custom or personalized news feeds, even designing your own digital news delivery into your on digital news paper. Another idea of course is paid subscriptions, but again with so much free information do you want to pay for a news subscription on top of say your monthly 3G bill?

Then there’s books … ok the iPad as a book reader just might be pretty cool, but maybe I’m too lazy or maybe I’m too busy I don’t know which it is, but I don’t read as much as some people. In fact I’ve found I enjoy audio books in some cases as I can work and improve my puny mind with a book at the same time.

But one problem is you can’t really search within an audio book like you can in most text based digital books and many instructional books require images to get certain points and ideas across. Maybe a good text reader that could read the book to me would work out for me .. but is this something that exists?

I know I’d love to have all the art and art instruction books I have in digital form, the space it would save me would be huge and the information would be much more handy anywhere I go.

I also think the way digital books are written would need to change, or maybe I just haven’t seen a digital book the way I envision they could be as of yet (I admit I haven’t seen too many).

I think the perfect digital book would be text you can read, search through, follow links within or out to other things, have static images that can be clicked to play animations or video, have some Podcast in it and of course have a text reader to read it to you.

Now digital comics I do know something about, I seen all sorts of them. I’ve seen digital comics that where little more that scanned or digitally created pages on CD, I seen early Flash based comics that made use of timed text balloons that would appear and disappear as it moved from panel to panel, some had voices and limited animation and of course there’s several types of “web comics”.

The latest incarnation seems to be “Motion Comics” which are type of videos containing comic book style panels with some limited animations, not unlike the older Flash type but generally pretty cool.

There’s also a new breed of digital comic reader app moves you panel to panel as you click or touch the screen, fairly simple, but a fun way to read a comic.

With all of these types of digital comics showing up the question has been asked, will printed retail comics and comic shops start running into the same problems of low sales like the magazine and newspaper publishers have?

While there’s no question the iPod changed the way many people buy music, I don’t think the iPad (or any other reader) will have that kind of impact on comics, at least not right away. That said; let me give you an example or two why I don’t think Digital Comics will replace print comics anytime soon.

Example One:

For a moment let’s say that one of the most expensive and collectable comics in the World .. Superman #1 .. had been created only as a digital comic for the iPad. Some fifty or sixty years later would the digital Superman #1 achieve the kind of value that the print version has?

I have to wonder how it could, printed comics fade, get lost, damaged or destroyed until there’s only a few rare copies left. A digital comic’s copies might get corrupted or deleted, but fresh pristine copies are always available, so how can it increase in value?

So I have to conclude that comic book collectors will want printed comics as for the moment there isn’t really a way for a digital comic to become rare and thus of value.

Example Two:

You’re at a comic book convention and of course you’ve got tons of your favorite comics on your iPad. So there you are meeting all your favorite artists … so how do they sign those digital comics for you? Do they sign your iPad?, is your iPad collectable now?, can you sell it for a profit ten years later?

Example Three:

Everyone’s given up on printing comics, everything is digital and you’re at the comic book convention again. This time you ask your favorite artist for a convention sketch, he says sure but he only does digital work, no paper, no pens, no ink, just digital.

So does he do an original sketch in some App on your iPad?, Does he do the sketch on his laptop and email it to your iPad? Does the sketch he just did for you have and cash value? Can it be sold? Will the artist sell more copies of it later? Does a purely digital piece of art have any value beyond what you paid for it?

A piece of artwork has the most value when it’s the only one and cannot be reproduced in its original form. So unless you can keep the one and only copy of a piece of digital art on ONLY your iPad or whatever forever you’ll end up making a copy of it sooner or later and by doing so take the chance of decreasing its value.

So these are my thoughts on the subjects of iPads, digital media and digital comics at the moment, but only the future will show if I’m right or just a dummy.

Meanwhile the question remains, is the iPad cool, will it ignite digital book sales, can it resurrect the publishing game, can it save the Universe?  I guess my answer is, not yet. While the iPad might be somewhat cool I just don't feel the urge to run right out and buy one. But on the other hand if someone wants to give me one I’ll be happy to experiment with it.

-- gWebber