Left to our own devices: More iPad reactions

January 31, 2010 | Posted by Brigid

PC Weenies surveys the landscape

Kirk Warren has a nice iPad 101 article at The Weekly Crisis, although I disagree with his contention that Marvel and DC are comics; I think this just opens up a new space for other publishers.

Kiel Phegley talks to IDW’s director of ePublishing, Jeff Webber, about what they have learned so far from their digital experiences. He pointed out one problem with marketing comics on the iPhone: The lack of a comics category in the iTunes store. The Sony PSP, however, which puts comics front and center, has become a surprisingly strong channel.

It looks like Apple will sell e-books on the iPad via its iBookstore, and five publishers are in on the ground floor: Penguin, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, and Hachette Book Group. It looks like this only covers books, not magazines and periodical comics.

The iPad will use an already existing standard, ePUB, for its e-books; this has been around for a while, and Sony uses it for the eBook, but when David Rothman tried to use it for a graphic novel a while back, it didn’t work so well. (Via Yen Plus Info, which is speculating on whether Yen Press will be making its books available on the iPad.)

Teacher Chris Wilson foresees some interesting improvements that will make it more useful for students.

ComiXology has a concept video for how its comics might work on the iPad.

What about webcomics? Laura Hudson asks webcomic creators what they think, and the answers were somewhere between a yawn and a shrug.

nemu-nemu creator Scott Yoshinaga has some thinks you need to try it out before judging.

A few non-comics links: At Mediabistro, Todd Ogasawara thinks the iPad will be good for e-books in general—yes, even Amazon. And he weighs the Android tablet as a possible alternative. Gizmodo checks out all the iPad alternatives.

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