Comments on: Reading Comics on the Phone: Hexed on the G1

By: Alex

Alex — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 20:52:40 +0000

Looks good on T-Mobile G1.

By: Best Price Point for Digital Comics? « Speed Force

Best Price Point for Digital Comics? « Speed Force — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 18:35:59 +0000

[...] we’re talking comics chopped up for small-screen viewing (iPhone, for instance), then I would prefer free with ads. Unless a story is initially designed for [...]

By: Blocking the Impulse Buy: Shazam, Amazon MP3 Store and Android | K-Squared Ramblings

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 02:00:35 +0000

[...] to be downloaded over WiFi. WTF? I had a strong 3G signal, and I’ve downloaded large apps (iVerse’s comics and some games are on the order of 5 MB, comparable to a song in MP3 format) over 3G before. Sure, [...]

By: ryan

ryan — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 17:14:31 +0000

Wondering when hexed 2 will hit the market. Can’t figure out why it hasn’t already since the paid service is out and the hardcopy has already hit the shelves. I thought they would have been prepared to launch 2. Maybe they are waiting until 1 hits a critical number of downloads?
Hoping for a price point of $1 but would probably pay $2 for a good series. 3 or 4 $ purchases would be infrequent.

By: Kelson

Kelson — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 07:32:56 +0000

I think long term this approach is going to be better suited for content that’s geared toward the form factor. I can think of plenty of comics that wouldn’t convert very well at all just because of the panel layouts.

I’m not sure how convenient zooming would be though. The G1 does something similar to the iPhone with websites (though most of the time it adjusts the layout to fit), but instead of pinching gestures, it has a couple of spots on the screen that you hold to zoom in or out. (Rumor has it they did it this way to avoid getting into a patent war with Apple, since the hardware is perfectly capable of multi-touch gestures). I think for reading a whole issue’s worth of comics, it would be a lot easier to just keep swiping in one direction to turn the “page” than zig-zagging or zooming in and out continually.

It would be a good way to handle splash pages, though.

(sorry if I’m incoherent, I’m just up waaay too late for the 3rd night in a row.)

By: West

West — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 20:23:39 +0000

Interesting. I get what you mean about the panel-by-panel pro’s and con’s. I’m surprised it’s not handled more like websites (apparently) are on iPhones. You can see the big picture, from the start, then choose the areas you’d like to focus on with a finger gesture or two.

I’m guessing there’s something within the standards of web architecture that makes those types of browsers work that way, so I guess that’d make mobile comics more difficult to produce (or not).

Personally, I’d be fine with just viewing the individual pages like any other jpeg, zooming and panning as necessary, with a few simple gestures. That way the comics, themselves, could still be made pretty simply.

At any rate, it’s an interesting development of which I was completely unaware. So, thanks.

By: Hexed #1 on » Comics Worth Reading

Hexed #1 on » Comics Worth Reading — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 01:43:38 +0000

[...] #1 is the first comic available on the Google Android platform (running on the T-Mobile G1). Kelson Vibber reviews it, with screenshots. Great writeup, pointing out a couple of key issues: how do you manage [...]