This could be the first e-reader device suitable for simply taking comics formatted for the printed page and transferring them to a tablet. No need to break it down and show one panel at a time like most iPhone or Android comics. No need to zoom and pan. Just transfer the whole page.

Sure, it’s only black and white, but there are plenty of comics produced in B&W, or reformatted for printing in cheap collections like Marvel Essentials or DC’s Showcase Presents series.

Imagine 30 years of Justice League of America or Spider-Man in the space of the latest trade.

The only drawback is the steep price tag: at $489, I’m not picking one up anytime soon.

(Reposted from Speed Force)

I figured, hey, this one’s free, why not check it out?

Finding and Downloading

The first problem I had was finding it. But that’s mostly the fault of the Android Market, which can only be browsed by hierarchy and sorted by date or popularity. Fortunately, there’s a search function, so I just searched for “Hexed” and it turned up immediately.

It took a while to download even over 3G, so I let it sit and came back to it when I had time to take a break.

Reading the Comic

They’ve taken the comic and broken it up more-or-less panel by panel, turning it into a slideshow presentation that you scroll through by swiping your fingers along the touch screen.

It actually works surprisingly well, especially with the default transition effect of “slide,” which matches your finger’s movement. (They also have “fade” and “deck” transitions — deck has the appearance of sliding a card off of the top of a deck to reveal the next card beneath it.)

To jump around, there’s a navigation slider that you can bring up from the menu. You can scroll along the slider, or pop out the keyboard and type in a specific panel number. Unfortunately, there’s no preview of the panel you’ve selected until you hit OK.

Drawbacks

Screen size is going to be a problem, as least with translating comics from print. As long as we’re making devices you can stick in your pocket or on a belt holster, there’s only so big you can make the screen. That works fine when you have, say, 6 panels on a page, because they’ll break up easily and word balloons are still going to be readable. But splash pages? They’ll lose their impact, plus they may have to be reformatted to keep dialogue and narration legible.

There was one spot in Hexed #1 where the formatting did end up being a problem: it was a double-wide panel broken up into two in which the character on the right spoke first, so I had to shift back and forth a couple of times for follow the conversation properly.

This won’t be an issue for comics designed for the mobile audience, though, and iVerse is seeking submissions for new comics.

What’s Next?

I mentioned the problems with finding Hexed #1 in the Android Market. I’m kind of hoping that Google will at some point either add some new ways to browse on an Android device, or set up a website that you can use from a desktop the way you can browse iPhone apps through iTunes.

Following up on that, what about subsequent issues? Android will notify you when updates to your installed apps become available. But Hexed #2 isn’t really an update to Hexed #1, is it? Suppose you have ten series that you’re following through your phone? How do you find out when the next issue is available? Or will they treat each series as a single application, with updates adding the content from each new issue?

It seems like each issue is being treated as a separate app, which brings up another potential pitfall: clutter. At present, all of your app launchers display as icons in a single alphabetically-sorted grid. Imagine having to scroll past a block of 10 or more issues of a series every time you want to launch something that doesn’t have a shortcut on your desktop!

This may not be the case, as if I go into Settings/Manage Applications, it displays as “Comic Viewer” rather than “Hexed #1,” but that may simply mean that when more comics are available, they’ll show up as additional copies of Comic Viewer.

Since I started adding news items to the front page of Ride the Lightning, it’s started to get a bit crowded. I thought about converting it to a del.icio.us feed, but then I realized it really ought to be a blog. There hasn’t been a major Flash-focused blog out there since Crimson Lightning shut down, so I figured I’d step in and fill the gap. And I could use the domain I picked up last year!

I’ll be posting Flash-related news there, including a weekly round-up of Flash comics, as well as articles that might not fit into the existing site structure, and (eventually) reviews as well. Some stuff that I would have posted here will end up on the new site. Certainly Flash news, but I may start shifting more comics-related commentary over there as well.

I’ll be refining the look and features over the next couple of weeks, and cross-linking it more into Ride the Lightning. I might keep the current theme with a few tweaks, or I might try to match Ride the Lightning, or I might build something else entirely.

So please, check it out and let me know what you think! I’m open to suggestions as to content, design, etc. And of course bug reports.

Monthly or More (ongoing):

• Flash (DC)
• Fallen Angel (IDW, formerly DC)
• Fables (Vertigo)
• Countdown to Final Crisis (DC)
• Noble Causes (Image)
• Dynamo 5 (Image)
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Dark Horse)

Bimonthly, Less Frequently, or on Hiatus:

• Planetary (WildStorm, one more issue)
• Desolation Jones (WildStorm)
• All-Star Superman (DC)
• Astro City (WildStorm)
• Book of Lost Souls (Icon)

Mini-Series

• Salvation Run (DC)
• Countdown To Adventure (DC)
• Teen Titans Year One (DC)

Waiting for Trades:

• Powers (Icon, formerly Image)
• A Distant Soil (Image)
• Girl Genius (Studio Foglio)
• Freshmen (Top Cow)

Still heavily weighted DC over Marvel. 10 of 19 are either DC or an imprint (WildStorm & Vertigo), and one book started at DC. Both Marvel books are Icon, their imprint for creator-owned books. One is on hiatus and one is sporadic. Of the 7 books with a regular schedule, 3 are DC, and one of those is weekly. Plus I’m more likely to pick up crossovers or events from DC than from another company—see Salvation Run, for instance (though I’m mainly buying it for the Rogues, who were the viewpoint characters in issue #1 but strangely absent from #2.) So DC is still getting the bulk of my comics budget.

Very little shared universe stuff. Of the 5 DCU books, 3 are mini-series (4 if you include Countdown), and one of those is a flashback. No Marvel or Ultimates. Just two Image and one WildStorm universe (and that’s only got one issue left).

I’m also thinking I might drop All-Star Superman. While it’s certainly a more entertaining read than other books, I realized that I don’t really care about it.

What’s changed since my last post at the end of 2004?

Added: Desolation Jones, Dynamo 5, A Distant Soil, All-Star Superman, Book of Lost Souls, Freshmen, Buffy, Countdown, Countdown to Adventure, Teen Titans Year 1, Salvation Run.
Dropped: Teen Titans, Outsiders, Astonishing X-Men, Squadron Supreme
Ended: Tellos, Forsaken, Ocean (mini), Rising Stars
Tried: Shadowpact, Jack of Fables, Beyond Avalon, Justice Society of America, Jack Cross, Fell, Wonder Woman
Came and went: Infinite Crisis (and all 5 lead-ins), Seven Soldiers, Secret Six, 52; Otherworld, The Atheist, The Stardust Kid, Mnemovore, Eternals, Elric: Making of a Sorceror, New Spring, Neverwhere, several Angel & Spike minis

It’s interesting to note that all the books I’ve dropped were “big two” super-hero team books. And aside from Infinite Crisis and 52, most of the series that launched and ended weren’t standard super-her books. Seven Soldiers would be the closest.

Goyer has long experience with super-heroes, having written or co-written Batman Begins, two of the Blade films and the TV show, the second Crow movie, and even did a long stretch on the JSA comic with Geoff Johns. Levy is best known for Night at the Museum and the remake of Cheaper by the Dozen. Dobkin? Wedding Crashers and Fred Claus.

I’m getting the feeling Warner Bros. doesn’t take the character seriously, despite their protestations.

Of note: The film is now being billed as a spin-off of the Justice League of America movie that’s getting lots of press right now. And while JLA apparently features Barry Allen, Dobkin stated the solo outing will definitely feature Wally West. Draw your own conclusions.

Also of note: MTV’s post uses a section of the cover for the Terminal Velocity trade paperback (shown at left), drawn by the late Mike Wieringo.

More info: Flash Movie page at Flash: Those Who Ride the Lightning.

#3.  Flash: Wally West
#29. Flash: Barry Allen
#41. Flash: Jay Garrick
#42. Kid Flash/Impulse: Bart Allen (tied with Bizarro)

Master list of all winners. Profiles of all four Flashes (and dozens of fill-in, alternate, and one-offs) at Flash: Those Who Ride the Lightning.

I’ve toyed with the idea of separating out all the Flash stuff from this blog and creating a dedicated comics blog. I’ve also thought about renaming the site, Flash: Those Who Ride the Lightning (it’s an awkward name*, no matter how you slice it), though it’s got enough mindshare that I’d rather just simplify it to “Ride the Lightning.”

Any suggestions?

*Come to think of it, I have a history of picking names that seem perfect at the time, only turn out to be awkward later on. The Alternative Browser Alliance seemed like the perfect name, but I got so sick and tired of typing www.alternativebrowseralliance.com that I registered altbrowser.net just so I could use it more easily.

From Showcase #13, it’s “Around the World in 80 Minutes,” a tale of the Flash. (Mostly he runs around the world, helps people out, and gets kissed by women. Aye, it be good to be a superhero.)

(Cover via GCD. This story appears in Showcase Presents: The Flash vol.1 and The Flash Archives vol.1.)

Are there more Legion, Flash or Justice League Archives coming? [VP of Sales Bob] Wayne said that when you get up to the issues that can be affordably bought by collectors the demand for the Archive Editions goes down.

Okay, this might apply to the Silver-Age material. The four Flash Archives books so far are up to Flash #132 (1962). When I was tracking down back-issues in the #133–140 range (the likely contents of a hypothetical book 5) about 6 or 7 years ago, I seem to remember finding reasonably good copies in the $5-15 range. (Better copies, of course, run into triple digits.)

But there’s still 8 years of Golden-Age material to cover, from 1942–1949: more than 75% of Jay Garrick’s solo run. And those books are much harder to find, with battered readers’ copies often selling for $40–150.

Moreover, those 8 years include the first appearances of every major Golden-Age Flash villain. The current 2 volumes of The Golden Age Flash Archives only make it through Flash Comics #24 and All-Flash #2. The Shade, the first real supervillain to grace the series’ pages, didn’t appear until Flash Comics #33. The Fiddler, the Thinker, the Turtle, the Rag Doll—even the original Rose & Thorn and Star Sapphire all made their appearances during those years, and haven’t shown up in the archives yet.

In fact, the only Golden-Age villain to get the archive treatment for his original appearances is the Rival, who showed up in Flash Comics #104 (the final issue of the series), and whose story was (oddly) included in the silver-age Flash Archives vol. 1.

Even when you factor in the golden-age stories that got reprinted in later Flash books, the “Greatest Stories” collections, and the occasional anthology series like DC Super-Stars, 75% of the stories have never been reprinted* since the 1940s.

I’ve been looking for Golden-Age issues for almost 2 years now, and by focusing on All-Flash (which typically included 3–4 short stories or 1 long one), I’ve managed to hit 50%. It’s gotten harder, largely because I’m less willing to pay the big bucks for random issues than for issues with specific characters.

Now, there is of course a question of whether there’s a demand for the material at all…but when a beat-up reader’s copy of a book goes for more than the archive would cost on Amazon, I’d say there’s no risk that the availability of back issues will interfere with the market for the archive.

(Expanded from a comment I made in the subsequent forum thread.)

*104 stories in Flash Comics, 1 in the Flash Comics Miniature edition, 29 in Comic Cavalcade, 71 stories in 32 issues of All-Flash, 3 completed but unpublished until years later = 208 total. Of those, 32 have appeared in the GA Flash and Comic Cavalcade Archives, 1 in the Silver Age Flash Archives, and another 16 in various other books. Just 49 out of 208. Only 23.5% It’s a little harder to go by issues instead of stories, since some issues of All-Flash have only partially been reprinted, but it seems to be roughly 41 out of 169 — which works out to 24.3%.

The book ran for just 4 issues about 5 years ago, plus a few more short stories that appeared elsewhere. It’s about a trio of unlikely roommates: the human Katie, the angel Halo, and the robot Sprocket. More precisely, it’s about the different ways they each look at the world. Sprocket is intensely logical, Halo brings a spiritual perspective, and Katie’s humanity manages to perplex both of them no end. Each story is stand-alone, suitable for kids or adults, and a wonderful mix of insightful and drop-down funny.

The website has several stories online. Comics Worth Reading has a review of the first collection, Halo and Sprocket: Welcome to Humanity, which I highly recommend.

I was really disappointed when the series just stopped a few years ago, and I’m very glad to see that there’s going to be more.