Apple’s iPad “will rise or fall on content. If Steve Jobs can get a bunch of cool books and apps on the thing, we’ll want one. If not, we won’t,” Jon Fortt writes for Fortune.
“Where will His Steveness get some of those books? I say the same place he’s gotten so many movies and TV shows for iTunes in the past: Disney,” Fortt writes. Remember that “in 2006, when Disney bought Pixar for $7.4 billion, turning Jobs into the Mouse House’s largest individual shareholder.”
“But wait! You say. Disney isn’t exactly a major book publisher,” Fortt writes. “Oh, yes it is. Disney just bought Marvel, remember?”
Fortt writes, “By bringing comics and graphic novels to the iPad, Apple will not only attract a loyal geek fan base that loves the medium. It will also offer an experience that Amazon, Sony and others in the e-ink e-book crowd can’t even approximate: Immersive graphics, in full color.”
Full article here.
Vaneta Rogers reports for Newsarama, “With Apple’s announcement of their new iPad device, the comics industry is abuzz with the potential for digital comics.”
“Newsarama contacted artists, writers and executives at a variety of comic book publishers to find out their reaction to the news, and their thoughts on how it will affect comic books,” Rogers reports.
The extensive full article is here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Joel” for the heads up.]
Rebellion, please bring 2000AD to the iPad. I will buy a subscription immediately and forever.
It would be huge to get my manga fix on the ipad… i could see Viz media being a major conduit of legal translations …. hmmm, very cool possibilities. You could also then see the anime versions of your favorite manga by then flipping to to the web browser. Furthermore, i could see some comics on the iPad going viral via some big Comicon announcement.
I wonder how far comics (among other printed material outside of books) are going to go on the iPad, when people find out they’re going to need to buy a separate comic reader app from each comic publisher?
One for Marvel titles, one for DC titles, etc., etc.
Or comic publishers are going to have to host their titles on their websites where readers (viewers?) will read them via the iPad browser.
Because iBooks is strictly for books. Not comics, not magazines, not newspapers.
What? R2 isn’t here yet?
Let me steal his shtick. “You won’t be able to listen
to Pandora while enjoying the adventures of the
Hulk”
With Disney purchasing Marvel a few months back, I would think Disney’s largest shareholder might have an idea or two that might help grow a new ‘magical’ revenue stream for the company.
Sounds great. But here’s my concern for that industry – this dramatically increases the risk of ‘pirated’ content. And I would suspect that the comic book market could be worse than any other. The reasons?
1. Small medium size.
2. Completely ‘Grab’able (as in the Grab application). Anything that shows on your display is copyable with just a snap. And grabbing an image or sheet of images is a lot easier than copying a sound or video clip.
3. High cost per unit (comic book costs are approaching $4.00 for not many pages of content).
4. Tendency for comic book readers to be computer, tech, and piracy savvy (after all, where do you think many of them are getting their music?).
What am I overlooking?
@Grrrilla
The fact that guns can kill has not impacted their sales.
It’s not the device, it’s what people use it for.
Gun buyers are kill-savvy. They use images of humans for target practice after all.
To some extent, piracy is encouraged. MS turned a blind eye to it until they achieved dominance and then they got tough, but they still left enough holes there for the determined to get in and pirate their products. Piracy can also help the IP owner.
but to get back on topic….
Apple have produced the right vehicle to attract all the media empires. In the process, they will reduce the price of consumption gradually, as Jobs is pressing for now on tv show pricing.
It appears I wasn’t too far off the mark with my notion that each comic book publisher would be pushing their own individual apps instead of a common format (say… ePub).
Check it out. And since it’s from the House of Mouse, Marvel will most likely eventually be included in this.
http://www.laughingplace.com/News-ID10037100.asp
Presently, e-comics are published in CBZ, CBR, or PDF format. Does this mean that the iPad will be able to view those formats, or are they going to create their own?
I was buying 16 plus graphic novels when I was thirteen, and my friend started buying them when she was twelve. It’s up to your parents if you can read it, and my parents never cared because they trusted me to know if something wasn’t worth buying. Facebook applications