Category: comics

reading digital comics

This morning, I decided that I’d like to read the Dresden Files comic series that I bought as part of a Humble Bundle last year. I’m using Comic Zeal on my iPad to read DRM-free digital comics. I’ve been using it for a while, and it works pretty well.

Getting comics onto the iPad is, theoretically, easier than it used to be. In the old days, there weren’t too many apps that had good support for loading files into them from external sources. GoodReader was the first iOS app that I can think of that had good support for loading in files from multiple sources. But now, there’s a lot better support for this kind of thing, due mostly to the support for document providers added in iOS 8. So Comics Zeal now supports loading in files from iCloud, DropBox, Google Drive, and OneDrive (and possibly more, but those are the ones I’m using).

Humble also now has a web interface where you can access and download all past purchases. And Safari now lets you download and open files in specific apps, and Comic Zeal supports this. So my first thought was to go to the Humble site, sign in to my account, and download the comics. The series I want to read is a five-issue series and all five issues are separate files. So I went ahead and tried downloading the first issue from the web. It worked well enough, but it took a long time to download, and the default file name under Humble’s library is a bit weird, so I thought maybe I should try a different method.

So I booted up my desktop PC, where I know I already had the comics downloaded, and copied them up to my Google Drive. After waiting for them to sync up, I then tried to pull them into Comic Zeal. No dice. I could see them, but clicking on them did nothing. After struggling with that for a while I gave up and decided to sync them across the old-fashioned way, with iTunes File Sharing. That worked.

So, after all that, I just sat down and opened issue #1. The cover looks good. Then, I swipe to get to page 1. And… Comic Zeal crashes. Now, this is probably not Comic Zeal’s fault, entirely. All sorts of things could be wrong here; the CBZ file could have gotten corrupted at one of several stages. But it’s frustrating, either way.

So I downloaded the file again from Humble, and checked the MD5 checksums on both copies, and they’re both identical. And Humble lets you see the MD5 on their web site, and that’s the same too, so the file isn’t getting screwed up on download. So I gave up on the CBZ file and downloaded the PDF. Then I copied that up to Google Drive and tried to download it into Comic Zeal. That worked, so I guess the original issue with Google Drive is that it doesn’t want to let you download CBZ files, but PDFs are ok. (Which doesn’t make any sense, but ok.)

And I opened the PDF in Comic Zeal, and I can (at least) get to page one now, so here’s hoping I can get through the rest of the issue. Then, we’ll find out if the CBZ files for issues 2 through 5 are good, or if I’m going to have to replace them with PDFs too.

Oh, and the series I’m trying to read is War Cry, which should be pretty good. I haven’t read any Dresden comics before, but they’re co-written by Jim Butcher, and they’ve gotten generally positive reviews, so I’m hopeful.

But if I’d had the trade paperback instead of digital files, I’d probably be done reading the whole thing by now!

anime and manga companies

With my inexplicable renewed interest in anime and manga, I’ve been doing some digging on the internet, and finding that some of the most popular web sites, periodicals, and anime/manga companies from back when I was really into this stuff have disappeared. I’d already heard about most of this, in passing, but hadn’t ever sat down and realized how much had changed over the last 5 or so years.

Tokyopop (mostly) shut down in 2011, and has been going through a bunch of drama since then.

ADV shut down in 2009, apparently, but might be coming back?

One of my old favorite web sites for anime reviews, AnimeOnDVD.com, was sold off in 2008, but the founder went to the new company. Then, the founder left that company in 2011, and started a new site. (And the new site looks pretty good!)

AnimeNewsNetwork.com is still around and mostly unchanged, though. (Obviously they had a redesign at some point, but not a drastic and/or horrible one.)

Newtype USA went away in 2008, to be replaced by something else that didn’t last long. Now, it appears that Otaku USA is the only US-based anime magazine left standing. (Which, I guess, isn’t surprising, since the magazine industry as a whole isn’t exactly thriving.)

Crunchyroll seems to be doing well, and has developed into a pretty impressive “Netflix for anime” site. I’m tempted to sign up for it, but there’s plenty of anime on the real Netflix that I haven’t watched yet.

I’m currently working my way through Big O season two, by the way, having watched the first season last year. I acquired the DVD set for this via eBay, and it may not be quite, shall we say, kosher. But it doesn’t appear that anyone is currently selling an official US version of Big O, so eBay was the best I could do.

Akira

I just finished reading the sixth (final) volume of Akira. I read volumes 1-3 quite some time ago, and decided to read 4-6 just recently. I’m not sure why I waited so long between 3 and 4. (Volume 3 was a good breaking point though.)

I find myself wondering if there’s some really deep meaning to Akira that I’m missing. There’s definitely a lot going on, and I’ve seen various people drawing out various themes and metaphors from it. I stumbled across this video today, which doesn’t really get into the deep stuff, but does do a good job of summing up the narrative of the manga vs the anime.

And finally finishing Akira makes me think back and realize how long it’s been a part of my life. I first read Akira via the Marvel/Epic color series, from the late 80s and early 90s. I didn’t read the whole series, and I don’t remember exactly when I stopped buying it. But it was definitely the first major manga I ever read.

I can’t quite remember the first time I saw the Akira film either, but I distinctly remember buying a pirated version of it on VHS back in the early 90s, at a comics convention. (I know I’d seen it before then, but I’m not sure where. I don’t think I could have seen it when I was in college, since it wasn’t released until after I graduated.) Either way, I’m pretty sure that it was the first anime movie I’d ever seen. (At some point, not too many years ago, I bought it on DVD, and have watched it at least once; I think it’s due for a repeat viewing soon!)

I bought the six Dark Horse black & white volumes a few years ago, at a con, probably San Diego or WonderCon. I’m pretty sure I got them out of somebody’s discount box, possibly TFAW‘s. (I’ve gotten some good deals from them.)

I gave the first three volumes, and the Marvel/Epic issues, over to Superheroes for Hospice, when I donated most of my collection earlier this year. I’ll likely donate volumes 4-6 next year, assuming I can talk myself into going through the piles again and donating a few more boxes.

I thought it might be cool to have a digital version of the Akira manga to maybe reread at some point, but it’s not available on the Dark Horse site or on Comixology. (Apparently, Kodansha now has the license for the manga, not Dark Horse, and I don’t see any sign that they’ve made it available digitally.)

Now that I’ve finished Akira, I have no idea what to read next, but I have a few things in mind. I never did get around to finishing the Rurouni Kenshin manga; I have several volumes of that series gathering dust. And I have a random sampling of Oh My Goddess! volumes waiting to be read. That would make for a nice change of pace from Akira!

John Lewis at SDCC

Weirdest/coolest thing at SDCC this year: Rep John Lewis “cosplaying” as himself, dressed in the same outfit he wore during the march to Selma.

(I have March, books one and two, but haven’t gotten around to reading them yet. Looking forward to it though.)

a little more SDCC news

I haven’t been paying too much attention to SDCC news, but I did spend some time today looking at CBR, Newsarama, and Comics Alliance. In looking at the list of Eisner winners, I see a number of creators and books that I’m familiar with, of course, but I haven’t actually read any of the stuff that was published in the last year. I’m definitely interested in some of them, though. Meanwhile, there’s a live stream of a Doctor Who panel that should be starting up in a few minutes, so I should get ready for that!

Not at SDCC, 2015 edition, day one

I feel like I need to write a short “not at SDCC” post, since today is the first full day of the con. As usual, I’ll keep an eye on news coming out of the con over the next few days. The LA Daily News has a good article listing some of the big panels, mostly TV and movie stuff.

There’s also plenty of actual comic book news coming out already, including the news that Jim Starlin is working on a new Dreadstar mini-series, just to pick something at random.

memories of comics past

This morning, I was looking at some books on Comixology, and noticed that there was a (relatively) recent X-Factor series that was written by Peter David. I enjoyed his X-Factor run back in the 90s, and again in 2005. It looks like this one didn’t last too long, though I guess 20 issues isn’t bad these days.

This led me to checking Peter’s web site, which I hadn’t looked at recently. I remembered that he had some health problems a while ago, but I honestly just hadn’t thought much about him lately. I see that he’s updating the site fairly regularly, and I don’t see any mention of his health in recent posts, so I’m hoping that means he’s doing well. This also reminded me that I have his two Pulling Up Stakes books on my Kindle. I should read those!

And, while browsing his site, I noticed his “friends” list in the sidebar. I don’t think he’s updated that list lately, as a number of the links are dead. But one that wasn’t took me to Bob Greenberger’s site, where I found his recent posts reminiscing about the old New York DC offices. Those were a lot of fun to read. I remember his run as editor on DC’s Star Trek titles fondly. There were some great stories published in those books, and his letter columns were always fun too.

All this reminiscing led me to pick up the April 2008 issue of CBG, which has been at the top of my pile of unread CBG issues for quite some time now. I’ve got another dozen issues or so in that pile. Every once in a while, I’ll dive in and read a few articles, and maybe polish off an issue, but I haven’t really done that recently. At the rate I’m going, I’ll deplete the pile in 2032, I think. Which is fine. CBG was canceled several years ago, so it’s not like I’m falling further behind. Their old web site, by the way, is frozen in amber at the time of the cancellation, in early 2013.

Big Comixology DC sale, week 2

I managed to get through the first week of DC’s big Comixology sale without spending too much money. I bought the rest of Grant Morrison’s Action Comics run, and a few Justice League issues. The second week of the sale just started, and again I’m tempted to spend a bunch of money.

I’ll probably buy the Grant Morrison Batman Incorporated issues. I recently bought a hardcover collection of some of the pre-New-52 run, and it looks interesting.

I’m curious about the Peter Tomasi Batman and Robin run. I’m not too fond of Damian as a character, but I’ve heard good things about this run. (Specifically, that it’s a bit less gruesome than the main Batman book, and maybe a bit more cerebral.)

I’m also thinking about picking up the entire run of Future’s End, but I’m wavering on that one. It sounds like it might be fun, but it’s gotten mixed reviews, and I’m not sure I want to commit to reading another DC 52-issue series.

DC comics digital sale

DC is going to have a bunch of comics (mostly “New 52” ones) on sale at Comixology over the next few weeks. I stopped buying comics regularly before the New 52 was launched, and I haven’t really jumped back in, to any extent. I did buy the first few issues of a few titles during a previous sale, but I haven’t gotten around to reading any of them. So I have the beginnings of Action Comics, Batman, Aquaman, and Justice League. I haven’t been following comics news really closely either, but I’ve heard a bit here and there about this stuff, enough to know that, for instance, Scott Snyder’s Batman run is pretty popular and well-respected.

I’ve spent some time this week trying to figure out if it’s worth picking up some more of the New 52 titles while they’re on sale. The first thing that came to mind was maybe picking up the complete Grant Morrison run on Action Comics. I like almost everything Morrison does, so I figured that would be a no-brainer. I found this review of his run on The Beat. It’s a mixed review, but it really does sound like I’d enjoy it. So I went ahead and bought the remainder of his 18-issue run last night. Now I can add that to my Grant Morrison reading pile.

I also decided to think about buying some more of Scott Snyder’s Batman run. I’d never read any of his work before, so I thought I should at least start reading the first few issues that I already had in Comixology. I’m working my way through the “Court of Owls” story pretty quickly, and enjoying it (for the most part). I still can’t quite decide how far I want to go into the Snyder/Capullo run though. As this review points out, there are a lot of things to like about it. But, as it also points out, it can get a bit gory, and I’m not a huge fan of that. So I think I’ll keep reading and decide whether or not to buy some more of Snyder’s run over the weekend.

There’s a good article on the New 52 as a whole over at Bleeding Cool that  matches up with my own sensibilities, for the most part. About halfway in, the author mentions something that happens in Snyder’s Batman run that sounds like it goes a bit too far for me. (And I too have fond memories of the Batman from Batman and the Outsiders, and JLI!) So maybe most of the New 52 isn’t for me. And maybe Snyder’s Batman isn’t for me either (past the first couple of stories). That’s ok. I’m old, and there are plenty of other good comics out there!