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Friday March 6, 2009
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About three weeks ago I wrote a post for Gearlog called "The New Kindle: Not for Comics." Essentially I lamented the lack of sequential art-friendly features on the device--it doesn't have a color screen, and the zoom feature is, at best, lacking. This is unfortunate, really, because comics have a huge potential in the ebook market--after all, even today many folks are embarrassed by the idea of reading comics in public, on, say, a subway train. With a Kindle in hand, however, the person sitting across from you don't know whether you're reading War and Peace or Richie Rich.
In my humble opinion, the best device for reading comics at the moment (besides, you know, old-timey comics themselves) is the iPhone. The screen on the device is small, sure, but it's brilliant, and the multi-touch capabilities make flipping through a book a fantastic experience.
Now that we actually have the new Kindle in the office however, it seemed like a good time to test out the hypothesis. There isn't really much in the way of comic books available through the Amazon store, so I took matters into my own hands and used the PDF import function.
After the jump, check out a few of my favorite comics as seen on the Kindle, including Watchmen, Bone, New X-Men, and Jimmy Corrigan.
Watchmen
Bone
New Xmen
Jimmy Corrigan
Lucky
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March 7, 2009 3:07 PM
I've been looking into porting comics to the Kindle, and I'm not sure the import PDF function gives a faithful impression of what comics in the Kindle format sold in the Amazon store will look like.
The main issue is that the Kindle formatter doesn't allow you to use the full 600x800 pixel area. It sizes the pages to about 520x622 pixels, so as to include page headers and footers. This is a 9/11 aspect ratio, which isn't quite the same as the 2/3 aspect ratio of most comics pages. So a normal Watchmen page, for example will be shrunk so small that the lettering will be only barely readable.
Comics with larger lettering, such as Bone, should do better.
March 9, 2009 5:23 AM
the pictures are very funny !
March 9, 2009 12:04 PM
I think Amazon/newspapers are missing out in a big way by not including comic strips. These shots look like the artwork translates OK, but it's tough to tell from here.
I'm trying to hack a system to send comic strip jpgs to my Kindle. Haven't gotten too far yet. I hope the SF Chron puts something up first.
March 9, 2009 12:05 PM
I've been reading comics on my sony reader prs-700 (the touchscreen model) using the calibre, it works great! the comics spread to the borders and io find it to be a very satisfying experience.
March 10, 2009 2:30 PM
Does the Kindle work with protected PDF files? I need a reader for viewing text books, and they are all protected. I have to enter my school ID and password before I can read the text.
March 10, 2009 4:23 PM
Multi-touch color Kindle III, available now, in your dreams!
April 6, 2009 11:45 AM
It looks OK though, probably good for indies and manga. Scott Pilgrim should look perfect on it, no?
If you like iPhone for reading comics see if you like ours: www.crispycomics.com
We designed it specifically for iPhone so no page-chopping here.