Comic book publishers are super eager to get their strips in full living color on the iPad, if a round up by Publisher’s Weekly is anything to go by.
“I can’t remember seeing something that I so urgently wanted since I saw the first G.I. Joe with Life-Like Hair commercials in the early seventies,” enthused Gonzalo Ferreyra, sales and marketing VP at Viz Media, “as it relates to digital publishing of illustrated books, the iPad opens up tremendous possibilities. This appears to be the device that will allow users to carry a library of manga around with them any where and every where.”
Abrams’ ComicsArts executive editor Charles Kochman called the iPad the future of e-reading, adding that “The Kindle always felt limited: a lack of color and a standardized typeface seems antithetical to my ideal reading experience and counter intuitive to the careful consideration our designers give to the books we publish. The iPad seems to satisfy all of those concerns and offers the best of what I love about my iPhone and my Mac.”
Only one graphic novel exec, Filip Sablik of Top Cow, was “cautiously optimistic” that the iPad would be a “game changer” for digital comics. “What Apple has done incredibly well in the last decade is take existing technology–laptop, mp3 player, smart phone–and made it really sexy and really easy to use. Right now it looks like the iPad might follow those to pillars of Apple’s success.”
The publishers seemed to be in agreement that while the iPad will be great for reading on the commute, lots of different readers — from small kids to serious collectors — will still want paper editions.
Will you be flipping through comics on your iPad?
