Adventures In Digital Comics – Review Of Comixology App, Fanboys Vs. Zombies #1, And Marvel Infinite Comics

You may remember that I was very excited to review Fanboys Vs. Zombies #1 the other day. Unfortunately, my Local Comic Book Store, where the owner knows us by name and asks Rob wear his Gleek Underoos under his pants, did not have the book in stock. What to do? Take this as an opportunity to investigate the growing medium (sort of) of digital comics!

I downloaded Comixology onto my phone and an Asus Transformer Eee pad. From there, I was able to download a couple of books relatively easily to the app to read. I say “relatively” because, while the functionality is an easy “touch-the-button” user interface, it is a few long minutes before each book will appear on the device. So, there’s some wait time until gratification. And, while you can read any book you’ve purchased on any device on which you’ve installed Comixology, it appears you need to download books locally to the new devices. One digital comic book takes up 74 MB of space on the Eee pad.

Of course, once you have the books, how is the app overall for reading the books? That is the most important question after all.

Check out my video review of Comixology and the books I used it to purchase after the jump!

 
Welcome to my video review of the Comixology user experience! Apologies in advance for the way the video ended up formatting. I shot my use of the tablet with my phone. Turns out I’m more than happy to bang away at a keyboard or yammer into the microphone for a podcast (which we will hopefully get back too soon), but shooting video while trying to read a comic on a tablet, followed by trying to edit and convert the resulting video, was a lot to try and conquer as a first timer in one go. Also – yes, that is me silhouetted in the tablet’s screen glare. I am, as far as you know, wearing pants.
 

 
So, to recap:

• Comixology is easy to use, but users may experience some uneven animation experiences when digitally flipping through the books.

 

• I didn’t hit this in the video review, but Android devices running Ice Cream Sandwich will let you make screen captures of panels or pages. So, the tablet let me, but my phone did not.

 

• Some downloads, such as Fanboys Vs. Zombies #1, will give the user some added content, like variant cover pages. Regarding Fanboys Vs. Zombies #1, Sam Humphries has written a fun book that will appeal to those of us who have been to Comic-Con. The story gets into its action quickly with minor character backstory. Jerry Gaylord’s art clearly references Humberto Ramos’s character concept sketches. If you like Ramos style, manga-esque penciling, you’ll like it. Otherwise, you might find it a bit distracting.

 

• Marvel included Marvel Vs. X-Men #1: Infinite by Mark Waid with art by Stuart Immonen with the download of Marvel Vs. X-Men: Round One. The art created by Immonen popped beautifully on the tablet screen and made intriguing use of fades and filters in transitions…when I could get them to work consistently. Waid’s story was a tight piece on Nova, which dovetails nicely with the overall story of Avengers Vs. X-Men: Round One. Otherwise, the digital version of AVX:Round One, which Rob reviews here, did not appear to come with the augmented reality pieces, but that could have been user error on my end.

 

• At the end of the day, digital comics are fun, but ultimately, disposable. If Comixology were to go the way of Graphic.ly, I’d have nothing to show for my purchase other than my credit card statement.