Gadget Reviews
The marvel of digital comics
Purist would say comics
can't be enjoyed on the
computer, but they might
be convinced by Marvel's
vast comic archive which
has just come online
DID you read netcomics when you
were a kid? During my formative
years I couldn't get enough
of Spider-Man, the Incredible
Hulk and, best of all, 2000 AD.
Incredibly I gave away a pristine collection
of every 2000 AD from number
one (complete with free space spinner)
to 100 because my mum said they were
dusty. My pal then emigrated to Australia
and the mags went to the tip. Only
last month a similar collection sold for a
mind-blowing £3,000 on eBay. Oh, how I
laughed.
Now you can relive those childhood
memories using your PC or Mac. Publishers
are embracing the net and using
it to sell back issues of their old
favourites in digital form. Will this do for
the comic industry what MP3 did for the
music scene? The world's biggest comic
company seems to think so.
Marvel - the self-styled "house of
ideas" that gave the world Spider-Man,
the X-Men and the Hulk - has put hundreds
of classic strips on its site
www.marvel.com.
Marvel started with CD-ROMs containing
complete runs of popular titles
in pdf form. Each disc contained around
500 strips for about £25.
But what if you only want to buy a
couple of your favourite stories? I have
fond memories of a 2000 AD strip called
Flesh (about man-eating dinosaurs), but
I wouldn't want to buy an entire run of
the mag just to read it. What's needed is
an iTunes-type set-up for comics.
And where the publishers fear to tread
self-styled preservationists have jumped
right in. Search a BitTorrent site and
you'll most likely find some DCP - digital
comics preservation - files available
for download. Often well-meaning fans
scan their mags and upload them for
anyone to pinch. These people may think
they are doing the artist/writers a favour
by preserving their work, but this is piracy
all the same.
Now Marvel has got in on the act to
make the whole thing legit. Sign up on
the Marvel website and you can access
an incredible story archive spanning 60
years.
Ever wanted to read the Spider-Man
drugs stories that were published without
Comics Code approval? You'll find
them here. Famous first appearances,
origin stories, amazing events and reboots,
a comic fan could spend weeks
just trawling the archives without even
reading so much as a page. Luckily, an
annual subscription costs a mere £30.
Not convinced? For a limited time
Marvel is offering 250 free samples to
show you how reading comics on a computer
can be fun.
If your tastes run more to Judge
Dredd, Dan Dare and Strontium Dog
you'll be pleased to know 2000 AD
launched its digital service last Wednesday.
The site, the first to enable customers
to download full copies of the
comic, forms part of www.clickwheel.net, the digital comic distribution
website.
Will Simons, the creative director of
Clickwheel says: "The 2000 AD page on
Clickwheel.net has been redesigned inline
with our 2008 plans. We now offer a
full subscription service, where for an
annual or monthly fee you can receive
each 2000 AD issue a week after it hits
the news-stands."
That's great, but the archive pales by
comparison with the Marvel masterwork.
Will explains: "We have continued our
expansion of the 2000 AD archive where
presently you can access all of 2007 issues
and this will continue, so over the
coming months customers can access
every 2000 AD issue from 1999, and we
have plans to go even farther back to
bring some classic 2000 AD comics into
the digital fold.
"Adding to the 2000 AD portfolio, the
Judge Dredd Megazine will be available
for the first time digitally. The Megazine
has been a very popular partner to 2000
AD since 1990 and we have high hopes
for this title.
"And by popular demand, we have
added the Comic Book Reader Format to
the site, so our customers can now read
our comics via any of the popular Comic
Book Reader applications."
■ Fancy giving it a go? There are
several excellent PC comic readers, try
the open source cross platform
Comical software or ComicBookLover.
5:05pm Wednesday 26th March 2008
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