The Online Comic Book Revolution - Comixology

In keeping with yesterday's newspaper comics post, how about comic books?

A couple of years ago, I mentioned how I was always a big comic book fan, but that I had fallen away from it both from the story point of view but also because I just ran out of space and was getting tired of making room for them. I was thrilled to see that both Marvel and DC comics had online services now that offered comics for their readers who wanted digital versions.

The problem was that all of the comics on the apps were old. I lamented the fact that you couldn't get your monthly subscriptions as digital downloads.

Fast forward a few months, and that's no longer true.

Yes, I am a comics reader again, though nowhere near to the extent I used to be.

Thanks to Comixology.

Newspaper Comics - is Online Saving Them?

The awesome Speed Bump from Nov 27, 2012.

One of my favourite childhood memories is eagerly getting the newspaper each day, ripping open the "non-news" section (that's what I always thought of the stuff like "Lifestyle" and other sections that weren't hard news stories), and finding the comics. Sunday tradition was to dig through the mountain of flyers, catalogs, and other sales items to find the self-contained Sunday comics pages.

I had many favourites at the time, like Hi & Lois, Beetle Bailey, Hagar the Horrible, and the Wizard of Id.

That's mostly gone by the wayside now. I stopped getting newspapers that had comics a while back, and now I don't get the newspaper at all. I get all of my news online, either from news web sites or blogs or whatever. That has had the unfortunate side effect of eliminating comics from my reading.

Except that it hasn't. Because they're all available online.

Comic Books and Technology - Bringing Back my Childhood

This post is a personal journey culminating in a wish for the future.

I was a comic book collector for a very long time. I think I started collecting comics when I was in Junior High or High School (can't quite remember). I wasn't particular as far as companies went, other than the fact that they were all superhero comics (though I guess I did read the occasional Archie comic as well).

I collected all through college and through my years in Chicago. I figure it was around 10-15 years of comic book collecting. Sometimes more titles than others, but always a fair number.

And I devoured them.

I did keep them in plastic bags like a collector, but I always read them at least once before putting them away. I would file them away, in alphabetical order, in boxes that were designed to hold comics.

(The long ones, not the short ones)