Posts Tagged ‘Comics’

iPad + Comics = Awesome

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

It’s a simple equation really.

Today Apple introduced the iPad (not the name I would have chosen) and it’s clear that it will be awesome for digital comics.  After the news hit I saw articles on Newsarama, Robot 6, iFanboy, and many other comic news outlets.  Although an easy argument to make is that tablets in general will be awesome for comics.  They’re the right size and you can hold it like you would a book.

There have been a lot of questions on twitter if we’re going to be on the iPad.  The question shouldn’t be if, but when.  My entire time I’ve been at Graphic.ly there’s been a stress on delivering comics to people on the devices they want.  Clearly people want comics on the iPad, I know I do.  Of course we also spilled the beans not once but twice on twitter earlier today.

One of the biggest things I would like to see from a Graphic.ly iPad app would be able to view a whole page vertically, holding it the way I would a physical comic.  If I wanted to see both pages I could just turn the device horizontally and see them.  Giving me more view options then the standard mobile affair is what I’m really trying to get across.  What kind of options would you like to see from a Graphic.ly iPad app?

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | View Comments

And the winner is… a three way tie?!

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

I’m not joking this weeks poll resulted in a three way tie.  I want to mention the original premise of the poll was to choose books that came out this week, but I got a lot of great ideas for titles in general as well, which I’ve included.  A few of you did your extra credit and came up with extras for your suggestions, which are highlighted below.  Without any further ado the winners of this week’s poll are:

Winner – Unwritten #9

Written by Mike Carey
Aft by Peter Gross
Cover by Yuko Shimizu

Winner - Alan Moore Neonomicon Hornbook

By Alan Moore & Jacen Burrows

The last title that won had a date of last week, but being a victim of it’s shipping schedule myself, I wanted to give it a nod as a lot people got it this week.

Winner – Terry Moore’s Echo #18

By Terry Moore

It was interesting to see that the three books that won the poll for this week weren’t something like Amazing Spider-Man #617 or Batman #695 (both books that were suggested) and were all Indie titles.

As I mentioned I got a lot of good suggestions for titles in general and I wanted to list some of them:

  1. Y: The Last Man
  2. High Moon
  3. The Losers
  4. The Walking Dead
  5. Locke and Key
  6. Stumptown
  7. The Slightly Askew Adventures of Inspector Ham & Eggs
  8. Atomic Robo

I also got some of the obvious requests such as Watchmen, The Killing Joke, Sin City, and 300.  Books that I think everyone wants to have copies that they can easily carry with them everywhere.  I want to say it was neat getting as many different requests as I did for this poll.  It was also awesome that some creators, Andy Diggle and David Gallaher, were not shameful of plugging their own books.

Lastly I wanted to showcase some extras that were submitted to us that were really great.  The first one was for The Losers from Andy Diggle himself over twitter:

“Whatever readers want! Interviews, Q&A, sketches etc?”

How awesome is that?  A creator saying that whatever we want, is the best thing we can hear.  I hope Graphic.ly gets The Losers at some point, because Andy (I hope I can call him Andy) is willing to go the extra mile.  Lastly was a suggestion for another book The Slightly Askew Adventures of Inspector Ham & Eggs (what an awesome title) by StephenRL on twitter:

I’d add script pages, sketches, and a list of music that inspired certain sections.

Now people have given the idea of script and sketches, but a list of music that inspired certain scenes is an idea I haven’t heard before.  I think it would be really neat to be able to listen to a playlist from the creator that inspired the creation of their book.

Well that was the first Graphic.ly poll and thank you to everyone who participated.  I’m already thinking of more polls that we can do, because I love hearing what people like.  If you have ideas on a poll, want to ask me questions, or anything else feel free to email me jons@graphicly.com

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | View Comments

Communicating and Learning with Comics

Monday, January 11th, 2010

Recently on twitter BrettGreene and spaceguy1 shared a couple of interesting articles with Graphic.ly.  I had a chance to read them and wanted to share my thoughts on both.

The articles are:
Comics Can Make You A Better Communicator by Alan J. Porter on The Content Wrangler

For Improving Early Literacy, Reading Comics Is No Child’s Play by L. Brian Stauffer on News Bureau

Both articles really showed me how important comics are and can be.  The thing I really liked about the first article, Comics Can Make You A Better Communicator, is that it’s a wealth of examples of comics in mainstream that people may not think about or heard of.  My two favorites were the Chrome Comic and DA Pam 750-30 Operation and Preventative Maintenance of the M16A1 Rifle.  I remember when the Chrome Comic came out when Google launched their new browser.  I thought it was pretty cool to see such a large company use a medium that I loved to reach out to users.  I found the M16A1 Rifle manual to be interesting as I had never heard that it existed, let alone as a comic.  I’ve seen some Armed Forces manuals before and they were always boring, but for a rifle it makes sense to me that you would use a comic.  It’s something that you’re going to want to see visuals for in regards to the topic.  In fact this reminds me of the other night when I was putting together my TV stand from IKEA.  The instructions are done in a comic book layout, without any words.  If it had been written in prose I think that it would have taken me longer than 10-15 minutes to put it together.

The other reason I really liked the first article is that it reminded me of something I used to joke about in college.  Friends would make comments on my wealth of comic book information.  My response would always be, “If only my accounting books were in comic book form.”  It’s always been easier for me to remember what happens in a comic then in written word.  Although some of the argument is that I enjoy comics more than I did accounting.  Also it would seem easier for people who have harder times reading in general to learn through a comic book.

The second article, For Improving Early Literacy, Reading Comics Is No Child’s Play, reminded me of growing up.  My parents used to read me Berenstain Bear books, which by definition of the first article, is a Comic Book.  I have very fond memories of those books and it wasn’t too long after that I inherited some relatives old comic books filled with great classic Silver Age stories.  I like to think reading stories about Superboy and The Legion of Superheroes, Spider-Man, Captain America, and Iron Man helped shape what type of person I grew up to be.  Also included in this article is a nice timeline of comics and anyone not familiar with the past of comics and how many things hurt the industry over the years, such as the Comics Code, it’s worth the time.

Another topic that is covered is getting is comics for younger audiences.  I was asked by a previous co-worker for some suggestions in regards to a younger relative of his.  If I remember correctly it was for a young teenager.  There was one book that came to mind immediately which was Brian K Vaughn’s Runaways.  I struggled to think of any other titles that would be age appropriate that he could relate to, not just read and enjoy.  Of course after some investigation in my own collection I found others, like David Peterson’s Mouse Guard.  In fact I think the reason the article is so important is that it seems like if someone doesn’t start reading comic books to their kids young, they may not get into them till later in life.  I recently had previous roommate get into comics and it was weird to think that I’ve been reading them for so long and that he was just now getting into them.

Both articles of course focus on a topic that is missed by most people.  Comics are a medium and can be used to tell any story.  Although I may love superhero comic books, there are a lot of other comics out there that aren’t.  I’m sure I could spend a better part of a day listing books that don’t involve tights and a cape.  Some people tend to forget that 300, Road to Perdition, and A History of Violence were comic books before they were movies.  Comics that did not have any superheroes in them.  It’s also weird that some would have no problems consuming these tales in one medium, such as a movie, but may never give the comic a chance.  How often do you hear, “The book was better than the movie?” Shouldn’t that apply to comics as well?

So what do you think about these articles?  Did they make you think of your past? I certainly hope they got you thinking of how comics can really be better used to communicate or help with literacy.  For some of you, did they help break the mold of your view on the medium as a whole?

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | View Comments

Giving the Company to the Community

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

(This was originally posted at my blog Learn to Duck, but after writing it, I thought it would be best to post it here. As Graphic.ly’s first official post. You will also notice that we have no theme. That is by design–no pun intended–we hope our community helps us design the best blog in existence.)

Not sure if you caught the latest news, but my company Graphic.ly, raised some money and will launch soon (*cough* like Tuesday night at CES. *cough*)

I agonized over the launch, because the product is just not ready. There are parts it that I would love to have better developed. It would be great to have more content. It’d be amazing to have a group of users ready to go.

But, in the middle of all the agonizing, I realized something. And it came in this question:

“Who are we building this company for?”

After all, none of us has 20 years in the comic industry. None of us are heavy collectors. None of us (at least so far) are women, or young, or any of the thousands of other characteristics that make up the comic community.

But, what we have in common with the comic community is we all love comic books and the art of visual storytelling. We love talking about the stories and characters.

The next question I posed myself was “Why do I think we know what comic book publishers, creators and readers want?”

I have spent a lot (i mean A LOT) of time talking to publishers, creators and readers. In many ways, what they want from a company like Graphic.ly is the same, but in truth, they all want very different things. Since I am not a publisher or creator, I referred myself to question number one.

Finally, after a fair amount of pondering, it finally hit me.

We need to give the company to the community.

Graphic.ly is not built to be a store. Will it have digital comics and associated merchandise to sell? Of course. Graphic.ly is not built to just be a comic book reader. Is ours best in class? Id be lying if I didnt think it was.

But more than anything, Graphic.ly is a place. Its a place where you go to do something you love. You read comic books and graphic novels. You talk to your friends, and on occasion, you talk to your friends about comics.

Its the people. Its the people that will make Graphic.ly great.

Then why not give the company to the people? Why not give people the ability to not only suggest features and books and all the various things that will make Graphic.ly just such a place?

So thats just what we did. We gave the company to the community.

We are launching a bare bones version of the application. Much of it will work, but there will be lots of broken parts. The store will suck. The selection of comic books will be bleak.

I know this.

But, if we are truly going to get the community involved, we need them involved early and often. We need them now.

We are going to build collaboration tools. In talking with my friends at Napkin Labs, who are focused on helping large companies be more innovative, we are going to work with them to bring those tools to our community. We are going to build feedback tools that offer a clear feedback loop. Initially, we will use tools like Google Moderator, GetStatisfactionand ZenDesk, but Im guessing we will build some ourselves, once we learn how best to serve the community.

People who submit feature ideas or innovations, if those features or innovations are selected by the community for potential inclusion, will probably be asked to join our product meetings to make sure we are developing it correctly.

Yup, the community will physically be part of the development process.

We will provide complete transparency where features are, when they are going to be released, and will recognize the original community member who came up with the idea in the first place.

We are giving our company to the community.

Its more than just the engineering effort.

Because we will, in essence, work for our community, we are instituting a few ideas that, frankly, I stole from some friends. We will host office hours like Etsy does, and I will host office hours, like my friend Jason Fried does at 37signals. Here is my phone number 720-231-7120. If I can, I will answer it. If I dont, leave a message. Ill get right back to you. Or, you can tweet me @micah. I do travel a lot, so I will be the first to apologize if it takes a bit for me to get back to you, boss. We will have town halls and other meetups. Whatever the community needs to keep in touch with us.

Its more than just my phone number.

We have hired Jon Stump as our Community Collaborator. His job is not to “manage” the community, but to be part of it. We already have him wandering around Boulder in a cape. Perhaps the community can make up other fun ways to keep Jon busy.

I have also changed my title. Rather than just be CEO, my title is Chief Community Caretaker and CEO. Why caretaker? Well, my job is two fold. First, my job is to be caretaker of our community (not to drive it, change it, mold it, manage it, but to care for it) and I am responsible for the health and growth of the business. Every decision I make, I will ask myself this question: “Is it good for the community and good for the business?” If its not for either, then I will truly question the decision. (Does that mean everyone will like every decision I make? I sure hope to hell not. :) )

We are giving our company to our community completely.

While not all decisions on features and product roadmap will be made by the community, but the majority will. Will we do it right? Probably not. Will we make silly mistakes? Most definitely. But, thats the beauty of community. If we do it together, we cant but win.

Here’s the keys. They are pretty shiny since we just got them. Fire ‘er up, and lets go.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in community | View Comments