Anyone know about reading comic books on Kindle, Nook, iPad, etc?
November 18, 2010 1:43 PM
Anyone know about reading comic books on Kindle, Nook, iPad, etc?
The info on Metafilter is a few years old and know this is the way the industry is going so I was wondering if people have read good articles or information about the future of comics on e-readers.
Are they all still *.cbr file based? What books look good on Kindle and with e-ink? Any other special software to get or tricks to get the regularly published popular books?
The info on Metafilter is a few years old and know this is the way the industry is going so I was wondering if people have read good articles or information about the future of comics on e-readers.
Are they all still *.cbr file based? What books look good on Kindle and with e-ink? Any other special software to get or tricks to get the regularly published popular books?
The Nook (excepting the new Color) and the Kindle are black and white devices - this probably wouldn't go very well on colored comics.
No software exists, to my knowledge, for the Kindle for this purpose. The nook probably has something, after jailbreaking, since it's Android.
The iPad however rocks this market segment hard, with a few purpose-built applications.
posted by Rendus at 2:06 PM on November 18, 2010
No software exists, to my knowledge, for the Kindle for this purpose. The nook probably has something, after jailbreaking, since it's Android.
The iPad however rocks this market segment hard, with a few purpose-built applications.
posted by Rendus at 2:06 PM on November 18, 2010
What with the horrible quality of most book illustrations I've seen on my Kindle, I can't imagine that reading comic books would be worthwhile.
Which is a shame, because the screen-saver images are gorgeous. Illustrations reproduced from books that originally appeared in print, though? Awful. It would probably have to be a comic book specifically designed to be viewed in that format.
posted by Sara C. at 2:19 PM on November 18, 2010
Which is a shame, because the screen-saver images are gorgeous. Illustrations reproduced from books that originally appeared in print, though? Awful. It would probably have to be a comic book specifically designed to be viewed in that format.
posted by Sara C. at 2:19 PM on November 18, 2010
I have been using Mangle to convert .cbz manga (Specifically Lone Wolf and Cub) into nice Kindle 3 formatted files.
This method works very well for B&W Manga but doesn't work particularly well for full colour comics. Although they are readable.
posted by gergtreble at 2:43 PM on November 18, 2010
This method works very well for B&W Manga but doesn't work particularly well for full colour comics. Although they are readable.
posted by gergtreble at 2:43 PM on November 18, 2010
Also Calibre can convert .cbz files to e-reader compatible files. I have had better results with Mangle though.
The ability for the kindle to view in fullscreen mode (Press F) makes the Mangle converted images really work well.
posted by gergtreble at 2:46 PM on November 18, 2010
The ability for the kindle to view in fullscreen mode (Press F) makes the Mangle converted images really work well.
posted by gergtreble at 2:46 PM on November 18, 2010
The Marvel app on the iPad is what rekindled (no cross pun intended) my interest in comic books. It's a great interface for reading comic books and I use that as a "check this out!" app.
posted by FlamingBore at 3:45 PM on November 18, 2010
posted by FlamingBore at 3:45 PM on November 18, 2010
Hey, this question looks familiar! ;-)
For all its worth, based on the answers from my earlier question I installed Comic Zeal and love it to pieces, although I am mostly reading public domain stuff from the golden age. I also really like the Marvel app, although I don't much like the current Marvel product so I don't spend nearly as much time in it.
posted by Lokheed at 5:06 PM on November 18, 2010
For all its worth, based on the answers from my earlier question I installed Comic Zeal and love it to pieces, although I am mostly reading public domain stuff from the golden age. I also really like the Marvel app, although I don't much like the current Marvel product so I don't spend nearly as much time in it.
posted by Lokheed at 5:06 PM on November 18, 2010
Don't listen to anyone saying there isn't anything available. Mangle works perfectly for Manga with the kindle.
posted by lakerk at 5:31 PM on November 18, 2010
posted by lakerk at 5:31 PM on November 18, 2010
I've tried it on the Nook and the display is just too small (800x600 at like 5 in diagonal) to read smallish text captions in a normal comic book. The art and stuff is great in B&W but that text thing was a dealbreaker.
I recommend a tablet (or netbook) of at least 1024x600 resolution at around 8-12 in diagonal for reading cbr/cbz.
posted by cowbellemoo at 7:50 PM on November 18, 2010
I recommend a tablet (or netbook) of at least 1024x600 resolution at around 8-12 in diagonal for reading cbr/cbz.
posted by cowbellemoo at 7:50 PM on November 18, 2010
I've tried the Kindle 2 International version for reading comics. It's a painful experience for anything larger and more colorful than your standard manga.
The iPad, however, is wonderful for reading comics, and given a wide variety of apps to do so, you can't go wrong. I haven't used the Marvel app, but I do use Cloud Reader for .cbz and .cbr files, as well as PDFs.
posted by gc at 7:13 AM on November 19, 2010
The iPad, however, is wonderful for reading comics, and given a wide variety of apps to do so, you can't go wrong. I haven't used the Marvel app, but I do use Cloud Reader for .cbz and .cbr files, as well as PDFs.
posted by gc at 7:13 AM on November 19, 2010
Funny this should come up, I recently spent the last week or so converting a gaggle full of comics to be kindle friendly. With some elbow grease, but mostly the Photoshop 'action' feature, and 'batch' function. I reformatted the entire scanned in Calvin and Hobbes and Peanuts series (among others) from its 1x4 or 1x3 strip boxes to be 2x2 or 1x2, decreased its bitrate to 8 bit resized to fit the kindle resolution (770x585 worked out best) It looks great, and its fantastic having the entire C&H and Peanuts library for under 600MB on my kindle. Screenshot
So yes, its possible, probably not with the regular comics, but with newspaper comics and some reformatting, the kindle is great. GREAT.
posted by edman at 11:32 AM on November 19, 2010
So yes, its possible, probably not with the regular comics, but with newspaper comics and some reformatting, the kindle is great. GREAT.
posted by edman at 11:32 AM on November 19, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by snoelle at 1:50 PM on November 18, 2010