Absolutely Marvel-ous
Some 45 years ago (gosh, I’m getting old!) I was a mad keen comic reader.
I used to have a pile of comic books over half a meter high, comprising a lot of DC comics (Superman, Batman, etc), and, towards my later comic-reading years, an increasing proportion of Marvel titles such as Spiderman, Iron Man, X-Men, etc. Today, that pile would probably be worth thousands, but alas I had to leave them all behind in England when we emigrated to Australia, when I was 13.
I’ve enjoyed the Marvel-based movies I’ve seen (well, Spiderman 1 and 2, at least, Spiderman 3 was execrable), and the Batman movies starring Christian Bale. But that has been my only comic-based interest in recent decades.
But. Marvel has just released a comic book reading app for the iPad and iPhone. And it rocks!
The images reproduced here (for purposes of this review only, thus ‘fair use’) are actual screen grabs from my iPhone.
I’m looking forward to seeing the Marvel app on the iPad, but even the iPhone version is almost enough to suck me back into reading comics. What holds me back, though, (apart from lack of reading time) is the high per-issue cost Marvel are trying for. AUD $2.49 seems a lot to pay for a digital version of a comic book.
Seems that Marvel are repeating the mistake of the book publishing industry, thinking that they can get away with charging almost as much (in some cases more) than the hard-copy versions of their titles. Unsurprisingly enough, I don’t think this is a recipe for long-term survival.
