Be Excellent To Each Other

Computer ?

Tablets (ipad or whatever) are great for comic reading but I did sit and read through The Walking Dead (and Chew) from the bundle last week just on my 'PC'

Yeah. I read the intro to Saga on my phone and whilst I liked it, it did need to be bigger.

Still, I have a PC and the wife has an iPad, so I shall read on one of those.

I used to read comics on my PC or laptop but the experience of reading them on my Nexus 10 is so much better so I'd advise the iPad definitely.

I bought an iPad mini specifically to read comics on. Until Amazon release a full-colour 8" eInk Kindle, it's the best way.

I had a go at reading comics on ex-Mrs B's Nexus 7 and it was a good experience but it's better again on the Nexus 10 I felt so I reckon a full size iPad would be better than than the mini.

Bargain?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/ ... ition=used

I got an iPad mini for comics and games, and it is lovely for it.

Meh, there's not much difference between the iPads, size-wise. More importantly for me I can hold the mini in one hand for hours without getting tired. The Air (with a case) is still just slightly too heavy to be comfortable.

I tried reading some Marvel comics on my (2 year old) ipad and I wish it was bigger. I imagine if the comics were created for an ipad then it would be fine, if they are comic book size, then surely you want/need a comic book sized screen to read them on?

Malc

I'm pretty sure standard comic book pages are smaller than an iPad/Nexus 10 screen.

not from my memory! I imagine 2 ipads on top of each other in landscape mode would do it.

There should be more A4 sized (or whatever shape is best to keep up with standard resolutions) tablets for home use!

Malc

A quick google shows that most comics seem to be 10.5 inches high by 7 inches wide.

The ipad and nexus are 10 inches on the diagonal. So not quite 2 ipads high, but almost!

Actually looking at

the tech specs, which say:



Gives you 7.8 inches by 5.8 inches. Pretty much perfect to have 2 ipads as I mentioned before.

Malc

Not exactly, 9.6875 x 6.125 inches for the printed comics as described here (when you look only at the 'safe zone'):

http://www.blambot.com/ruleyourown.shtml

Getting published dimensions for the screen on an iPad (as opposed to the body of it) seems to be a lot more difficult but the body is 9.56 x 7.47 inches so it's bigger in one dimension and only a little smaller in the other. Once you take away the bezel you're right that it's probably not bigger than a comic but it's not far off the same size and certainly nothing like half the size on one side.

I posted the resolution of the old ipad and the pixels per inch.

Here is the ipad air

http://www.apple.com/ipad-air/specs/

The screen has the following spec:



So that's 2048/264 by 1536/264 = 7.7578 inches by 5.8182 inches If you double the 2nd height, you have just over the size of the comic

Malc

Fair enough. In reality though all I can say is that the experience of reading comics on my Nexus 10, which I think has a slightly bigger screen than an iPad to be fair, is lovely and much nicer for my money than a paper comic book. I certainly don't feel you're losing anything and it's not important the screen size is exactly the same as the original paper page size which is presumably a pretty arbitrary size as it goes.

The problem was that I was wanting to zoom in at points to read some of the text, and then you would get a double page spread etc.

Like I say if it was made for a 10" screen then it would be fine, but as (the ones I have read anyway) they are made for something almost twice as big it was annoying for me. Annoying enough for me to want a tablet the size of an encyclopedia at home! An open one at that!

Malc

I dunno, you should maybe get your eyes checked then because comics read perfectly well on screen to me, and to loads of other people. Certainly the idea that you'd need to double the screen size for it to be a comfortable experience is bonkers. Double page spreads are a wee bit annoying granted, but for that you can either turn the thing sideways or just zoom in to read them. They're rare enough that it's never bothered me too much.

I think it may depend more on what your reading (and the associated style of the art / words) , or even what media your using (CBR and CBZ are just image files whereas PDF or EPUB can tweak the text or images depending on the device your using)

My eyes are ok, they're not as good as they used to be, but I don't have a problem typically...

I was using the marvel unlimited app on the ipad FWIW to read marvel back issues.

I much prefer reading it on a computer screen, and even better when the screen is in portrait mode.

Malc

I take it all back, just loaded the marvel unlimited app and it now zooms in on each panel!

Some stories also have ambient noise effects, which I quite liked!

Malc

I prefer to be drunk when I'm reading, but to each their own

The browser based app did all that the very first time I tried it years ago, guided reading mode they called it, and I really didn't like it. I felt all the zooming and panning made it hard to get immersed in the story and I much preferred to just see the page and scroll, if need be, myself.

Comixology does this very well indeed. In fact it makes using any other client very annoying for me.

I use IPad for comics, I use an app called Cloud Reader, its not a really a comic reader and is quite basic on the layout etc but its ok

I noticed a huge leap in quality and performance when I moved from an IPad 3 to an Air

I prefer to just see the whole page at once and read it exactly as you would if you had the printed version in front of you, which the size of the screen on my Nexus 10 allows. Also some of the stuff I've seen (JH Williams' stuff on Batwoman a while back for example) has really interesting non-standard layouts with art built into the full page which you wouldn't get the full effect of if you weren't looking at the whole thing. Mind you, not that I've got the option anyway being a filthy pirate and all.

I bought the bundle and am thoroughly enjoying reading Saga on the wife's iPad via the Kindle app. Doesn't deal well with double page stuff, but still good.

It's very clever. If there is anything like you describe it gives a picture of the whole screen afterwards.

I HAS THESE.

Now, what app should I use to read them, and what format should I use? I have various tablets and shit.

I use ComicZeal

My personal choice is either CBR or CBZ (they're essentially the same, though historically CBZ has been more reliable) and the Perfect Viewer app on Android on whichever tablet you've got that has the biggest screen. Set it to 'fit to page' so you can the entirety of each page on screen and off you go. Whenever you hit a double page spread just turn the tablet to landscape mode and/or zoom in to read it.

I notice though that that there's an HD PDF option so I don't know if the image quality would be noticeably better with that format or not. Depending on the resolution of your device's screen you might not see a difference in which case one of the smaller file size options would be a better experience.

Hmm, that's Apple only and I have a crappy iPad 1.

What Android kit have you got for comparison? I suspect the original iPad might struggle a bit to smoothly display loads of large image files but it might still be an option depending on what Android stuff is your alternative.

A Kindle Fire, an 8" Samsung Galaxy Tab 3, a 10" Galaxy Tab 2, and a Samsung Note 3. And a PC, but the chances of me reading comics on that when Counter Strike is taunting me to improve my KDR is slim.

The ten incher would give you the best display experience because, well, the page will be bigger on screen. So definitely try that one first I'd say and if handles swiping through the pages smoothly enough you're sorted. If not, see if the iPad works as it's got the next biggest screen and, failing that, go with the Galaxy Tab 3.

You are aware that CBR files are .RAR archive files of the images which have been renamed from .RAR to .CBR
And that CBZ files are just .ZIP archive files of the images which have been renamed from .ZIP ro .CBZ

You can rename either back , open them in your favourite archive program and grab the actual images if you want :-)

I am aware, that's why I said they're essentially the same. In my experience comic reading apps historically had spots of trouble with some RAR archives and there were times I've had to un-RAR one and repackage it as a zipped CBZ instead to read it. Although admittedly I haven't seen any issues crop up for quite a while.

I found using the iPad Kindle app to read PDFs worked fine for me, but is quite probably sub-optimal.

Ditto.

I've bought and installed ComicZeal. For some of the comics I've put on my IPad it puts them into a collection, others (from the same series) are put in outside a collection.

Any idea what I need to do so that comics from the same series go into a collection? I had a look at file names can't see anything obvious.

Does this help at all:

https://comiczeal.tenderapp.com/kb/orga ... nto-series

Yes! Thanks, I found it I name the comics the same and put 001, 002 etc on the end they go into a collection

I was going to say use the tutorial within the app as it explains exactly how to do it there.

This Humble Bundle thing is going to end up costing me a fortune if it gets me into buying loads more comics. Curse you, Bamba!

The only problem is they get read so quickly!

Anyway, am done with chapter 1-6 of Saga, which was excellent. Will read the next set soon.

I've been reading Fables, quite a new and often dark take on all the fairy tale characters.

Also Crossed Badlands, a zombie type comic, not for the faint hearted!

Fables is excellent indeed. The thing that amazes me is the consistency; it's been running since 2002 over 139 issues and it's always very good.

On a related note, if you weren't already aware, the latest game by Travellers Tales (the studio that did the recent Walking Dead game) is 'The Wolf Among Us' which is a murder mystery set in the Fables universe with Bigby Wolf as the main character. I've played two of the three currently available chapters and really enjoyed it.



I do like the Crossed stuff in general and the Crossed themselves are compelling plot devices but Badlands has been incredibly patchy with the quality differing massively from one story to the next. I think it's been shopped around a few different writers though to be fair. The original series was one of the best but then Garth Ennis is a decent writer mostly.

What's definitely worth checking out is Crossed: Wish You Were Here; it's an ongoing and completely free web based series set in the same universe and, for my money, is one of the better stories by a long chalk.

Well, yeah, that's the reason why I tend to pirate them because the 'bang for your buck' is incredibly low. I understand why they cost what they cost but for the amount of time it takes me to read a single issue or trade it's just not worth it to me. I would actually pay a relatively high amount of money a month for a proper 'all you can eat' deal (i.e. Netflix for comics) but paying for individual issues or trades would cost a stupid amount and I'm just not going to do it.

Note: I'm not saying that above stance can be justified on a moral level or anything, and I'm sure others don't feel the same, it's just how I feel.

If your interested you can get the first episode on iOS for free right now

http://uk.ign.com/prime/promo/wolf-among-us-free

Not for comics (yet) but there is an equivalent for magazines called readr (it does have Viz but not really any other comics)

http://www.readrapp.com/

Pay a fee and download / read all the digital magazines you want - the subscription is around the same as buying one magazines ($10 / £6 a month)

http://marvel.com/comics/unlimited

Ten bucks a month.