comics on c-d rom

[stevezodiac]

A hundred years ago Jews were regularly portrayed as wanting to burn their shops down for the insurance. I read an example recently:

Dad do you have any petrol for my lighter?

Take some from the fire bucket, son.

[Tin Can Tommy]

If DCT decide to put its massive archive in digitised form will they do he whole lot or leave the politically incorrect and racist stuff out?

I think it depends who they aim their archive at. If it's kids then I could see them removing that sort of thing but in the more likeley case of it being targeted at adults interested in the history of comics then they would probably keep it in. I think thats what they do with Looney Tunes they edit out politically incorrect stuff when it's shown on television aimed at children but they also release DVDs aimed more at adults interested in old cartoons with that stuff kept in.

But DCT usually ensure politically incorrect stuff is not present when they reprint it.

Also seeing as how corporal punishment is very politically incorrect these days then if they removed the politically incorrect stuff if they released a digitised archive there would not be much stuff left.

[philcom55]

There was a surprising amount of censorship of 'Charley's War' when it was reprinted only a few years after its first appearance. Fortunately the original text was restored for the more recent series of albums.

- Phil R.

[dandy mad]

If DCT decide to put its massive archive in digitised form will they do he whole lot or leave the politically incorrect and racist stuff out?

I think it depends who they aim their archive at. If it's kids then I could see them removing that sort of thing but in the more likeley case of it being targeted at adults interested in the history of comics then they would probably keep it in. I think thats what they do with Looney Tunes they edit out politically incorrect stuff when it's shown on television aimed at children but they also release DVDs aimed more at adults interested in old cartoons with that stuff kept in.

But DCT usually ensure politically incorrect stuff is not present when they reprint it.

Also seeing as how corporal punishment is very politically incorrect these days then if they removed the politically incorrect stuff if they released a digitised archive there would not be much stuff left.

That just leaves the mid 80s upto the present day so no it's not worth the bother

[Digifiend]

Not every strip contains slipper punishments you know...

[wilsia]

Ispy - For a techno phobia leke myself, how does the cd rom work, how do you get it onto kindle, can you adjust the size of page, is it reader friendly so many questions but
as you have purchased same can you kndly advise please.

[felneymike]

Well if you mean the pirate CD Roms on Ebay (which most of us encourage you not to buy!) I'd imagine they are just a load of jpg images, which you would view like photos on your computer. They won't work at all on a kindle, as I beleive books for that need to be in it's own format (and also kindles don't have colour!).
They may also be PDF's, which are a little more sophisticated (they are designed for graphic design / printing work). Some handheld book readers / tablets / phones support PDF files, so you could read them on the go. I doubt kindle does, though, and of course it still can't display colour!

[Marionette]

Scanned comic files AKA digital comics are usually found with a .cbr or .cbz extension. These are readable by a number of free programs on the PC, such as CDisplay. CD ROMS usually contain collections of these comic files. A free program called Calibre, used primarily for ebooks, can be used to convert these comic files into the ebook format of your choice for viewing on an ereader. However, ereaders have small screens, and are not really suitable for reading comics on.

ipads and other tablets have a screen that is very close in size to a comic page, and can display colour, and are therefore much better for reading comic files. Again, a variety of program 'apps' are available for reading them, though these do tend to cost a small amount of money. I use Mangablade on my ipad.

Several companies such as Comixoligy also use their own proprietary software to read their own files. I have no information on the format they use. this is the format many American publishers use for digital editions of their comics.

A small minority of comic scans are produced in PDF format, which can be read by Kindle without conversion, but they don't look very good.

Bear in mind that while the cbr/cbz format is widely used for files that infringe copyright, it is not in itself illegal, and is also used for entirely legal digital comics.

[stevezodiac]

The advert for the Kindle Fire (colour screen) mentioned the 100 DC Graphic Novels so somebody thinks they are readable at that screen size and of course back in the 70s or 80s DC did reissue comics in smaller booklet format. Were they called digest size?

[Marionette]

The advert for the Kindle Fire (colour screen) mentioned the 100 DC Graphic Novels so somebody thinks they are readable at that screen size and of course back in the 70s or 80s DC did reissue comics in smaller booklet format. Were they called digest size?

The Kindle Fire has a 7" screen. That's not quite as large as the ipad's 9.5", but better than the Kindle's (and other standard ereaders) 5". All tablets have a simple to use zoom facility to enlarge individual areas (which ereaders typically don't) which helps.

As for how good they look, it really depends on the resolution of the images, and the resolution of the device you are reading it on. Ereaders don't need high resolution because they are designed for reading text, so they are not really optimised for images.

[starscape]

cbr and cbz files are just rar and zip files really. Change the extension from .cbz to .zip, then unzip (similarly with cbr/rar). Your computer should do this automatically or download something like iZarc.

Alternatively, scan your own images in.

You'll then have a folder full of jpegs (or tiffs etc). Kindles have a very good image viewer and can see most image files. They don't need encrypting or anything silly (it also reads pdfs, docs, txt and many more).

Use mangle.exe (manga+kindle=mangle) from foosoft.net to automatically size etc to make them a perfect fit for kindle.

You then attach your kindle to your laptop, where the kindle becomes like a hard drive. Load your comic image folder into the pictures folder and Bob's yer uncle. It appears automatically in your kindle menu.

You can rotate, zoom and pan but it's not as sophisticated as a tablet. Doesn't have to be for what it was designed for. So you can read anything on it but some are more trouble than it's worth.

Pocket books like Commando, Starblazer etc work just fine. Just the right size.

Marvel UK (excluding Dez's cut ups) also work well. I'm currently reading some old Power comics (Terrific) on mine.

US comics can be ok. Especially older ones. For instance, I read Warlock vol.1 on it but Starlin's Warlock vol.2 was too difficult. You need to work a lot with contrast and shading. I wouldn't bother with the hassle. Especially since I collect Marvel UK, so scanning and reading is easy for me.

British comics have that extra row of panels so I find them too cumbersome. You can zoom and pan but too much work for me (actually humour comics might be better as the layout tends to be fairly simple but I'm an adventure comics fan so that's a little more difficult). I have cut up stories (digitally) to read them. A lot of work but I quite enjoy making these little 'movies' of my favourite comics.

Apparently manga is also fine but I never read these.

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

wilsia: glad to help out: the first time I loaded a DVD-rom [illegal or not] I had to go to 'MY COMPUTER': you should see a 'dvd -rom' symbol like a small shiney disc [this can be seen under 'Devices with Removable Storage'.]


Yes, the first time I loaded a DVD-rom, nothing happened, and I panicked: you will likely have to download the free ADOBE READER function, which takes about two minutes. If the decoding system is not ADOBE, there will likely be advice on the 'read this!' thumbnail advising you of which [free] reading converter you need to download. But once this is installed, it's automatic and permanent.

Once this is installed, all the options/ individual issues come up, then you right click the thumbnails and after a few seconds, the files will appear large.

Once the files fill up your screen, you tailor the size of the image to your preference---initially, this is a bit of a pain after a lifetime of being used to paper comics, but eventually [after a few hours] it becomes intuitive, and you can zoom-in, scroll down, or click forward one page at a time.


It definitely works, no-one on the feedback scores I consulted experienced any problems.

Any more questions, please ask, there is nothing dodgy or illegal about watching material on ADOBE.......the content is another matter!

Hope this helps...



EDIT:

I see that there is a 'bountiful harvest' of illicit comics/mags-related DVDs available on a well-known online site, that is multiplying like wildfire-----this has magnified noticably over the last couple of weeks. The whole lot might get shut down on a whim, but it's pretty alarming just how rapidly this service/disservice is manifesting.....

[Peter Gray]

see that there is a 'bountiful harvest' of illicit comics/mags-related DVDs available on a well-known online site, that is multiplying like wildfire-----this has magnified noticably over the last couple of weeks. The whole lot might get shut down on a whim, but it's pretty alarming just how rapidly this service/disservice is manifesting.....


It is unbelievable what is available...and american comics like tales of the unexpected..
and they look like they are selling well..
the companies better hurry up and produce the real thing...
I know officially there is a Fantastic four...Mad comic..New Yorker dvd/cd rom..

what other official dvd/cd roms are out there for American comics...
I think Viz has one has well..

just found a link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... _on_CD/DVD

[Marionette]

The big American companies are expanding their digital side, but they are hampered by their pricing policy. I suspect it may be going the way of digital music. People who download mp3s prefer to do so legally, particularly when the price is more reasonable than you'd pay for CDs, and they are not crippled by DRM features. I buy mp3 albums from Amazon and know I can play them on any device I own that uses the format, and make up CDs to play in my CD player. Some musicians even bypass the system altogether and sell their albums off their website, offering a choice of formats. I've even seen some that allow you to pay what you think the album is worth. And these musicians are wildly successful. See Amanda Palmer, for example.

If the comics industry can take onboard some of these lessons then they might get back a lot of the customers who are buying digital comics illegally, simply by actually making an effort to sell to them.

[dandy mad]

I'm not a fan of reading a comic/annual on the computer screen mainly because it brings on a migraine after a bit and it's surprising what they can squeeze onto a single disk.