Thumbin' Through Digital Editions
Hawkeye & Mockingbird #1 was an excellent introductory issue for the new Heroic Age series, so I found my curiosity revamped this week in seeing that the issue had been adapted for the various iDevices, and was available for free download. To have that portability- to carry an issue around and get friends and coworkers to look at a comic on the fly-that's one of an ereader's most redeeming factors, so I was glad to have that option made available. But my skepticism of the digital format remained- what intrinsic differences arise from reading a comic this way, having already devoured the issue in all its glossy goodness? Would I really want to expose my pals to a paper edition first? A few thoughts on the digital reading experience...
Most Comixology-derived readers take the audience on a guided walkthough of the panels and narrative boxes, as if the "camera" were on a track that pans and zooms across the page. This act itself is disconcerting as a reader, as you're now physically interacting with the page at least once per panel, if not more, instead of the simple act of flipping every 2 pages. Even then, this break-up of the page seems arbitrary at times, restricting what you read to whatever portions the editor deems relevant. H&M's title page is a perfect example. In the digital copy, we're guided to a small opening caption, zoom out to the splash image and credits, and resume the plot by zooming in on the narrative boxes towards the bottom of the page. Penciler David Lopez filled the single picture with smaller, intimate moments, taking the time to show each nameless thug in reaction to the Pym arrows, but in the digital edition, you'll have to manually scroll around the page to observe this. When I first read the issue on paper, it forced my eye to follow the arch of the arrows from bow to target. Here, the frame kills any fluidity in the image.
Likewise, pages with creative paneling don't suit a rectangular screen well. It's a great idea to frame Bobbi's dreams with her bedsheets, but no ereader can suit irregularly-shaped panels without elements of the surrounding picture cutting into the frame. Digital-exclusive comics could pull this off well by playing with the cut, or in being aware that the Phantom Rider overlaps into the next screen and writing around that fact. This awkwardness in translation will continue to exist in all comics that aren't presented in strictly rectangular format, or aren't made with the ereader in mind, and no work of art should have to compromise its intent of presentation for its mode of presentation.
With digital adaptations, it's almost exclusively the art that suffers. The supplementary backstory at the end issue is the only part of the issue that's improved upon when digitized- having a guide through the myriad text boxes ensures that you read them in proper order and within context, though it requires a page with a 200+ word count to be find a measure of efficacy. There's nothing particularly wrong with digital formatization, and the uninitiated will likely enjoy a digital issue as much as a floppy one, but if I'm left with an option, I'll opt for the edition that'll permit a looser, freer reading of the material. Without the synchronicity of artwork and prose, you get a flurry of text followed by an oddly-sized image that ultimately kills the open-endedness of actual reading experience.
Rubber Justice
Posted to Comics on 29 July 2010
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