Comics on the Kindle

I don’t read individual issues of comics — except when The Walking Dead trades leave me hanging – and here’s why: comics are now written to be collected into trade editions.  The days of tuning in next month for another adventure are long passed.  Monthly issues are chapters of a longer story which is often spread out over six months or more.

Don’t get me wrong, this works well – story arcs in comics are much more sophisticated than when I started reading them.  Something like Batman R.I.P. would have been unthinkable back in the day.  But the thought of shelling out $3 to $4 a month for an installment seems wasteful and frustrating.  I can wait a few months and read the entire collection in one sitting either in something I checked out for free at the library or bought for significantly less than the individual issues would cost.

So to me the individual issue is ephemeral.  The real story is in the $14.95 paperback volume – not in some floppy thing – let alone some overpriced floppy thing marketed towards collectors.

And that’s why reading comics on the Kindle interests me.

Gearlog has a post by Brian Heater showing how comics (in PDF) look on the Kindle 2.  The consensus is that the technology isn’t there yet [via The Beat]

It might not be, but it’s good enough. 

I don’t have a Kindle (yet, hopefully), but if I did and I could get monthly comics on them I would buy them – especially if the price point was around $1.  No color? I don’t care.  Kinda pixelly? I don’t care.  I can easily, conveniently, and cheaply follow a story and still pick up the trade when it comes out.  Plus, a lower price point would mean that I’d be willing to try more titles which can only be good for the industry.

Now all I need is for the publishers to get onboard — and a Kindle.