From laureate to delivery, electronic comic books are exploding beyond speech bubbles

As Ireland prepares to appoint its first Laureate for Literature, the UK has just appointed its first Comics Laureate, Dave Gibbons. Gibbons, the creator of the classic Watchmen series, was chosen for the role by Comics Literacy Awareness, a charity established to act as an ambassador for comics and their potential to improve literacy.

As picture books serve as a child’s first introduction to reading, so the combination of words and pictures offer reluctant readers an accessible means of processing more complex texts.

“Comics are a very vibrant art form in their own right”, Gibbons said in relation to his new role. They are “part of the continuum from novels through to movies and computer games [and] have been used extensively in literacy drives all over the world.” Comics are also one of the mediums that have been challenged by the advent of e-reading, but new technologies have begun to yield some brilliant results and rewards.

The first generation of e-readers were particularly unfriendly to comic readers. Basic Kindle versions of graphic texts necessitated far too much fiddling. Appearing in static form in a size mismatched to original formats meant a lot of zooming and pinching to read the text within the word balloons.

The advent of reading software for smart phones did little to whet appetites for the digital form. The smaller screen size meant strips were delivered panel by panel, and the effect was disjointed rather than a continuous flow. The widespread availability of tablet devices in the last two years, however, has been especially favourable to the comic form. A 10-inch tablet offers almost the same dimensions as a standard comic book, and publishers have responded by digitising thousands of back-issues of comic book classics, while contemporary creators have been inspired to find new ways to enhance the form through interactive apps.

Digital options

ComiXology will be the first port of call for anyone interested in exploring digital comic book options. The app works like a centralised engine for comic book publishers and brings together more than 75 well-known names, including

Marvel

(most of the big superhero franchises) and

Dark Horse

(

Star Wars

), with alternative titles from publishers like Fantagraphics.

Most of the publishers offer their own independent apps, which are great when you know what you are looking for, but ComiXology offers an experience slightly more akin to browsing in a traditional comic book store. It is owned by Amazon, however, which will deter the type of fan who got their graphic education in the independent indie environments of shops such as Forbidden Planet and Sub City. Still, the site is brilliantly browsable and buying is easy, with better-value bundles making an especially attractive package.

Digital versions of graphic novels, meanwhile, are readily available from most of the big online retailers. Although new and pulp classics are easy to come by, it is worth noting that some of the bigger art-house names such as Shaun Tan and Barroux, whose latest work Line of Fire: Diary of an Unknown Soldier was published to enormous acclaim earlier this year, remain unavailable in e-format.

With artists like Tan and Barroux, the material reality of the book itself is part of the experience and beauty, so this isn’t a surprise; their books are the type that will never be threatened by digital publishing.

Meanwhile, graphic books have been adapting to the opportunities offered by digital media too. Motion comics are to the genre what enhanced ebooks are to the novel; they combine animated comics panels with sound and video to create a more interactive experience for the reader. Instead of reading comic strip panels left to right, you dive into a three-dimensional world that combines words, pictures, motion and sound effects. Stories and strips are typically short and direct, encouraging short-burst reading, which speaks to the changing way we read these days as well

Madefire, which offers a free app for iOS and Android and a library of books and editions, many for free, is a leader in this new medium. Madefire offers a wealth of original content from established comic book and graphic novel writers, as well as older strips that have been adapted for the medium.

However, it offers creators a tool to publish their own work for free through easy-to-use software available through any web browser. It also provides creators with a publishing platform, enabling aspiring writers to share their work via Madefire or Deviant Art, the online social sharing site for comic book fans.

Gibbons has been involved with Madefire since its inception, and has been directly involved in developing it as a tool for comic-book readers and writers. Indeed, the first motion comic released by Madefire was a Gibbons collaboration, Treatment. "We are creating a new grammar," he said upon its release. Never has the crux of digital publishing been described so succinctly.