The Outhouse - The Greatest Comic Book Forum

[LOLtron]

Onward into the digital age with Marvel Comics... if a little slowly.

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Source: Bleeding Cool

Bleeding Cool's Rich Johnston, one of the nominees for Outhouse Comics Industrialist of the Year, has noticed that Marvel has begun offering it's Digital Comics Unlimited service, a Netflix-like program for comics that allows the reader to pay a monthly fee for access to over 10,000 digital comics, on iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. The program did not work on iOS before because it was built using Flash, an archaic multimedia web platform invented by cavemen back in the dark ages of the 1990s, which is not compatible with Apple's operating system.

"It's very difficult to convert your apps from Flash to the more modern HTML5," said Doctor Doom, Marvel's executive vice president of web development and black magick. "But not too difficult for one such as Doom!"

As the beta launched this weekend, thousands of Marvel's web servers worked in overtime, with the hamsters that power them running at fast as they could in their hamster wheels to meet the demand. As a contingency plan, Marvel had a staff of witch doctors on hand, prepared to perform special Flash dances to win favor with the Adobe gods in case the mysterious HTML5 version failed and Marvel had to revert back to Flash.

"One never knows," explained Doom, clutching his fist. "At any time, the whole system could fail, causing app to revert to the Flash version, and the dreaded popup to appear magically on the reader's system, informing them that the comic they are trying to read cannot be accessed because their browser is running an incompatible version of the Flash plugin. At that point, the reader has no choice but to give up, or venture into the dark dimension of Adobe's plugin installation website, which is populated by an infinite number of versions of the plugin. There's no way to tell which one you need to install, and your soul is cursed to wander the dimension for all eternity."

Despite the dangers, Marvel's move toward making its subscription service available on iOS devices is a crucial step in giving customers the freedom to access digital comics on their preferred devices, and The Outhouse commends them for doing it. As for retailer concerns that the availability of digital comics will destroy the direct market, Doom says not to worry.

"While the program technically works on iOS, we've taken every precaution to ensure that the controls are clunky and unresponsive, rendering it functionally unusable," he told us. "Doom shall sprawl on his throne and laugh at the readers as they try unsuccessfully to enjoy reading a comic on the platform!"

"Bwahahahahaha!" he added.

Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited is available for $4.99 a month. Find out more here.

Written or Contributed by Jude Terror

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READ THIS ARTICLE ON THE FRONT PAGE, HUMANS!

[TimDrake'sDumbWings]

Does anyone know if its possible to read MDCU on an Android device? I'm getting a Google Nexus tablet soon, and being able to do that would definitely be an incentive to plunk down the $60 for MDCU.

[S.F. Jude Terror]

From what I have heard, it is possible but the controls suck.

[TimDrake'sDumbWings]

From what I have heard, it is possible but the controls suck.

Jude! I keep forgetting that you're the guy to go to regarding digital comics.

What tablet are you using again?

[S.F. Jude Terror]

I'm using a Kindle Fire, but I'm looking to upgrade to a larger screen.

As far as Android vs. iOS, both have access to all the standard apps - Comixology, Marvel, DC, Dark Horse. iOS has exclusive access to Madefire, which from what I can tell is fucking awesome, but I have not been able to see anything but videos of it due to not owning an iOS device. Android obviously comes with a cheaper price point and more options on hardware.

Are you already invested in an Apple ecosystem by owning an iPhone, iPod Touch, or Mac? If so, you might find it more convenient to get an iPad. If not, then evaluate what you want the tablet for. If it's just for reading comics and web browsing (like me), then get the cheapest reasonable model (I.E. not a Chinese knockoff) with the screen size you want. You can easily get a 10 inch Android tablet for $250-$300, which will display full comic pages at a decent size and resolution, which I prefer to the guided panel modes of Comixology and others. That being said, the guided mode works well enough as well.

If you get a 7 inch tablet, you're going to have to squint to see the pages at full size, or use landscape mode and scroll down, which isn't too bad, and which I did for a year, but I'm about sick of it and have been putting on my glasses and reading in portrait mode.

If you have cbrs, cbzs, or pdfs (and yes, they are for more than just piracy), then Android + Windows has a great integrated solution in the form of ComicRack, which is like an iTunes for comics. Mac and iOS have some similar apps, but without the capability to scrape metadata from ComicVine (and also not free).

Your purchases on any of the mainstream apps are available cross platform, so you can read them on your computer, your phone, your tablet, no matter the platform.

If you go with an android device, check the XDA Developers forums for that device and see what people say about it as far as hackability and performance before buying. While the tablet may be fine out of the box, community support is often more extensive and longer lasting than official support.

[S.F. Jude Terror]

As for the Nexus, are you getting the Nexus 10 inch?