Great Weekend (2/3): iPAD's Arrival Tomorrow Means Tablet Technology Meets Comics

Every once in a while, all the awesome in the Universe seems to converge within a two day period.  We're not sure why it happens, but it has, it does, and if our experience with the power cosmic means anything, we're sure it'll happen again. Dabblers  might very well call these spectacular spectaculars Comic Convergences, but sometimes, even those words aren't enough. 

This weekend 02-04 April  promises to be the first of  2010's potentially Great Weekends, with 3 mega-events exploding nationwide: (1) San Francisco's own gigantic comic convergence, Wonder Con, begins it's three-day stay today in the Bay Area, while (2) Louis Leterrier's remade Clash of the Titans charged into theaters this morning - and in some places, even last night. Apple's game-changing iPad makes our (3) as it the game-changing tablet technology makes its public appearance just hours from now.

Yes, Apple confirmed Monday that their new iPad Wifi version (not the Wifi + 3G) will go on sale nationwide in all 221 Apple retail stores, as well as “most” Best Buy stores, beginning Saturday 03 April 2010 at 9am.  The company also said that their earliest iPad pre-orders have begun shipping as well, meaning at least a few lucky dabblers - along with  Stephen Colbert, who announced he received a free on during last night's episode of The Colbert Report - are probably shopping the App Store even now. 

Based on a 2007 survey, over 10 million or 30% of Americans own or will own an iPhone , and it's estimated that sales of the iPad should hit the 1 million mark within the next week.  Numbers like that mean, well, a lot of things - but in general, they translate very well as a technological tidal wave that, once it hits, will even give places like Des Moines, Iowa the metaphorical beach front property its always wanted. 

In other words, iPad's tablet technology will be a game changer. A plethora of other companies - among them  Lenovo, HP, Archos, Enso, Asus, and Fusion Garage - will be releasing their own media tablets this year, and cumulative orders are expected to hit 4 million by year's end.  By 2015, the world-wide number is forecasted to be 57 million annually.

To both usher in and ease the inevitable process, Apple's  posted several  iPad tutorials and guided video tours to their website, focusing on their new device's core features, such as Safari, Mail, iBooks, and the iWork suite. Of more interest to dabblers may be the tutorial for Apple's new iBookstore, which will first require a user to download an App before iPad can go cyber-shopping.  To begin your new iPad education, go HERE.

  

Reading iBooks on the iPad will be akin to using an e-Book reader,  but in a far better way than is currently offered by any e-reader currently on the market.  Apple’s iBookstore will designate about 20 main tier categories, including Fiction & Literature, Reference, and Cookbooks. Comic Books & Graphic Novels  will also rank among the Top 20 -- which we think is excellent and reassuring news. Manga will be delineated as a subcategory beneath the Comics tier, just one of over 150 total iBookstore subs available.  (And for our gamers on the blog, Apple reports their video game catalog will be just - if not even more - impressive.)

Apple's iPad capabilities are perfectly suited for comic books and graphic novels.  Online sites like ComiXology have become instrumental as the comics industry marches toward its own digital evolution; ComiXology itself boats an impressive, non-stop shop destination for the comics crowd, featuring not only weekly digital  comics and graphic novel content, but blogs, reviews, previews, forums, user ratings, and mobile applications for users on the go.   Expanding on the ComiXology model is Longbox Digital, a device and hardware independent platform for the secure distribution, sale and enjoyment of digital comics.  While Longbox is currently in private Beta test mode, public Beta testing is expected to come soon.

And that's an event that could be huge - especially in the months and years to come. Longbox has the potential to be the future of comics distribution, eliminating the monthly paper comic book format entirely. Longbox will function in a way very similar to iTunes, and like Apple's music store, plans to offer $.99 content.  With individual comics priced  anywhere from $2.99 to $4.99 or more, collecting has been prohibitive for many readers.  The potentials of Longbox suggest that may not be the case in the future. Still, that time won't arrive anytime soon. The new models of comics sales and distribution that the industry would need to adopt also predict the end of comics' current system - the independent direct market. With an entire industry structured around the direct market, the future will not be won easily.

Of course, that doesn't mean it won't be coming. Several comics publishers already offer digital content for iPhone via their individual apps,  and porting them to iPad and other media tablets will be a seamless process. Among the companies offering their comics digitally are: Image, Arcana, Archaia, Antarctic Press, Bluewater, Boom Studios, Devil's Due, Dynamite Entertainment,  Moonstone, Red 5, Robot Comics,  Slave Labor Graphics, Studio 407, Top Cow, and Viper. 

If anyone will have trouble adapting their comics to digital, its the Big Two, Marvel Comics and DC.  We'll take a closer look at both these companies digital designs in Part II of our Digital Comics review - coming this weekend!

CoMicsMerchant Says He's GLAAD There's No Time Like The Present

As often as we've claimed our day to bring all you comicsblogees brand-new blogs is Friday, we'll make an exception for Saint Patrick's.  And though it may be St. Paddy's, Pay Day (one of our favorite holidays) is so close we can smell the money.  If you can, too,  then this is place you want to be and our resident CoMics Merchant is the dude you need to meet   He's got a knack for the new that'll knock your socks off; he's the merchant with a penchant for spending other people's cash.  Will he succeed putting you in the poor house tonight? Only one way to find out: Let's go shopping - abbracadabbling style!

Just like the awesome Iron Man MacBook Decal we featured a few months ago, this cool Green Lantern MacBook Decal will add a gaggle of green comics color to your MacBook or MacBook Pro. The full-color decal of DC Comics' most famous Green Lantern is perfectly positioned so that your (and CoMics Merchant's) MacBook's apple light gives good glow and makes Hal Jordan's power ring sparkle with emerald energy.  Movie Magic Man's up to his old tricks, but when it comes to Green Lantern, we'll let him work that old black magic anytime he wants. He's even designed the decal to fit 13 inch, 15 inch and 17 inch laptop models -- and we'd bet good money he's got an iPad design waiting in wings.  For just $15, your Mac can become the next member of the the Green Lantern Corps HERE.

Superheroes may rely on masks to protect their identities when on the job, but we all know an MP3 player and headphones serve the purpose even better. Now, Coloud, the 'new name in music', has given us the best of both worlds with these soon to be hot-off-the-assembly-line Marvel Headphones! Coloud's new Marvel-themed headgear features a range of Marvel heroes, from Iron Man and Hulk to Punisher and Wolverine! -- and there's even an X-Men version, so how can we not be psyched? Fans of Daredevil, you're out of luck.  But for everyone else, CoMics Merchant  says Christmas is coming early this year. Get in line and pre-order your MP3's next super-accessory for just $39.99 HERE. 

Alan Cumming - X-Men 2's big-screen, blue-skinned Nightcrawler - hosted the 21st Annual GLAAD Media Awards in New York last Saturday, which you already know is the annual ceremony that honors all forms of media - including comics - which elevate and promote fair, accurate and inclusive of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) stories, issues, and people.  Joining fellow GLAAD Award recipients Joy Behar (LMAO co-host of The View) and Ms. Aliens herself, Sigourney Weaver, Kate Kane won this year's GLAAD Award in the Outstanding Comic Book category for her portrayal of Batwoman in the ongoing DC Comics series Detective Comics.

Well, okay, Kate Kane and her alter-ego may not exist (that we know of), but DC's Detective Comics, the longest published series in comics, did earn this year's honor for featuring lesbian superheroine Batwoman in the publisher's flagship title.  That alone wouldn't have been enough for the title to win an award; the book's  creative team of writer Greg Rucka and artist J.H. Williams III  is that magic that's consistently put Detective Comics over the top and earned the series copious amounts of critical attention since the modern incarnation of Kate Kane began headlining the Batman-related book in June 2009.

After nearly a year of headlining Detective, Batwoman nabs GLAAD's award just as she's about to exit the book in order to make room for the return of a back-from-the-past Bruce Wayne.  While a short hiatus may be in her solo future, so's her solo title, which Rucka and Williams will launch later this year. But our CoMics Merchant doesn't see any reason for you to wait to find our what everyone's been so GLAAD that you've been missing. Head down to your local comics shop and find out just how the comic book industry is tackling LGBT issues, as the red-haired spunky Batwoman is about the best example going right now. Insightful -- and a good read with plenty of eye-pleasing pictures thanks to Williams' decorative flare.

With abbracadabbling being the official comicsblog of Present Magic Comics, we're the authority on the power of being present. But living in the moment can be difficult for even the most tempered dabbler among us. Thank goodness for the timely arrival of the CoMics Merchant! He's always watching out for us, and now we'll never have trouble keeping it current thanks to Yanko's Past, Present, Future Watch. The 'PPF' watch is designed to remind its wearer that ‘there is no time like the present’ as it only displays the present time,  with the current time always moving around the dial and always being displayed at the top of the watch in the present time.  

This watch seems like it was tailor-made for followers of our blog, and to all those devoted to the philosophy of Present Magic across the globe. Yanko's tapped into our Flow, but  we almost didn't notice. Our attention's locked on their Fall line-up of watches - three nifty little gizmos that won't tell you what time it is, but what time it will be three hours and twelve seconds down the road.  You know, way too much to look forward to, but just one great $95 wristwatch to buy in the HERE...and now.

No Sour Grapes as Apple's iPAD Pre-Orders Top 120K In One Day

Yes, we know our picture is misleading. Someone was having shots for lunch...Now, we can't say for certain who that could be. But since we also just spotted our newest intern Erin go bra-less down the breezeway, our list of suspects is narrowing.

Much unlike Apple Computer's broadband frequency, which must have been jam-packed  when Apple began taking pre-orders for their new iPad tablet last Friday.  How bad was that Apple jam? In just one day, America's 'Apple-juiced' appetites proved just how hungry they were: according to  Investor Village, Apple sold over 120,000 iPad pre-orders 12 March, when both the iPad WiFi and iPad 3G models went live to buy.  

 iPad WiFi is scheduled to physically appear in Apple retail stores 03 April, leaving  some industry worry-warts to wonder if Apple can meet the demand. But by all accounts -- especially bank accounts -- it's looking to us like those crazy and creative Cupertinians most definitely can. Pre-order sales of 120K equate to roughly $75 million in revenue for Apple -- in one day.  By comparison, James Cameron's Avatar earned a 'whopping' $27  million on its first day, and required three days to crawl towards the $80M mark. To Avatar fans everywhere, we have only one thing to say: How 'bout them Apples?

Net Values: The State of The Internet 2009 -- and Raley Guest-Blogs!

Raley here, folks! The Dabbler's been called away by some entertainment big-wigs (oh, I can't tell a fib: he's glued to Access Hollywood and Corey Haim) so I told him I'd happily guestblog a post or two. After all, if it had been the other Corey -- he would've done the exact same for me. 

Seriously, everyone at our Home Office is very sorry to hear about Corey Haim's death earlier today; like Britney Murphy in December, it's a tragedy - and it's scary - any way you look at it. But I'll tell you what's just as scary, and maybe even scarier: how quickly somebody updated those folks' Wikipedia pages. I'm online all day and I'd swear, Corey Haim's Wikipedia page was updated (that he'd died) ten minutes before the ambulance arrived at his mom's place! How do they do that? I don't know what to think about that, guys, I really don't.

The good news for dabblers is that abbracadabbling's ComicTech boys found this truly visual way to help us all make some sense of that 'world wide' craziness.  While I wasn't too surprised by a lot of the data, having the actual numbers really does put today's State of The Internet into perspective. I was shocked to see that laptop and netbook users are closing the gap on desktoppers like me, though. And what's with the United States getting fifth place for internet penetration? Take a look, guys, then be sure to share your thoughts with me in our Comments section down below!

(It's Raley again! Had to duck in here because the people who pulled this info together did an extremely thorough job. We were all shocked - in a pleasantly surprised shocked sort of way - to discover that even our little comicsblog made its way into the researchers' data set. Of course, we weren't surprised at all by their results. It's amazing what statisticians can figure out these days...!)

And that's The State of The Internet in 2009, boys and girls. I don't know about you, but I've got a feeling we'll see some big changes in next year's numbers after the iPad - and a gazillion others - hit the Best Buy in a few months. I'm curious how tablets will impact not just comics - but life for all us bloggers, too. I just know Dabbler's going to send me off to some Yaoi Con somewhere and make me Live-Blog.  Not that I'd be hating that or anything... Thanks for being on the comicsblog with me tonight, dabblers. Keep it real, and keep abbracadabbling!

NOTE: The views expressed by guest-bloggers do not necessarily reflect the views of abbracadabbling. Views expressed are opinions only, and should not be regarded as fact.

Source: FOCUS Online [link]