The Way of the Toe, Part 2

The monsoon weather in the southwest United States can be challenging enough for humans. For a cat, the resulting storms can be terrifying. Up until last year, the cats free reign to explore our rural and wild 4 acres. Upon loosing one of our cats one cloudless night, outdoor privileges were revoked and all access laminates were confiscated. You have all been deemed indoor cats. So it is said.

In the age when our cats had free access outdoors, they would often be ushered back into the house by the approaching storms of summer. Morning blue skies giving way to increasing cloudiness which then ultimately turn in to a churning angry mass of boiling clouds. In their nature, copious rain accumulations were the dividends of such storms. With a simple rain fall was insufficient for the day, mother nature brought upon the land a side order of cold. The collision of intense hot and wracking cold produced amazing thunder and lightning storms. But, when ample moisture was present, the result could be hail. 

On one such event, the suddenness of the storm attacked the land, driving all living creatures for shelter. All of the cats navigated the monstrous storm and made good their escape into the house. All but Toe. Possibly hiding under the back deck, in hopes of outlasting the storm, which they have been know to do, decided the hail and might of the thunder would not abate. Self preservation his primary thought, he ran for the back door where upon he found the cat door - locked!

NOOOOO!!!!!

In such storms, I would have to lock and close the cat door to keep the ravaging storm from reaching into the house. In the frantic reactions of the storm, I missed a cat when I counted heads. I had not realized Toe was missing, at first. Running to back door, I look through the windows there upon the ground, pushing against the cat door was Toe. His shrill screams seemed muffled by the deafening crash of hail on a metal roof. 

Water was cascading over the gutter, crashing on to Toe while hail quickly threatened to bury him. Rain coat poorly adorned, and wide brimmed hat askew, I raced out outside to rescue Toe from the wilds of the storm. Resting the corner of the house to the back door, I put up Toe while he was screaming in fear. I tucked into into already soaked coat, and pounded on the kitchen window to my wife to get towels to Toe. My own voice was shrouded by the ferocity of the storm. Terror, screams, and claws were company as I carried Toe back into the house. I handed him over to my wife while I returned to the backyard to support a sagging gutter, teasing its desire to disengage from the house.

After the storm had passed, and Toe had dried, he decided a nap was most appropriate. Unharmed from the rain and hail, he continued the next day as if nothing had happened, exploring the outdoors as was his want, but showed a bit my attention to future storms and an eagerness to get into the house before the rains came.

Word Counts:

Daily 07/29/2015 =  553

July 2015             = 3,431

Project total         =  3,431

Welcome to Project: One Million Words

Welcome to Project: One Million Words

The purpose of this project is to write one million words of entertaining content within the span of of a year. Posts dedicated to this project will track my progress with totals my day and month, showing graphical highs and lows. I am taking on this challenge because I want to become a better writer. Expand my vocabulary, master sentence structure, and perfect my power of the written word. That comes from exercising the creative power of writing. Like any muscle, it will become stronger through a regular training schedule. It needs proper fuel, and proper exercise. This is why my focus of the specific posts will be to write final draft quality content. Does anyone actually produce final draft material which should be considered rough draft? No! But, my mental state is to aim for final draft. I will not engage in mental diarrhea and detail the exploits of my daily activities of work and doing laundry or whatever mundane task ravenously consumes my time. 

One might ask, why one million words? The answer comes from a writer I met at Comic Con (SDCC - San Diego Comic Con) 2015 by the name of Maxwell Alexander Drake. I had the pleasure of speaking to him personally at his booth, and attending one of his panels where he talked about plotting. As part of that discussion, he encouraged all of use future writers to practice writing. Based on his personal approach to writing and experiences, becoming a writer of any caliber worth any coin of the realm, comes from writing. He believes that you shouldn’t attempt to write to get paid until you’ve logged one million words. At that point, then you can start to write that series of books aching to be told. 

Maxwell, in that moment, spoke truth to me. A computer programmer by trade, logic speaks clearly to me, and his approach to writing is very logical and sound. Follow his steps, and you can become a paid writer as well. Maxwell also noted that even though he writes professionally, he’s always improving. His fans have told him his latest book is better than his last. Thats good. You want to always improve, or at least attempt to improve. The Rock (Dwanye Johnson) noted recently on his Instagram account how people constantly ask why he pushes himself so hard these days. You’re not broke. His answer is always the same; “Exactly. That’s why.”

Now that I’ve established a reason for one million words, how does one go about writing one million words in the span of one calendar year? Easy! You take 1,000,000 words and divide that 365 days. That gives you 2,740 (round up) words per day. Is that overwhelming? I don’t know. I feel that once my creative juices get rolling, I can easily get to 1,000 words. Although, my mind is wandering at this point, looking for structure of his to write and finish my first blog post and sitting on 500 words so far. Daunting or not, I will complete this. Not just attempt it, but complete this project. By completing this project of one million words, I expect my prose to be better defined, easier to produce, and enjoyable to read. But, most of all, I expect that writing will become a habit. I would think that doing something for 365 consecutive days to be a habit. This is one habit I want to adopt and joyously embrace. 

Influencers:

As I get into a daily blogging routine, let me share my influences, both old and recent. 

I have always been a fantasy fan. Lords of the Rings, the Thomas Covenant series, that vein of stories. Massive epic stories spanning generations, eons, and books. I like that. It speaks to me. It calls to me. But, I am not myopic in my tastes. Many years ago I read a wonderfully educational and entertaining biography on US president, Thomas Jefferson. I enjoyed immensely. I still have the book. I may never read that wonderful tome again, but I keep it as a testament to my enjoyment of non-fiction works. 

As much as I enjoy the written word, I have also become a fan of audiobooks. The written word - spoken. Jim Butcher’s - The Dresden Files is an excellent series. I’m on book 8 right now. While I enjoy having the book read to me, I sometimes get lost as I think of Jim’s prose. Why he chose that word, or that sentence structure. Coming out of a daze, I have to smile at myself and rewind a bit and listen again to enjoy the story. If you’ve not ventured in audiobooks, and enjoy fantasy, I highly recommend the Dresden Files.

If you’re interested in Jim Butcher, here’s his wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Butcher

Staying in the realm of audiobooks, I have to share my latest passion of dramatized audiobooks by Galaxy Press. They offer both paperback books and audiobooks of the pulps stories written by L. Ron Hubbard from the 1930’s and 1940’s. I enjoyed some of Hubbard’s works in the past, but had no knowledge that he write pulp stories. How good could they be? Well, while at SDCC 2015, I came across the Galaxy Press booth and talked with the people there and the discussion turned to audiobooks. Not regular audiobooks, but dramatized storytelling. Using voice actor and a massive sound effects database, each of the 150+ pulp stories written by L. Ron Hubbard were brought to life with with musical score, voice actors, and sound effects. Action. Adventure. Mystery. 

One rep at the Galaxy press booth let me listen to a sample of the story “Under the Black Ensign”. All I needed was about 20 seconds to get hooked. I felt like I was transported into the story. It was alive. Right there I purchased three CDs. I have enjoyed each one, and do not regret the purchase. In fact, I am now attempting to collect all of the CDs and listen to all 150+ stories. They range from 20 minutes to 2 hours each. Here’s a link to their site:

http://www.galaxypress.com/books/audiobooks/

I have always been a fan of the old radio serials, before television. When the sounds from the radio were all you had to create a vision in your mind, Sometimes, that can be more powerful than a weak director’s perception, and sad presentation of said story. These dramatized audiobooks by L. Ron Hubbard are fantastic. Not only for the entertainment value as a whole, but Hubbard’s command of the written word. My mind gleefully giggles at the thought of how he constructs his sentences, his choice of words, and now, having listened to many of his stories, how he can get stuck on a particular phrase or word. For example, Hubbard often described a character as “raking” their sight over a subject. I like the choice of the word, the first time, but not every time. It looses his value to me, as the listener. I am enthralled with Hubbard’s pulp stories right now. That may pass, but for now, its a treat to listen to. Not only for the entertainment value as a whole, but Hubbard’s excellent story telling. One may argue that his old pulps stories were purposely written that way, but when you consider the unimaginable volume of work he produced in the 30’s and 40’s, he was perfecting his craft in the niche. It worked, and fans loved it then, and now, fans are loving, again.

Say what you will about other aspects of L. Ron Hubbard and his beliefs, I find his writing ability to be a wonderful study. Certainly, I will be influenced by his storytelling ability. 

Read books:

I don’t have other clear influencers in my life right now. I’ll probably be influenced by others as I read their books. Reading books, I believe, is just as important as writing on a regular basis. Exposure to other styles of writing combined with the practicing writing results in better content. A higher quality of entertainment, with the end result of more money made from sales.

Let’s me be honest here. Making money from writing is what I want to do. I have always fancied myself an author, selling the movie rights to my books. I’m no writing or author snob. I do not value being a poor writer solely focused on the craft of writing, casting sour looks and pity upon those prositituting authors who favor a dollar for their time and skills. Thats not me. I have an ego, and knowing that I sold one million books, and have three movie deals, with a fat bank account is no measure of shame against my beliefs.

As part of this project, I declare my desire to read more books from different authors and different genres. For example, I am working my way, albeit slowly, through the book “The Vegetarian Myth”, by Lierre Keith. She has strong opinions, a fascinating look at vegetarianism - and that’s all fine. Agree or disagree, it does not cloud her ability to write well. Words, sentences, paragraphs all flows wonderfully together. I am being educated and entertained at the same time. My copy of the book is a personalized autographed copy. But, don’t let that detract from my recommendation of this book. Its worth a read.

I have been a comic book fan for, dare I say, decades. Being the visual medium that it is, the written words is not as commanding. Many writers in the comic book realm make a living writing outside of comics. While I may not find value in the words they use, I do appreciate the ability to convey a story. I won’t actively use comics as a reference, but there’s no denying reading a lot of comic books in my life has affected my storytelling. 

What can readers expect from my blog posts? The primary drive of the posts is to entertain. I might do that with an one of more on-going serialized stories, or maybe short adventure stories. Secondarily, I will sprinkle in tips and tricks I’ve learned from my experience through this projects as well as those I’ve learned from other professional writers. Summary - entertain and educate. And, act as a time capsule so I can return to the scene of the crime and laugh and cry at my prior attempts at writing. 

I’m also a statistics fiend, so expect to see graphs and charting of my progression to one million words. Having got this far and logging 1,800 words, I’m determining that maybe 2,800 words per day is too aggressive. I’ve been working on this blog post for 90 minutes and I still have 900 more words to write. I have other duties and responsibilities in life, and I do not yet possess the time for allocation to authorship. Perhaps, on this road to one million words, I will be able to expel 2,800 words a each day, but I may have to reassess my goals, even before reaching the end of my first blog post. Ha! Its not just about speed or quantity. Sure, I want to write one million words sooner than later, but I also want it be of quality. I want any time you invest into my blog posts to have value, to you. If you can live your life through my experience, then please come along for the ride. There’s room for others. Let’s take this journey together.

Self promotion:

Full disclosure, I am a published author. In today’s world that may not carry the same importance in times past with the ease in which people can self-publish in ebook and Print On Demand mediums, but I am published. For all the ease of self-publishing, many talk it, but few do it. Fewer still, do it well. For my inaugural book, you find it on Amazon. Its titled “How to Get Rid of Mice”, by Kris Andrews. Its in Kindle format only at this point, but will be working on a Print On Demand version. I want to understand that market as well. Also, I want a tangible book I can hold in my hands. 

http://www.amazon.com/How-Get-Rid-Mice-Nonsense-ebook/dp/B0104QTSWA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1438297840&sr=8-1&keywords=kris+andrews

In the vein of reassessment, I may have to limit myself to a set amount of time. I can’t offer any concrete time limits right here and now. This is a work in progress, and I’ll react and flow as needed to complete this project in a way which best satisfies me. And who knows, maybe I’ll pick up a few fans along the way, and I’ll have to reassess again to meet the demands of my readership. If others can find value as I go through this, than all the better for everyone.

The Way of the Toe, Part 1:

As a closing effort, I’ll write about the sudden and unexpected death of my pet cat, Toe. In these stories, I hope to collect them together as tribute to a truly remarkable, and sadly, short life.

The blackness of his fur against a moonless night could no more define his presence than processed sugar on a mound of snow. His bulky strength, augmented by his stomping feet ever so accented by the slight clicking sound of cat claws on hickory hardwood floors was his signature. If ignored, his battering ram forehead was sure to demand attention. Persistent nudging and rubbing for attention could only be outdone by his occasional, and excited biting. Not hard biting. Those cautious and loving bites which develop in a relationship between pet and owner. 

For all his presence, a perceived missing link was notable fro his character. He wasn’t slow or stupid, but something was off. Perhaps a side-effect of his kittens years where a cold of grave congestion threatened to end his life there. Had I not pick up his small body and fragile will at the time, and forced him to fight, to breath, a struggle through the sickness upon him, he would most likely not have lived the few precious years we shared together. Perhaps, there was a moment or two where the precious oxygen had not been slowing to all parts of his body with proper flow and pace. Perhaps the seeds of an abrupt end were sown at that time.

It saddens me to contemplate such matters of any measure. A ruinous road, one which should be paved with cat treats and a celebration of life. Rather than torture myself of the infinite reason of his passing, I prefer to smile and gorge myself on the wondrous memories we had together. While Toe and I enjoyed our time together, enhanced by my opportunity to work from home, he had an adventurous life in his own right.

In his time of transforming from kitten to young adult, Toe and his adventurous brother Creamy we led away from the house by their mother, Momma Kitty. Momma, while feral born, we assume as adopted owners, her kittens were house-born. Toe, one of four, travelled with his brother Creamy out to the unknown dangers of the rural landscapes which surround us. Upon Momma Kitty’s return, Toe and his brother Creamy were missing. Long and desperate did we call and search for the lost children. Giving way to the evening, we fretted over the certain end and loss of our kittens. Days past with no sightings. Concern and sadness turned to a belief of finality. They were lost to us.

Then, upon the sixth day, taking a bag of garbage out side, a slight movement in the grass near the front porch captured my attention. There, pouncing through the tall grasses after various bugs and butterflies was Toe. Toe! Inside of me, a scream of excitement was ready to volcano out of me. I feared that any excited movements or noises from me might scare him away. Slowly, casually, I navigated the grasses and got closer to Toe while talking to him and playful manner. With little effort, he got with grabbing proximity and I easily pick him up and took him inside where he enjoyed a brushing, treats, a meal, and a drink. It would be some time before Toe would be allowed outside. As to his brother Creamy, he showed upon the next day. A little worse for wear in his adventures, but no actual harm had become him. Starving was that little fellow. 

Toe has many more stories, but this is a good place to stop.

As a final note, I won’t spend much time, if any, editing my posts. I will have a general idea for a post, then just write. If reading these posts, and they seem to jump around or appear haphazard at times, you’ll know why. I don’t want to say a stream of consciousness, but I don’t want to spend an excessive amount of time perfecting each posts, when the next post is expected to be better than the last.

Word Counts:

Daily 07/29/2015 =  2,878

July 2015             = 2,878

Project total         =  2,878

The Digital Movement - Part 5

In the first 4 parts of this series, I declared my acceptance, if not all out love, for comic books in the digital scanned format of PDFs.  I raised several points in favor of digital comics.  Now, in this final part, I will slap the faces of those who oppose me.

So, where do we go from here?  How do we advance digital comics for the future?

Remember, its not a question of 'should we', but a question of 'how can we'.  Before I explore any ideas or agendas, let's be very clear on one thing.  Selling comic books is a business.  Its all about making money.  I won't deny that many creators love what they are doing, but they are getting paid to what they want. 

So, any movement to a digital format must be based on a solid business model.  The creators and end customers must both get what they want.  Both sides must make sacrifices to meet the end goal.  This has been a very rough road for the music industry to learn.  But, they did learn.  Now, its time for the comic industry to learn this.

The most universally accepted business model is the iTunes player connected to the Apple store.  Like it or not, like eBay, iTunes has earned its right as part of the American lexicon.  People understand what it means to purchase music or videos online, and download the content to your computer and sync it with your potable music and video device.  The next evolutionary step is to include printed media.  I won't argue including magazines and newspapers, but if comic books can be incorporated into a iTunes model, it certainly opens the possibilities for thousands of publications to enjoyed again.

While the download / iTunes model seems practical, its not realistic for two reasons; greed and payment for intellectual properties.  

Greed:

Let's take a look a greed.  Back in 2008 Marvel [1] released the rights to several comic book titles, allowing the company GIT Corp to scan them and sell DVDs containing all the scanned issues.  Many titles were released, bringing the total number of issues release well over 5,000.  The GIT Corp forums [2] were buzzing with activity.  There was a surprise fan base calling for more titles to be released.  The louder were yelled, the more titles GIT Corp included into "to be released" list.

Just when we felt the world of comic books was changing, it stopped.  Just one month before the Daredevil title was to be released, all contracted between Marvel and GIT Corp were stopped.  No more titles were be converted to PDFs, and the existing titles that were converted to PDFs could no longer be sold.  Well, the some of the existing inventories could be sold, but some were confiscated by Marvel and no additional copies could be produced and sold.  The growing digital fan base was outraged.  

But, Marvel didn't care.  In their mind, they were loosing money.  Why sell 500 issues of Spider-Man when they could offer a rental price for their vast comic book library?  Their business model is to offer a per month subscription service where you can view comics online.  No purchasing, and viewing required the internet.  Additionally, their library for viewing was incomplete.  Fan wanted to why all the Spider-Man issues were available for purchase by another company, but Marvel, the publisher of Spider-Man could not even offer all the Spider-Man issues for rent.

Months later, Marvel announced plans to distribute their own DVDs of comics books, much like GIT Corp had done.  But, the initial offered where vague and seriously over priced.  Where GIT Corp offer 500 issues for $49, Marvel was offering 50 issues for $29.  Plus, it was expected that Marvel was going to associated a proprietary reader to a proprietary format.  

Since the initial advertisement of Marvel offering their collections on DVD, we seen nothing.  Nothing.  I suppose we'll never truly know why these DVDs were delayed, if not cancelled.  Based on comments by those in power at Marvel, its very clear they don't see the value of offering their comic books in PDF format.

It sad to see a great and entertaining medium suppressed and denied to millions because of greed.  GT Corp, various other independent publishers (such as Eagle One Media [3]), and to some degree Marvel have shown there is a fan base for digital comics.  The comics cannot be distributed for a variety of reason, but they get back to one thing; money.  

Intellectual Properties - Owner Rights and Compensation:

The comic book publisher DC [4] is another giant in the comic book industry struggling with the idea of digital comic books.  Most publishers will hide behind a mask and rhetoric that they see now value in digital comics.  They do this because they have to.  Secretly, they want to release the many thousands of comic books to the public, but there's this thing called Intellectual property rights, owner right and compensation.  

For example, let's look at Superman.  One might assume that DC comics owns Superman.  But they don't.  They own the rights to publish Superman.  When GIT Corp approached DC Comics for the rights to offer all the Superman comics on a DVD in PDF format, the owners of Superman demanded $1,000 per page.  GIT Corp had to step away as the cost far outweighed and return on investment.  In other titles, some creators of the original comics still held reprint rights.  Some of these creators didn't see value in digital comics, or were afraid their comics would be freely traded and stolen in a digital format, and they wouldn't see a penny in return.

There are other reasons why GIT Corp couldn't work with DC Comics.  One of the biggest was compensation.  For each issue, all the creators had to be contacted and approached about the compensation, how much it was and who received (in some cases the creators are dead) the compensation.  DC Comics admitted that even if reprint right were given, their cost in effort to track own all the creators and obtain this information was too costly.  

Summary:

In closing, I believe a market for digital scanned comic books exists.  With the right balance of costs and digital rights management, the publishers, creators and customers can all get what they want.  But, I understand that even with hyper prices, some publishers, creators and fans do not find value in digital comics.  They feel that it takes away from the magic of the medium.  I don't have any respect for that opinion.  Its hypocritical to denounce digital comics when you have an MP3 player in your hand.  I don't hear any complaints about the transition from vinyl records to compact discs to digital music as MP3's.

In this digital world, the fear has been, and will always be about theft.  The term "piracy" has been applied to it, but theft by any other word is still theft.  The problem with this digital world is that were spawning and training an entire generation to think that internet = free.  All content on the internet should be free.  If the content is not free, then someone will steal it, and post somewhere as a free download, until it is stopped.  

I don't agree with the internet = free mindset.  But, I'm a realist.  I recognize that it exists.  I recognize that people will steal.  A digital environment makes it easy to steal.  But, I also recognize this percentage of thieves are small.  Security cameras and guards haven't stopped shop lifting, so don't expect encryption schemes to stop the copying of digital material.  And, just because a publisher or creator doesn't officially release the rights for reprinting, doesn't mean they've stopped the transition to a digital format.  If you look hard enough, you will find download sites offering just about any comic books ever produced in a digital format.  

In the face of old values, fear and greed, I still believe there is a massive untapped market for reprinting comics books in a PDF format, just as GIT Corp does.  That market is waiting for an entrepreneur to take the risk to establish a single format in a centralized location where comic books can be purchased as a digital download, or in sets on DVDs, in all PDF format.  Establish this business and make it profitable.  So profitable that the largest to the smallest publishers will be begging to be part of it.  

I am not without heart for the many retail comic book shops.  I firmly believe there is and will always be a strong fan base for printed comic books.  With that in mind, all new comic books must wait 3 months before they can be offered as a digital download.  But, don't expect too much mercy for the retail comic book stores.  Did the evolution of music to digital have mercy for record stores?  While not extinct, record stores are not a popular as they used to be.   So, as the comic industry fully embraced the digital world, be prepared to respond to that change.   If you want to your retail store to stay open for business, you'll have to follow the one true rule of business.

Adapt of die.

If you share my feelings towards a digital world that includes the comic book industry, then take action to see this dream become a reality.  Contact these companies and tell them what you want.  Debate this in forums.  Raise awareness.  Let's make this a reality.

References:

[1] - http://www.marvel.com/

[2] - http://www.gitcorp.com/forum/login.asp?target=default.asp

[3] - http://www.eagleonemedia.com/

[4] - http://www.dccomics.com/dccomics/

The Digital Movement - Part 4

Here's my final point to a digital comics movement.

Point 6 -

Death to the investors.

I got into comics just before it began its horrid transformation into a collectible and an investment.  I watched in bitter disgust as those with expendable income turned to buying comic books with the sole intent of storing them away as items of investment.  This must have been the same swarm of flies that raped and pillaged the sports card hobby.

To everyone who every invested money into comic books with the sole intent of selling them later for a massive profit, I, and I say this with all the sincerely I can muster - I hope you lost money!!!!  I hope you lost lots of money for giving the comic book publishers a false sense of value.  Because of the obnoxious investing of comic books, the publishers looked for any reason to start new titles and offer that ever so valuable issue number 1.  

Sadly, the comic collector and hobbyist were wise to the Investors.  Everyone was buying the first issue of every new title.  And not just one copy, but many copies.  All with the expectation that each comic book was going to be $100 or more in the future.  The result of over-buying, over-selling and hoarding for investments caused these issues to be worthless.

In the end, I witnessed greedy and bloated publishers, barely able to support their own gorged weight, collapse to the ground and the investors dumped their now worthless books on the market, leaving the entire comic book industry a broken and tattered mess.

Before the comic industry dumped in its own shorts, I stopped collecting.  The quality of comics had dropped so low that grade school kids couple produce better stories and better art.  I'd come back every couple months and look at the new books, and honestly, it wasn't getting better.  Months turned into years, and the comic industry had recovered and was actually producing decent material.  The art, for many books, was excellent, and in some cases, much better than when I actively collected.  But, the cover price had increased, yet again.  The chain reaction of investors to publishers to the end customer (me) was too much.  The memories of the greed were so still engraved in my brain.  

But, by this time, I had discovered GIT Corp, and digitally scanned PDF versions of comic books.  There is no comic that could seduce me back to the printed realm of comic books.  I am pure digital now.  I'm sure hard-core vinyl record lovers fought against Compact Discs, but look how that ended.  From CD's we evolved to MP3's.  Digital music.

Its a digital world.  It will bring comic books into its fold.

In the 5th and final part of the Digital Movement, I will bring my soapbox and declare what is good and righteous about comics in digital format. 

Comic Book Reader

This posting goes along with my "The Digital Movement" series of postings, but I wanted to pull this out separately for those looking specifically for a good digital comic books reader.

Before I get to revealing the comic book reader I use, I want to stand high on my PDF soapbox, again.  My call for a uniform format of PDF and a reader of Adobe's Acrobat was further reinforced yesterday when I attempted to access some comic books in CBZ format.  Yes, yes, I've heard all the zealous comments about the CBZ format.  Its a better format (although no one can specifically defend the claim), it offers a superior resolution (which doesn't make up for crappy scans), and its not as bloated as PDF documents.  Really?  Have you actually compared file sizes?  Please, please stop drinking the liquid drain cleaner - it impairs your judgement. 

After deciding on a digital comic viewer, and viewing said CBZ formatted comics, I can say with 100% complete confidence that I am clearly un-impressed with CBZ formatted comic books.  I can't say that PDF comic books are far superior, but the deciding factor between the formats is in the viewer.  For PDFs, there is Adobe's Acrobat.  Sure, if you're afraid of the big bad corporate giants, you can stay away from Adobe and install some small company's version.  But, the simple fact is that Adobe has, and will most likely, always keep the Acrobat viewer up-to-date.  There's no wondering like you do for the little companies.  Plus, its free.

Getting back to the CBZ format, I was faced with finding a viewer for my CBZ formatted comics.  This should be an easy task, right?  WRONG!!!  Take a look at this site (Comic Viewers)[1].  This is even worse than my initial searches for a viewer.  This site shows my complaint about the CBZ (and related formats).  There are way too damn many versions of software for viewing digital comics.  My first hurdle was finding a viewer for my Mac.  I do not own a Windows based machine any longer.  With the assault of Vista, and the unrelenting and aggressive attacks on my PCs I finally decided to leave that environment.  I've been happy with Mac ever since.

The choice in viewers for the Mac world are substantially less than the PC world.  I tried to install a couple and was severely disappointed.  Eventually I found "Comic Book Lover" [2], build for the Mac and compatible the current release of the Mac OS.  Considering my distaste for the Windows world I can not recommend a PC based comic viewer, nor would I care to.  Honestly, I do not care which viewer is the best.  If you believe comments on the internet, EVERY comic book viewer is the BEST.  Any idiot with an internet connect seems "qualified" to declare the viewer they are most comfortable using.  I don't give any weight to comments like "u shud use comic readre.  cuz".  

I will tell you that I like Comic Book Lover because it mimics the iTunes models very well.  If you like the iTunes model I don't have to say any more.  If you hate the iTunes model, I won't say any more.  Like it or hate it, it mimics the iTunes model.  That alone gives you a point of comparison in which to make your decision.  Admittedly, I haven't spent much time with the software, but my limited exposure has been very positive.  The fact that it loaded the first time without any hassles, and that it supports the current Mac OS is far and away a superior aspect.  It tells me they are producing a professional product with the end user in mind.  If you want to get your hands dirty, I suggest you use a nerdified application that allows you to play in an open sourced application.  I do enough software development for my day job, the last thing I want to do is more coding at night and on weekends.  There is a cost of $25 to get rid of the water mark which I will definitely pay because I want to support the companies efforts.  I want them to stay in business and keep this Comic Book Lover current and constantly add new features to it.

In summary, you should use the comic book viewer that best works for you.  Me, I'm using Comic Book Lover for CBZ formated and Acrobat for PDF formats.  'nuff said!

References:

[1] - http://www.zcultfm.com/~comic/wiki/index.php/Comic_Viewers

[2] - http://www.bitcartel.com/comicbooklover/

The Digital Movement - Part 3

Point 3 -

Time capsule.  Each of these issues of scanned comic books by GIT Corp [1] contained ads for products that were common for the time of the original comic was printed.  Its not a huge selling point, but its an fascinating aspect of looking at an old comic book and seeing hair and clothing styles reflected in the ads.  Its history.

Point 4 -

Volume.  Comic books can take up a considerable about of space.  Go into any comic book store and look at the back issue section and marvel over the amount of floor space dedicated to them.  Most of us don't have that much extra floor to dedicate to making our comics accessible like this, so we stack them, and store them in closet, under beds and where ever we can find a spot.  This makes for looking at old favorites almost requires the services of Indiana Jones to find the missing issues.

Moving a vast collection, like I had to do, will make you question collecting comic books.  Surprisingly, these little things can reach considerable weight.  Anyone who has picked up a long box will know the weight these little things can get to.

With all that said, the idea of containing literally thousands and thousands of comic books onto DVDs and being able to consolidate rooms full of comic book boxes into a single box, or shelf in a closet is my definition of the perfect comic book collection.

Point 5 -

Paper - it degrades.  Many of the GIT Corp DVDs contains hundreds of comics books from the early 1960's.  These comics are 40+ years old.  Those old comics were printed on low quality paper.  They don't suffer the passage of time well.  I used to have some of the older comics.  Even with proper storage practices, the paper just doesn't hold up well to time.  They begin to smell, turn yellow and become brittle.  Having a 45 year comic for considerable money is worthless in terms of its entertainment value.  The condition of these older comics makes it almost undesirable and in some cases, impossible, to look at them.   With the GIT Corp collections, I can look at these older comics any time, and as many time as I want without any concern of damaging the comic book itself.

What's nice about having the GIT Corp collections is that I can sell my comic books to someone who wants the paper version.  As I noted before, I like to read comic books, not store them. 

In my next segment, I will finish with a fiery explosion and set the stage for the future of comic books.

References:

[1] - http://www.gitcorp.com/

The Digital Movement - Part 2

In part 1, I revealed my interest in comic books and how I came to have these realizations about my collecting of comic books.  In part 2 here, I will start on my crusade for comic books in a digital scanned format.

I like scanned comic books in digital formats for a variety of reason, which I will explore below:

Point 1 -

PDF format.  I've read all the arguments for and against concerning every format of viewing digital comic books.  The logical choice is PDF.  Yes, I  know there are arguably better quality formats for viewing, but they sacrifice in convenience in viewing.  Honestly, search the internet for digital comic book viewers.  There are more versions of viewers than there are candy bars, each written by some wannabe "programmer" in their basement.  In this world of viruses, trojan horses, malware and infections ad nauseam to your computer, who wants to adopt a yet another hacked piece of software that only gets updated once a decade.  Not me.  I want my comics in a PDF format that can be read by an widely accepted free software application - Adobe Acrobat Reader [1].

I've seem every previous attempt at digital comics in the past.  Scanned comic pages broken out by panel, enhanced with sounds, music, voice-overs, obnoxious animations.  Each ended in a flaming pile of debris.  Each a proprietary viewing software package with a proprietary format.  The publishers, in their zeal of digital right management could not see themselves within a cohesive universe of other publishers where everyone offered their products under one universal format.  They grossly misjudged the burden on the consumer of having to keep each of the viewers for each publishers, or style of digital comic book, up-to-date, just to view a comic book.  To say their judgement was terrible would be a compliment.

Point 2 -

Digital Rights Management.  This is a hot button for me, and most likely not in the way you think.  I like the model GIT Corp uses for the comic book collections they've offered in the past.  Essentially, when you buy the DVD with the comics, you buy the rights to have the comic book.  I like that.  Yes, this allows for piracy, but I wouldn't expect most people to do this.  I believe that fans of a product or company will, for the most part, purchase the products at the suggested retail price.  If you like the product, support the company and pay their asking price.  

I am a firm believer that in this digital age, people are more inclined to steal digital products.  As I noted above, most will not.  I used to run a vending machine business.  I know first-hand as a business owner that some people are inherently evil, cheap, pathetic criminally inclined scum.  I've seen people spend several agonizing minutes trying to rob a vending machine of a candy bar, or invent ways to cheat a cash changing machine.  Its not because they cannot afford it, its mostly on principle.  C'mon, its only a candy bar, right?

Yes, for your over-simplified brain, its only a  candy bar, but for me its lost product, possible repairs to the vending machine, or in some cases a new machine depending on the damage done while trying to steal a .55 candy bar.  Stop drinking cleaning solvents, it impairs your judgement and makes you do stupid things.

That was a little off topic, but it illustrates my point, which is, I don't expect Digital Rights Management to be abused.   People who purchase digital media should be allowed to own it - not rent it or have its ownership restricted to the point where supposed ownership is more painful that its worth.  iTunes from Apple [2] bridges that gap between ownership and the rights of the creators very well.

I'll explore more points in part 3.

References:

[1] - http://get.adobe.com/reader/

[2] - http://www.apple.com/itunes/