LONGBOX Goes Live!
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Mar 15 2010, 8:03 PM
Public Beta began today on Longbox, the comic book digital release platform that everyone has been talking about for what feels like a year...or maybe it was longer. Good news: The wait was worth it!
Dubbed "The Itunes of Comics," Longbox is pretty much exactly that-- while poising itself to be the platform to beat.
Go getcher Longbox here:
http://longboxdigital.com/now.html
There are a few free comics for you to test out, including Josh Fiakov and Kody Chamberlain's Punks, Man-of-Awesome: Ron Marz's Witchblade, and Wanted (which, if you haven't read is very different from the film version)--
What follows is a semi-live version of my thoughts on Longbox v. 0.5:
I installed the .dmg (I'm on a Macbook) about an hour ago-- installation and launch were flawless. There were a few minor hiccups at the start ("Where do I go? What do I do?")-- but that's to be expected when you fire up any new application.
Given a minute, I was smoothly sailing along. I'm currently (like, as I type) downloading Wanted issue 1 and I'm averaging between 800/kb a second to 1 meg-- That's speedy enough for me.
The reader itself is intuitive- Navigation resembles Quicktime buttons. I made a small mistake hitting the "jump to the end" button instead of "next page"-- but I haven't made that error again-- I'm not sure why you'd need to jump to the last page of a book-- but, I guess it's good to have the option.
Also, just noticed that my keyboard arrow buttons move the pages forward and backward-- I now prefer to turn pages this way.
(Quick note-- holy hell, Wanted just finished downloading-- it isn't the first issue, it's the whole trade! Wow! Thanks Top Cow!)
The 16:9 (roughly) aspect ratio of my screen won't fit a page in comfortably, which necessitates the use of the "zoom" function-- Oddly, just as comics/magazines on digital devices and computers take off, we ditch the 4:3 ratio that would have fit double page spreads perfectly.
Personally, I'm finding that the double-page/zoom option on Longbox works best for me-- I do have to scroll a bit with the page as I read "down", but that's fine with me.
Also, having a two pages fill the screen at once is more akin to reading a print comic.
The "free zoom" mode gives me a bit of a headache. It's like reading with a magnifying glass. Might work for some-- not for me, though.
Just discovered a "Full Screen" mode under options. I'm digging this, as I may not want the distraction of Instant messages or Emails popping up while reading a comic.
(Note 2: Apparently, Top Cow has also given up the first Ron Marz Witchblade trade-- which is pretty awesome--)
Upon firing up Witchblade, I notice "Chapters" broken down per issue. That's great- as I often do my trade reading in issue breaks (when I can find them-- a bit of a pet peeve of mine: when trades don't have a clear marker of issue changeovers)--
Legibility of balloons is great. No problems reading at all. Little squinty at BKV's introduction on the Wanted trade-- but I guess that's what the "free zoom" mode is for.
Ha, Mac users: You can swipe your fingers left and right to turn pages. Doesn't seem to work in "zoom" mode-- hopefully that will be addressed in a future update.
Huh, remember when I was complaining about the 16:9 vs 4:3 ratios? Well, I just pulled out a random comic and sized it against my screen-- turns out, on my 15 inch Macbook, a comic opened at the spine fits exactly into the screen width.
Ok, that's it for opening thoughts. Props to Longbox CEO Rantz Hoseley- I know that dude hasn't slept in about a year...his hard work shows. Rantz has delivered a very impressive v. 0.5 application that is rock eff'in solid. I'm going to go back to kicking the tires on Longbox-- why don't you download it and do the same. Meet back in the comments section and let me know whatcha think.
Dubbed "The Itunes of Comics," Longbox is pretty much exactly that-- while poising itself to be the platform to beat.
Go getcher Longbox here:
http://longboxdigital.com/now.html
There are a few free comics for you to test out, including Josh Fiakov and Kody Chamberlain's Punks, Man-of-Awesome: Ron Marz's Witchblade, and Wanted (which, if you haven't read is very different from the film version)--
What follows is a semi-live version of my thoughts on Longbox v. 0.5:
I installed the .dmg (I'm on a Macbook) about an hour ago-- installation and launch were flawless. There were a few minor hiccups at the start ("Where do I go? What do I do?")-- but that's to be expected when you fire up any new application.
Given a minute, I was smoothly sailing along. I'm currently (like, as I type) downloading Wanted issue 1 and I'm averaging between 800/kb a second to 1 meg-- That's speedy enough for me.
The reader itself is intuitive- Navigation resembles Quicktime buttons. I made a small mistake hitting the "jump to the end" button instead of "next page"-- but I haven't made that error again-- I'm not sure why you'd need to jump to the last page of a book-- but, I guess it's good to have the option.
Also, just noticed that my keyboard arrow buttons move the pages forward and backward-- I now prefer to turn pages this way.
(Quick note-- holy hell, Wanted just finished downloading-- it isn't the first issue, it's the whole trade! Wow! Thanks Top Cow!)
The 16:9 (roughly) aspect ratio of my screen won't fit a page in comfortably, which necessitates the use of the "zoom" function-- Oddly, just as comics/magazines on digital devices and computers take off, we ditch the 4:3 ratio that would have fit double page spreads perfectly.
Personally, I'm finding that the double-page/zoom option on Longbox works best for me-- I do have to scroll a bit with the page as I read "down", but that's fine with me.
Also, having a two pages fill the screen at once is more akin to reading a print comic.
The "free zoom" mode gives me a bit of a headache. It's like reading with a magnifying glass. Might work for some-- not for me, though.
Just discovered a "Full Screen" mode under options. I'm digging this, as I may not want the distraction of Instant messages or Emails popping up while reading a comic.
(Note 2: Apparently, Top Cow has also given up the first Ron Marz Witchblade trade-- which is pretty awesome--)
Upon firing up Witchblade, I notice "Chapters" broken down per issue. That's great- as I often do my trade reading in issue breaks (when I can find them-- a bit of a pet peeve of mine: when trades don't have a clear marker of issue changeovers)--
Legibility of balloons is great. No problems reading at all. Little squinty at BKV's introduction on the Wanted trade-- but I guess that's what the "free zoom" mode is for.
Ha, Mac users: You can swipe your fingers left and right to turn pages. Doesn't seem to work in "zoom" mode-- hopefully that will be addressed in a future update.
Huh, remember when I was complaining about the 16:9 vs 4:3 ratios? Well, I just pulled out a random comic and sized it against my screen-- turns out, on my 15 inch Macbook, a comic opened at the spine fits exactly into the screen width.
Ok, that's it for opening thoughts. Props to Longbox CEO Rantz Hoseley- I know that dude hasn't slept in about a year...his hard work shows. Rantz has delivered a very impressive v. 0.5 application that is rock eff'in solid. I'm going to go back to kicking the tires on Longbox-- why don't you download it and do the same. Meet back in the comments section and let me know whatcha think.
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