Yesterday… I downloaded my first comic online last night, given to me by a friend. Please, Dan Slott, please don’t come and kick my ass.
To be fair, I own the comic in question and didn’t want to hunt down the damned thing and scan it into the computer for an article I wound up not using anyway, soooo…
It wasn’t as awkward as I thought it would be. Still, I used the Essential version I had of the comic (that’s right, I owned it in two formats!) to really read it and then clipped what pics I needed for my point.
But doing this made me once again realize that there is just something about holding a comic in your hands instead of this new fangled media. For the digital fans, I have no idea how you do it; my scanned copy was really well scanned and had all the info I needed, it just wasn’t the same. I own the Avengers and Hulk DVD-Roms that Marvel’s smart enough to put out (wow, I actually own THREE different versions of that comic. My guilt for the download lessens by each moment!) and while they are nice, they are also difficult to navigate and see correctly depending on screen resolution. Marvel’s Digital Comics Online are readable and fix a lot of the above and yet… I poked around there yesterday and still I longed for the paper and ink set. To be able to take my comics with me to lunch and go sit outside. To (*gasp!*) give them away or curl them up and put them in my bag.
There’s a physical element to comics I think that really can’t be denied.
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I buy a lot of trades and hardbacks and sometimes I sit down and read them, but I’m always worried about spilling on them or leaving fingerprints on them. They’re too big for me to comfortably read them, say, on a plane or car ride, and sudden showers can easily mean a fair chunk of lost change.
The smell of a new book or comic, the feel of it, yeah digital copies will never beat that.
I picked up a bunch of the gitcorp/marvel complete collection DVDs this spring. It took a little while (and a new, sizable monitor) to get used to, but I’m officially a convert. I think it compounds the eye strain for those marathon sessions, but other than that, it sure beats dealing with bags, boards, longboxes, and worrying about rips & tears and splashing honey-mustard on the splash pages.
But I’ve never taken too much time to savor the smell of my comics, so maybe I’ve got a leg-up on most old-school collectors in that respect when it comes to the digital age.