ComixOlogy's Marvel iPad app shows promise for digital comics

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The Marvel Comics iPad app developed by ComixOlogy.

I'll say this: Marvel Comics can be trusted with a secret. I interviewed Ira Rubenstein - Marvel's executive vice president of global digital media - for a half an hour about digital comics, asking pointed questions about their strategy for mobile devices in general and the iPad specifically.

His responses on that front were oracular in nature. I had no firm information that Marvel was, in fact, developing their own custom iPad app for digital distribution until I got my hands on a pre-release iPad and found the familiar Marvel logo right there on the third page of sample third-party apps provided by Apple.

A full review will have to wait until the app is formally released. As of today - three days before the iPad's official debut - it's not in the App Store.

But I'm very impressed and excited by what I see here. This underscores a sentiment that everybody in comics has felt ever since rumors of an Apple tablet became tangible: that the device would finally make the experience of reading comics digitally into something that's practical, enjoyable, and most importantly deliver the story in a way that feels like a comic book.

The Marvel App - produced by ComiXology - is streamlined and efficient. They've (wisely) avoided any overly-cute metaphors; it follows the basic template of Apple's iBookstore. Browse through cover art, tap a comic to get a synopsis, tap another button to purchase, and it's available in your library a minute later.

As with the iBookstore, the app sinks or swims with the basic experience of reading a story. Once again, the app succeeds through simple efficiency.

If you're a purist who needs to see the whole page at once, you can hold the iPad in portrait mode and flip through the story as you would with a paper comic. You can zoom in and out as you wish, but though the iPad screen is smaller than a standard comic page (I measure it as 7.5", compared to a comic's 10") it's still crisp and readable when scaled down. Turn the iPad on its side, and a new viewing mode becomes available. In iBooks, tapping the left and right sides of the screen turns pages. In the Marvel app, it "moves the camera position" forward and backwards through the story, snappily zooming in and out through the "units" of the page, highlighting moments of dialogue or action.

I am indeed one of those old-schoolers who favors simple one-page-at-a-time viewing. I've been put off by the phony razzle-dazzle of motion comics and many other digital comics readers. Nonetheless, I have to admit that this was a perfectly acceptable way to read the comic. I truly felt as if I was reading an issue of "Fantastic Four," not interacting with an application.

I'll be posting a video of the app shortly, and a full review will come when Marvel and ComiXology officially take their finger off of this chess piece and declare that they've made their move.

One thing you can take home right now: the iPad is going to finally let the monster out of the longbox. This is only the first fully-functional comics reader I've seen on the iPad and yet it emphatically validates the credibility of digital readers. It should encourage, inspire and motivate all other publishers to follow suit. If it doesn't, maybe you're in the wrong hobby or working in the wrong industry.

A curious thing, though: the iBookstore has a specific category for "Comics and Graphic Novels." Alas, at this writing the iBookstore isn't open and the category is empty.

So we've got to stay tuned to see what Apple has planned. I'm not convinced yet that the iBookstore is the right place to sell comic books. A year ago, I speculated that the best solution for comics publishers would be to do exactly what Marvel did: deliver content through an app that's been custom-designed for the peculiar buying and reading habits of a comic book aficionado, and which can serve the unique media needs of such a rich form of content.

I'm not saying I've been proven right. But this app proves conclusively that comic books have a huge future in digital and that a comic book fan with an iPad under his arm will never go hungry for entertainment on another 6 hour flight from Boston to San Diego.