Rocket Bomber - article - comics - publishing - The Future is Now: 20 Graphic Novels currently available as e-books (part 1)

per new FTC rules I must at this time disclose that when, in the past, I referred to my current employment as “field management for one of the big box bookstore chains” what I really meant was that I work for Barnes & Noble (an open secret, as I have disclosed that fact before in other fora). As I am about to discuss one of B&N’s corporate products (not always in the most glowing light, fwiw) I feel it is necessary to point out, once more, that they are the Big Corporation That Signs My Paychecks™. If that doesn’t matter to you, please forget I mentioned it.

past my normal (and I assure you, well earned) pay, no other enticement or compensation was provided by my employer for this post, the following article was neither suggested by nor sanctioned by B&N corporate, and wasn’t submitted to any of my supervisors for review before posting. All opinions and comments are my own, & while I do include links to Barnes & Noble’s site I’m about to encourage you to make the most of the free applications and samples that are available there. And: damn the FTC regulations are a bitch.

We cool?

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All the buzz about the Nook (in some quarters styled the ‘nook’ but true to my Germanic Roots I feel Nouns, and certainly all Brands, should be capitalized) and the anticipation of the Nook vs. Kindle Cagematch have overshadowed at least one point:

dude, you can read e-books right now on your home computer or laptop.

Prior to the Nook, B&N also announced (to much hoopla, at the time) e-reader software that would run equally well on your Mac, PC, iPhone, or Blackberry — stuff you already own — without the need for a fancy new $260 appliance.

Which is fine, if you don’t mind reading on your existing computer screen — if you’re reading this actual sentence (posted to a blog) I can’t imagine that you’d have an objection…

Not that the B&N eReader is a fabulous chunk of new Web 2.0 awesomeness — it looks and feels like a 1998 application: bare bones, MS-Windows default menus, buttons, and toolbars, and very little in the way of user comforts. The interface is far from intuitive, you need a current account with B&N or else you can’t even view free samples of new e-books, and you can’t click on a title in your online library to read it, you have to download it to your local ‘bookshelf’, and change screens, before hitting that ‘read’ button even becomes an option.

Granted, 11 years ago? This was minor sh*t. Nowadays, if you want to compete with iTunes? We need to do better.

Quite a few (almost all) of my objections go out the window when we reconsider ‘free’ — the app is free to download, OS agnostic, cross-OS compatible, you can access a single ‘online library’ from all your toys (phone, netbook, laptop, desktop) with minimal hassle — and you can read the same e-books on any or all of them with only the single purchase.

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Here’s a download link for you; took me about 15 minutes to download and install the software to a new PC this evening.

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And an aside: Did you know that publishers are already assigning e-books their own unique ISBNs? Assuming this isn’t some kind of fluke (or B&N specific), in the future this is going to make searching for (and linking, and buying) individual e-books much easier.

So what’s already out there?

Anyway, all the nuts-and-bolts aside, and back to the promise of Graphic Novels as e-books: here’s what I found.
— and I’d like to note a free sample/preview is available for all of the following titles. [I said ‘free’; there are other costs. It took me hours, and multiple tries, to get some few ‘free’ samples downloaded so there is an investment of time&effort to take into account in this instance, even just to get to the previews. And some of them would just stall mid-download… I shut down μtorrent, I stopped Sirius Internet Radio, I closed everything but the browser and B&N reader, and still couldn’t get the Epileptic sample — so I went ahead and just bought the e-book; $10, no biggie.]

‘08: A Graphic Diary of the Campaign Trail, Michael Crowley & Dan Goldman, Three Rivers Press (Random House), 9780307588722, B&N – Amazon
“Taking its cue from campaign classics like Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 and The Making of the President Series, 08 brings politico journalism into the graphic novel form. Reflect on all the single-issue candidates, the pundits, the meltdowns, the awkward missteps, and the ruthless maneuvers of the scorched-earth campaign trail as they knit themselves into a political tale of the present-day battle for the future of America.”

Epileptic, David B., Pantheon (Random House), 97803075522955, B&N – Amazon
“Hailed by The Comics Journal as one of Europe’s most important and innovative comics artists, David B. has created a masterpiece in Epileptic, his stunning and emotionally resonant autobiography about growing up with an epileptic brother. Epileptic gathers together and makes available in English for the first time all six volumes of the internationally acclaimed graphic work.”

The Shiniest Jewel, Marion Henley, Grand Central (Hachette), 9780446542241, B&N – Amazon
“At 49, cartoonist Marian Henley hasn’t committed to marrying the man with whom she has been dating for seven years. But as the Big 5-0 looms, she realizes that above all else she wants a child. Her story follows the heartbreaking ups and downs of going through the international adoption process; deciding when it’s time to grow up and maybe even get married; and in the end, it’s the story of a daughter’s relationship with her father, and how becoming a mother finally led her to understand him. THE SHINIEST JEWEL is a touching narrative, accompanied by Marian’s winsome drawings, that beautifully weaves together her realizations about the joy, and sometimes heartbreak, of building a family.”

Dark Wraith of Shannara, Terry Brooks with Edwin David & Robert Place Napton, Ballantine (Random House), 9780307494740, B&N – Amazon
“The first-ever Graphic Novel set in the World of Shannara! … If you’ve never ventured into the wondrous world of Shannara, consider this an ideal opportunity. Prepare to enter the breathtaking realm of the Four Lands, where beings both noble and sinister have quested and clashed, crossed swords in the names of darkness and light, and engaged in adventures rich with mystery and majesty. “

Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka, adapted by Peter Huper, Three Rivers Press (Random House), 9780307717009, B&N – Amazon
Kafka’s work of man-as-bug, from provider to his family kicked back (by the impossible twist of fate that has to be accepted because hell, it’s the first line that opens the story) to a parasite. Weird, weird stuff — now in comic form.

[part one of… 4? (if I can find more I’ll post ‘em.) …next five titles tomorrow.]

Edit 2 Dec 2009: Actually, there is no part 2. There is a follow-up, though.