Nick Wingfield has an excellent article on the iPad today. His article (found here) is all about experiencing some of the new children’s book apps built for the iPad. I write experiencing instead of reading since from his description, reading is only one of many ways to interact with the new apps. Illustrations move, the reader can force the animation to work in different ways based on how the iPad is moved, narrator's sound out words based on the users touch, and music can play in the background. Wingfield comes closer to describing the mediums potential than I have yet read, but still it feels as though we are just on the cusp of the breakthrough we all expect.
He picked to discuss children’s books, Alice in Wonderland, the Lorax, since “they're among the first to cleverly exploit the iPad's capabilities and their rich illustrations can look great on the iPad's color screen.” This made me wonder if the next “big” push and response will come from the comic book community. Naturally there will be people who “poo-poo” this idea. (By the way, I’ve been trying to integrate the awkward word “poo-poo” into my work and home life at least once a day for the past few weeks, it’s driving my co-workers and my wife batty.) I’m sure that the same people who don’t agree that the comic book will be the most natural benefactor of the iPad capabilities were the same ones who thought that Hollywood making Spiderman movies a few years ago was a silly idea. Go check out Marvel's stock since that first Spiderman movie. It increases dramatically with each new production, Spiderman’s 2 and 3, Ironmans 1 and 2, both Fantastic Fours (Daredevil being a notable exception, but who couldn’t see that a wooden Affleck would be a horrible Daredevil).
Wingfiled writes,” I believe it's a matter of if, not when, the great book apps for iPad will show up. I wager the good book apps will be original works, rather than adaptations of existing books, with an electronic version built from the ground up that will take advantage of the device.” This statement is so eerily similar to what I’ve been trying to write in this blog that I have to wonder if he isn’t a tall, dazzlingly good-looking, red-haired man with a regal nose. As we share the same mind, it seems only fitting that we share the same body.
1 comment:
I have been in the children's book publishing business for almost 30 years and even in this new age it comes down to content and execution. The Marvel comic application on the iPad is exceptionally well done. The artwork, of course, renders beautifully and the ability to zoom in on a single panel and advance panel-by-panel enhances the reading experience.
However, I disagree that good illustrated book apps will be built from the ground up to take advantage of the device. Perhaps this is true if the developer is creating a game but for a picture book you must start with an exceptional story and high quality illustrations. Additional programming can then exploit the device. The first applications developed by mytales digital are lullabies where we added professional narration and singing, and enabled parents or children to record their own voices to accompany the book. We've ehanced the parent-child "reading" experience but insured that the app was still a quality picture book.
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