Today is Free Comic Book Day and so, with my eldest in tow and all kids’ sports fixtures accounted for, I headed off to Gotham Comics (one of the two comic shops I frequent regularly) to see what was happening. [I headed off to Gotham Comics rather than Heroes for Sale because of the free parking in Onehunga and the possibility that I'd pick up the new release of The Magdalena I'd contacted them about. You can read about my positive experiences of Heroes for Sale over at Greenflame · The personal touch]

The free comics given away are typically one-shots or promotional issues the lead into whatever big events that the publishers are introducing. And I have to say that they weren’t as impressive as before. However, they were having a 50% off new releases so I managed to pick up the lead in to ‘Brightest Day’ and ‘The Magdalena #1′. The latter was particularly welcome as I’m presenting on religious authority in comic books as CMRC later in the year and I’m using the warrior nun motif as my lens to do that.

Related to all this comic book stuff have been the threads I’ve been following on digital comics and in particular how they might work on Kindles, iPads and similar. I’m wondering if something like Comic Life combined with tablets might be an interesting way to work with educational material. The following links provide some thoughts on this:

• Newsarama.com : ComiXology, Marvel & the iPad: Can Comic Shops Co-Exist?
• Future of the Comic: The Digital Reality – Comics Bulletin
• Format Part 2 with a Little iPad Thrown In: The Digital Reality – Comics Bulletin
• Marvel Opens For Business On The IPad – Comic Book Resources
• Marvel Comics for iPad: Hands-on Review – Boing Boing