Kindles, comics and culture

I want to say another word on comic books.
Adults can read comics too
Comics are not only getting more mature by the day, but there’s a HUGE portion of the market that’s always been mature.
Most indy comics (read: black & white) deal with more developed concepts than costumed people beating each other up.
The Vertigo imprint of DC Comics has always been a leader in mature content, though far from indy.
Vertigo probably goes way beyond mature actually… too many faces-ripped-off-the-skulls to be merely mature.
Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing and Neil Gaiman’s Sandman are two of the most impressive comic titles from the late 80’s, and together they inspired editor Karen Berger to create Vertigo, the home for adult comics.
So yes, there’s sex, there’s nudity and there’s swearing. There’s also an appreciation of all that entails that goes beyond adolescent sniggering.
If you want to be treated like an adult, read Vertigo titles.
Hellblazer (John Constantine without Keanu Reeves), 100 Bullets, Preacher (Garth Ennis can do no wrong in my opinion), Losers, Fables, Y the Last Man… the list of excellent titles is near endless.
Check them out. Seriously, check them out.

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Most people are pretty psyched about the Kindle 2 e-book reader from Amazon.com.
Electronic book readers no threat, for now
Those who aren’t are usually casual luddites, people too poor to afford one (like myself) or those who truly fear for the newspaper industry.
The Kindle 2 is an amazing piece of tech that gives you access to the internet for free, from anywhere. True, you can only go to a dictionary
and Wikipedia.org (what’s up with that???) but that just means there’s a possibility of getting more access.
Does this mean the Kindle 3 or 4 is going to more akin to a laptop than just a reader?
Right now the screen is in black and white. In a few years I’m sure colour won’t be hard to include.
I picture these handy little things editing documents, taking pictures and making calls. An iPhone and laptop in one.
Maybe Amazon will add a scanning device that takes samples from the atmosphere and analyzes them, like the tricorders from Star Trek.
Maybe then we can get them implanted in our wrists and save from having to lug them around!

Hey, can’t you read downloaded comics on the Kindle? Yes, yes you can. Life is good.