I rarely buy new comic books, sticking exclusively with compilations, but I was interested in the new Multiversity series by Grant Morrison and when the latest issue came out last Wednesday I really was chomping at the bit to read it. Problem was I was out of the country at the time.

So I decided to give digital comics a try and download it onto my Kindle device. Here is my experience.

First, the price of a digital comic is the same as the physical comic which in this case is $4.99. I know that most of the cost is in the writing and art not the paper and staples but it would be nice to see some reduction in price. At least there is no tax. One thing I think would be cool as to get the digital copy free if you purchase the physical copy.

I downloaded from Amazon which was fairly easy. I have the Kindle app on three different devices; my Windows phone (comic wouldn't work and even if it did I wouldn't bother), an HP Slate which I had with me on the vacation and a Chromebook. The images are much smaller than a comic and some of the frames were near impossible to read. You can double click a frame and it will expand somewhat but it's still nowhere near the actual comic size. The expanded pictures were easily readable with my glasses on but I still feel like I'm not getting the full experience. Even on my larger Chromebook the frames were much smaller than a physical comic. It's not a huge deal because I plan on buying the compilation when it's released but if this was the only copy of the comic I had I would feel I was being a little cheated. You would have to have a pretty good sized monitor to get actual size.

When you expand a frame the comic will move frame by frame instead of page by page when you swipe right to left which is a good idea.

Overall I see room for improvement. Having a digital copy certainly will reduce the volume of space my comics use and it's nice to be able to read on the go with no worry of damaging the comic. It also separates the reading from the collecting which in my mind is often a good thing. On the other hand I wish you could increase the size much larger than what I seem to be able to expand it to. Also, I wish the price were a bit lower and if you do buy a physical copy you should get a digital one for free or perhaps a small additional fee.

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