The PSN Digital Comic service launched for PSP yesterday and now we bring your our impressions both from a comic and non comic fans point of view.

 

 

Having collected comics for about 30 years the digital age has always filled me with dread as to what it would mean for my beloved monthly stories. Whilst digital comics are not a new thing, with Marvel offering the occasional freebie and even Stan Lee owning his own digital online comic a few years ago, they have always been on the net and usually offered direct by their own suppliers. What Digital Comics is attempting to do is bring us all of the big hitters to one format, the PSP.

 

Via the PSP Store you can already pick up a few top titles that any aspiring collector should get their hands on. IDW bring us Transformers and Astro Boy in time for the new movie release. Disney have some of their classic characters starring in their own comics, Image make an appearance and of course Marvel, with their classic Iron Man and Spiderman comics.

 

Digital Comics offers the ingenious AutoFlow system, with a press of the right d-pad the camera will focus on a scene, press again and it will move to another scene or a dialogue bubble for that part. With each press the camera will zoom and focus on the relevant piece of action, making sure you see all the action relevant to the story. A small problem is that due to the nature of the PSP screen, at times you do not see the whole panel as laid out by the artist, to remedy this you can zoom and reposition the camera manually with the L and R and control stick.

 

The future of Digital Comics depends solely on the companies that distribute the comics. So far it is a little light, but having impossible to own comics like the first Spiderman is a real boost for people like myself who just want to read these comics rather than collect and own them all. With big named titles priced at around the £1.20 mark and about 20 pages of high quality art it is quite reasonable considering the print version will be above £2.50 and full of adverts.

 

In the end it's all down to personal preference, I don't think it will ever replace my collection but grabbing a few of the harder to get issues and an improved back issue service may change my mind.

 

 

 

I’ve never really been a fan of comics myself, well apart from the odd issue of Beano and Viz when I was a bit younger, however with the release of the new PSN Digital Comic service I may just find myself turning into a late bloomer.

 

The first thing I did when the comic store launched was look for the classic characters, Batman and Superman, however much to my disappointment it seems that these comics are published by DC and therefore unsupported at the moment, however I have been advised that this may change. Despite lacking the support of a large publisher such as DC though there is certainly enough choice on offer even at this early stage. Like I say I’ve never been a comic fan but even I recognize the sheer amount of choice, ranging from Hulk, Spiderman and Transformers to even more bizarre choices such as Archie the Freshman Years. There truly is something for everyone.

 

One of the things that impresses me most about the new system is how it has been implemented into the PSP, I love the way the Autoflow works, going from one section to another with ease, its fantastic design and looks especially good on the PSPGo. The catalogue system is also great, allowing you to get to the comic you wish with ease, or even browse through your entire collection. Of course the advantage for someone like me is that I don’t generally collect comics, however now if I see one on the comic store that I like I can simply buy it and access it anytime I wish via my PSP.

 

The Digital Comic store really is a wonderful addition to the PSP system and it’s one I can certainly see myself using time and again. The choice of comics is sure to grow and if Sony keeps supporting this great handheld console in this way then so is the userbase.