Recently Broken Frontier has launched The Frontiersman, billed as ‘the first mobile comics magazine’ BUT what started out as an idea could only become reality through a HUGE amount of time spend looking for a partner in developing the application for the iPad. The funds necessary for development could never have been assembled on our own so we pitched the idea through our network of IT companies and one of them saw potential in the idea especially in being the first comics magazine for the iPad.

I realise now that we were extremely lucky and that the zeitgeist worked in our favour because the odds against realising the project were pretty huge. So I don’t envy small time creators trying to make it on the mobile market.

If you are curious, you can check out The Frontiersman magazine at the iTunes store for free (or download it at brokenfrontier.com).
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-frontiersman/id382206249?mt=8

I guess it is also a good way of keeping up to date with current events in the comic scene even if the iPad comics available aren’t up to date so we’re definitely filling a niche there.

Always feel free to let me know what you think

Friendly greetings
Bart Croonenborghs
Graphic Designer The Frontiersman
Writer Brokenfrontier.com

I’m glad someone alerted me to this thread so that I could understand the frustration starting to bubble up with our indie partners, even though I’ve tried to keep everyone informed privately. I’m obviously not doing a good enough job!

To be clear, we’re dedicated to the indie market, and are investing a ton of our resources to make the access to our platform more equitable. We took the opportunities that we created with this platform, and now we’re catching up to being able to continue to get great books from all publishers.

Have we grown quickly and do we dedicate a lot to the Big Two? Yes.

Have we been as organized in making sure the throughput of indy and creator work have been regular and equitable as possible? No.

Have some of our early publisher adopters gotten less attention than they deserve? Undoubtedly, and it’s clear you are feeling unappreciated, which pains me.

We’re continuing to move as quickly as we can to give the indie creators the proper ability to go digital as fast as they want, and when we reveal what we’re up to, it will be the best way for you to reach this terrific market.

It’s so true that we haven’t moved fast enough! But we want to do this REALLY WELL over REALLY QUICKLY, so it’s taking more time than any of us would like.

Please be patient with us as we work to make it easier for you all to sell your content onto the Comics by comiXology platform. I promise, we’ll get there — just not as quickly as any of us want.

Thanks,

David Steinberger
CEO, comiXology

Perhaps they should consider uploading everything to start with exclusively to their iPad app sans the Guided View function, and adding it to the iPhone later when they’ve found the time to adapt it.

I’ve had an iPad for a few weeks now and have been playing around with the different comics-reading apps. ComicZeal is a perfectly fantastic comics-reader th…at reads .CBZ file and PDF’s. The .CBZ files on ModernTales.com look great in it. These files are (of course) easy to make since they are just zip files with the included files named a certain way. (You can easily Google a tutorial on how to make one.)

Any indy/web comics creator with a computer, a scanner, and the right graphics program could make these files, offer them for download, and encourage interested parties to get the ComicZeal reader (or another CBZ reader) to read them on the iPad. They could sell the files too (although I wonder how many purchasers they’d get at this point).

Ultimately, though, if I were to make comics for the iPad, I’d rather have them available through my own iTunes app or another app like the Comixology app so people could buy them using their iTunes account.

I can’t help but wonder if a larger webcomics-related outfit like Keenspot or Comicspace would be able to negotiate with Apple to get an app in the iTunes stores so that the web-toonists they work with could get more exposure.

I also wonder if the folks at comicmix.com have pursued an iTunes app with Apple, since the material on their site would look great on an iPad.

(I posted this response to Joey’s Facebook wall before deciding I should post this again here.)

Having an app is. And it’s tough, especially when you factor in Apple’s policies in approving/disapproving apps. And now you have to compete with all the big company apps, with all their resources and press that the indy guy doesn’t have.

I’ve been lucky to work with Oxicomics.com, a small company trying to get indy comics out there. They just released their first app. But I could have never done this on my own, I had to partner with someone to get it done.

Even so – how do you get noticed among the throng? It’s the age old question again. A new channel is nice, it doesn’t mean you automagically get X new readers. With Oxicomics, each title is a separate download using their app as the underlying reader. Will people want to download comics like this individually? I’m not sure, and it’s too early to tell.

It’s great to have a digital comics scene. But this isn’t like the web, where anyone can slap up a page and be there. Even in the early days of the web when things were not as easy as today, it was still not hard to make a simple HTML page and put it up. That is not the case with these new devices.

I’ve also worked with http://graphic.ly/ – they have a digital reader for web and mobile. But they have been slow to add indy folks. (They have my stuff, it just has not appeared there yet.)

I’m not sure how indy creators can stand out here. I’m not sure how we can innovate when we lack the resources of the big guys. I’m trying as best as I can with my limited time and resources, but it’s tough. It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out.

Which would be fine, but the fact that all of these people came to us promising big things to get us on their platforms. Now none of them seem to have time or remember the people they launched with.

I mean, seriously, I get treated better by the average comic book retailer.

No, the problem is, that the iPad Publishers are more interested in pushing out what they think (and Val has proven) sells – comics by the Marvel and DC.

With only a limited amount of time and resources, why should a digital publishers spend time repurposing some unknown web comic versus the latest Green Lantern mini series?