A bit of a batch of news for you today. First, I’ve written the next short story arc for Marooned, which gets me going again. Strip #190 will post on Thursday.

Second, I got the table assignment for SPACE. If you’re going to be able to make the show on April 24 or 25 in Columbus OH, Steve and I will be at the Wishtales table. Table #72 – see map below.

Lastly, I got the shipping notice for A Tale of Two Robots, so I’ll have that book that week. I’ve been asked about the availability of that book and I, Asimov. Any remaining copies I don’t sell at the show will be available at the Wishtales store. If everything sells out, I will probably do some kind of reprint, so either way there should be some available.

Help the “naysayer” get an iPad, and I’ll post my reactions here – and eat crow if necessary.

After some of my perceived “negative” posts on the iPad, that title might surprise you! Well, let me explain. I got some interesting responses from my article pointing out Yahoo!’s 13 problems with the iPad. Since then Dani Jones and Otis Frampton have both posted glowing reviews on the iPad. Dani in particular tried to meet some of the criticisms specifically.

I appreciate their passion. And yet…eh… I’m still not convinced. And maybe what it takes is for me to use one – that’s at least one thing all the proponents of this device are saying.

So what happened is that one of my readers – also a huge fan of the iPad – has generously staked me with $250 to use toward the purchase of an iPad so I can see for myself. He said to call it a lifetime subscription to Marooned (Very cool!)

If I could get one, I would love to use it and post back my true feelings. And if I have to eat a little crow, I’d be glad to if I find out I’m wrong. The problem is I just don’t have the other $250 right now – and I don’t know when I could raise it.

So here’s the deal. If you are a Marooned fan and want to support my work, now is a time you can do so. I’ve set up a donation button below. I’m not asking for you to donate another two hundred and fifty! Any amount however small will do. It would be much appreciated.

If you are an iPad fan and think I’m nuts – well, help me get an iPad and I will post my honest feedback. If it’s great, I’ll be just as vocal about how great it is as I have been on the opposite side thus far.

The goal is $495 (I can handle tax, etc) and I’ve got $250 to start. Help me get there!

Over the weekend a few comic friends picked up iPads and had posted some glowing early reviews, mostly centered around actually seeing their comic on a new device. Which admittedly, is always cool. There’s definitely a lot of fanboy-type hype around the iPad in these early days. It’s hard not to get caught up in it. Heck, I want one to just check it out.

But still, the same things that bothered me when first seeing it bother me now. Once you get over the newness and the shinyness of the thing, the one question remains in my head. How useful is it?

This is a question I ask myself every day when working on user interfaces and user experiences. So maybe I’m more sensitive to the issue than most. Anyway, with seemingly everyone in the comic work all a-gaga about the iPad, I guess I’m trying to be the guy who says “wait and see” and provide some alternative viewpoints. (Even if they are just in the form of links).

So, Yahoo! News posted 13 glaring iPad shortcomings today. Really great article, because they spent all weekend using it, and having it used by people of “9 to 59.” I think they bring up some real important issues. And there were two quotes that particularly struck me:

“…our overall conclusion is that while the iPad is fun to play with, it’s hard to figure out what role it fills that some other device doesn’t do much better.”

That was my gut feeling when I first saw it. I’m still asking that same question. And secondly, they sum up by expanding on that:

The iPad will not replace your smartphone. Unless you can’t type, it won’t replace your laptop. If you love books, you could argue it’s a great e-book reader, but let’s see what your wrists say after a few days. The Kindle is a better e-reader. Frankly, we’re not sure what need the iPad fills, other than the desire to be cool by owning a device that is in a class all its own.

Yes, I know. The Kindle isn’t going to display our color comics. I get that. But I am not convinced that the iPad is going to be this new comics channel everyone thinks (hopes) it will be. I want it to be, I just don’t see it right now.

Read the article and let me know what you think. They bring out a couple issues that I had wondered about when first seeing the iPad. How do you carry the thing around? It’s too big to be a truly portable device. I’ve found the slipperiness to be a problem on my own iTouch. (Sounds to me like they need the same kind of backing they put on a screwdriver tip that allows it to grip a screw slot).

And the issue that it is too heavy to hold comfortably for a long period of time (i.e., reading) seems to be a big blow. This thing can’t be the great and powerful new color e-reader if it’s too heavy to use comfortably.

And I agree the price is an issue, because it doesn’t appear all that usable at the base price. It seems you best plan on spending at least $1,000. And I’ve seen that issue brought up by some people who have bought their own already. Nowadays, for a grand you can get a *very* nice laptop.

If you have an iPad, I’d love to hear what you have to say about some of these things.

I’m going to try to get myself to an Apple store soon and see if I can play with one myself. Nothing like actually holding it in your grubby little hands.

Make sure you go and read the article.

One of the things I want to use this break for is to shore up my character designs. I like John, but there are problems. He’s rarely “on model” (consistency) for one. Proportions change constantly, and that’s not good. In addition, I’ve always been slightly bothered by his gray suit for a variety of reasons. Working on The Tallest Robot made me think about it even more. I had been mulling over a suit change anyway.

Anyway, I’ve been working behind the scenes to fix him up. Here’s a little mockup of what I have been working on. His proportions have been more thought out (I’m still tweaking them) and I will build a model sheet to follow. His suit is following the colors that Lian’s suit had. It has the same patch on the left arm (his NFF patch) as well as knee and elbow pads. I changed the height of his boots and I think I like that better.

I’m getting to where I’m close to where he needs to be. Look forward to any comments you have.

Last night I took the family to see How to Train Your Dragon by Dreamworks. All I can say is Wow, was that one amazing movie. Dreamworks hit a home run with this one. I really wasn’t sure what to expect, because the run up and hype to this movie (with all the Olympics stuff) was a bit much. But I was hopeful.

Turns out it’s an amazing story. While it present some pretty typical story themes, it does it without a hitch. It has characters you really like and some really great surprises. When I left there I realized that Dreamworks finally made a great movie that was animated, instead of making a slick animation they hoped would be a great movie. And that’s the way it should be.

Of course the star of the show is Toothless, the dragon that the main character Hiccup befriends. The scenes where they get to know each other and learn to fly together are some of the best scenes I’ve seen in a long time. There’s of course the overall theme running of Dragon vs. Human, and the real story behind that turns out to be a good one. I didn’t see it coming at all. And there’s the running story of the father and son which is quite touching.

Visually the movie is wonderful. (And I didn’t bother with the 3D, and I recommend you don’t either. You don’t need it – I hate wearing those stupid glasses.) The character designs are great, especially of the various dragon types. What I like about that is that they pushed the designs on each type of dragon. There’s not one base type of dragon with a bunch of small variations, they are all really different and really neat. And the Viking designs are really fun too.

Do yourself a favor and go see this one. I’m definitely considering going again, and I rarely do that. And this will be a Blu-Ray disc in my collection for sure.

Cory Doctorow on the iPad
So it’s time for the first iPads to come out, and I’m still not that excited. It’s not that I don’t think a tablet is a cool idea, because I do. And I really like Apple. And like many comic creators, I hoped that it might be a way for me to find new audiences.

But when I watched Jobs’ presentation of the iPad, I kept feeling underwhelmed. He kept saying “It just works” and I kept thinking “So what?” It didn’t feel or seem compelling. Slick, yes. But compelling, no.

Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist, journalist and blogger — the co-editor of Boing Boing (boingboing.net) and the author of the bestselling Tor Teens/HarperCollins UK novel LITTLE BROTHER. He is the former European director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and co-founded the UK Open Rights Group.

He’s very outspoken on technology and very much against DRM and closed systems. Today Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing weighs in on why he won’t buy an iPad, and why you shouldn’t either.

He makes some great points, as usual. And he talks a bit about the Marvel Comics iPad app. I watched the short video of the app and thought it was “meh” at best. (Coverflow is one of the worst UI controls Apple has come up with. Slick, but absolutely useless.)

His points center a lot around content delivery and openness. Granted not everyone thinks about those things, but maybe everyone should. And don’t get me wrong, I think it would be a good thing if the iPad were a success. And because it’s Apple, there will be a big rush to it at the start. So we’ll see what happens. Maybe it will be a runaway success and these issues will work themselves out. Only time will tell.