What comic are you reading at the moment.

A few weeks back I was reminded that Ryan Kelly has an indie series called Funrama, whose first two issues I really enjoyed when I first bought them a decade ago. Turns out that he's gone back to it in earnest since The Plague hit and has released several more issues since, so I ended up buying a set of the lot (along with some other things he had on his store because why not).

Funrama 1-7 are a really fun read - there's a lot of love for the classic superhero/soap-opera balance in effect, but it never feels padded or like it's spinning its wheels. The concept gives Kelly ample space to draw anything from character closeups to broad scenic shots and the enthusiasm shines through in the results.

I suspect that the inevitable result of this is going to be me signing up for Kelly's Patreon 😁

Next up - probably more Ryan Kelly comics, most likely Giant Robot Warriors. (I do appreciate a comic whose title tells you exactly what you're going to get...)

Nope - apparently Part 2 is planned to also be 54 issues long so a fair while to go yet.

I must actually give it a go, I've had the first trade on digital for ages and now have trades 1-10 thanks to the recent Earthquake Support Bundle from Humble. But I've never been the biggest fan of Vaughan's writing so let's see how it goes 😁

There's been mention previously of using PDF as a format, in which case Acrobat Viewer is probably the default, but most browsers can also render PDFs if you want something basic.

Having said that, for myself on Windows I typically use CDisplayEx - there's no real library management to speak of but it does the job of displaying comics well and doesn't eat a lot of resources.

(On my Android tablet I ended up buying the paid-for version of CDisplayEx, as most of the well-known names are no longer being updated and the couple of new alternatives weren't as good - either the library feature didn't work or wasn't using the correct permissions so would hang for 10 seconds at a time...)

I finally addressed a shameful gap in my reading history over the last couple of days, by reading The Ballad of Halo Jones (the new painted-colour releases, as they were in some bundle or other). It was a very good read!

I struggle with a lot of older long-form 2000AD stories as I find many writers lean overly hard on the episodic aspect of the writing, leaving the larger story to be stitched together with exposition dumps. I understand why this happens, but it still bugs me. So it's great seeing Moore flex his skills here and write something that is built around that episodic nature without feeling constrained by it. The painted update to the artwork looks great IMO and a much more natural fit than some recolouring efforts I've seen; Halo's story is refreshingly unsentimental without leaning into miserabilism.

I'm guessing that if we haven't seen it by now we're not going to, but I'd gladly read more about this character and world.

I've read 6 volumes of Ice Cream Man and really like it; there's a grimness to the writing that is too often missing from horror comics, along with some very dark humour. The setup does have some elements of Kingness, but does interesting things with it.

I would say definitely try the second volume and see what you think - if that still doesn't click, it might not be your thing.

Videogames seem to be taking up all the time I might otherwise spend on comics reading recently, in part because of the frustration around outlets that sell reliably DRM-free digital comics.

I am four or five chapters into Uzumaki, which is predictably great Junji Ito creepy horror (the chapter with Shuiuchi's mother in the hospital was absolutely grim!), and I've still got plenty to go.

I was also pointed in the direction of Digger, a webcomic I'd never heard of but which looks and sounds very interesting - you know when something gets compared to both Bone and Cerebus, it must be doing something right.

One small bit of positive news for me on the digital comics front is that, for at least some titles I'm interested in, the Google Play marketplace may be an option. Certainly the Ice Cream Man trades appear to be DRM free and allow a direct export to Epub once purchased, which will do me. Annoyingly it seems that for a number of other series I would like to follow, the trade listings are incomplete e.g. Something Is Killing The Children is missing volume 4 for no obvious reason, and The Sixth Gun only has Volume 9 available...

It's a mix of my ongoing aversion to using apps if I don't have to (until fairly recently I was using a Windows-based tablet), and wanting to have control over my media that doesn't rely on someone else's goodwill.

If I buy the Google Play version and export it straight away, for all I care Google can zap it from my account - I have the export and proof I paid for it. If I'm relying on the version in my account I'd lose access to it. I prefer my digital media purchases to have access parity to my physical media - i.e. if Amazon or whoever don't get to confiscate my physical comics after I bought them, I don't see why they should be able to do it with my digital comics.