The Future is Almost Now
 Although comic books have always been a creature of print and paper and ink, the idea of converting them to computer screens is nothing new. Examples of digital comics date back to as early as 1985, and pirated comics have long been available to savvy Web users on underground torrent sites. But publishers, for the most part, have ignored the whole issue of digital comics for years. But no longer.
With initiatives either launching or under way at nearly every major comic book, manga house and traditional book publisher, digital comics are on the verge of becoming an important part of how the medium is marketed and sold, and suddenly nobody wants to get left behind.
“It's changed from people saying someday we need to do this to saying we need to do this now,” says Jeff Webber, v-p of product development at uclick, a mobile entertainment company that distributes comics content on cell phones.
The diversity of initiatives is dizzying: Marvel Comics, Boom! Studios and Viz Media have made select back issues available in digital form; DC Comics and Top Shelf Productions now curate Web sites of comics developed specifically for the internet; Korean manhwa house Netcomics offers comics online for a small fee; and Tokyopop, Devil's Due Productions, Papercutz and Virgin Comics have joined with mobile digital publishing services like uclick and GoComics, to distribute their content on mobile phones—not to mention e-books, animated comics on iTunes, or the smart phone-based reader from ClickWheel, which also offers a format for reading comics on the iPhone.
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Writer Hennessey and artist McConnell undertake the imposing task of going through the entire U. S. Constitution, article by article, amendment by amendment, explaining their meaning and implications—in comics format. Avoiding the didactic, the book succeeds in being both consistently entertaining and illuminating. The illustrations are sometimes predictable: as the text describes King George III wrestling with the rebellion, the art shows him arm wrestling a colonist. More often, in the editorial cartoon tradition, McConnell’s art ranges inventively through different styles and devices, from realistic depictions of historic personages to symbolic figures (the president as a man with the White House as his head) and even talking birds and parodic superheroes. Hennessey is particularly good at exploring the historical context in which various elements of the Constitution originated, such as the excesses of European monarchies. He also chronicles the dark side of constitutional history, notably how long it allowed slavery to remain legal. While the book depicts the framers of the Constitution as practical men, readers will also be impressed by the framers’ vision in devising a system that has endured for two centuries, and it’s a fine introduction to U.S. legal history. (Oct.)
