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Archie Comics app offers 100 free issues of classic fun
The world of comic books is often thought to just be the domain of dark gritty violence or melodramatic superhero fights, but there's another side of comics.: a fun-loving, thoughtful place we call Riverdale. It's the place where Archie lives. For decades Archie has made children and adults alike laugh with his screw-ups, adventures, and romances. Now thanks to Archie Comics new iOS app you can get your foot in the door with 100 free issues of classic Archie. For a limited time, the all-new app is featuring 100 free comics from Archie's incredibly deep back catalog. It's a golden opportunity to get a taste of the wide range of storytelling thats possible from the simple premise of a group of lifelong friends and their adventures. There's romance, comedy, time travel, horror (yes, After Life with Archie is a zombie book), and the classic stories from the supermarket digests you loved as a child. Best of all, you can read a few free issues of Life With Archie, the publisher's groundbreaking parallel reality series that follows how Archie's life would have been different if he'd married either Betty or Veronica. The title marks an almost Doonesbury-like acceptance of the importance of allowing comic characters to age, and it is incredible. Along with Life With Archie, the app also includes Kevin Keller #1 featuring the first gay character in the series history and his adventures as a teenager in the wholesome world of Riverdale High. Archie Comics' new app is optimized for Retina display iOS devices and features an easy-to-navigate menu. Best of all, with over 100 free books to try out even if you're not interested in the more progressive titles in the series, there are plenty of classic titles to choose from like Sabrina the Teenage Witch or the old Archie Digests you used to pick up at the grocery store. If you've never read an Archie book, you're missing out. The stories have never gotten as much credit as they deserve for their wholesome nature and honest to god wonderful humor. To some, these characters may seem too corny, but their basic archetypes are what allow them to so seamlessly fit into hundreds of different kinds of stories. You don't have to take our word for it. Go download yourself some free books and see for yourself while you still can.
Barely Related: Marvel mixes it up, Comcast service facepalm
One great thing about live streams of The International and LCS championships – you can read awesome articles between the matches. Welcome to Barely Related, a conversational Friday column that presents the non-gaming news stories that we, the Joystiq staff, have been talking about over the past week. And no, we're not stopping our focus on industry and gaming news. Think of this as your casual weekly recap of interesting (and mostly geeky) news, presented just in time to fill your brain with things to discuss at all of those weekend shindigs. Grab a fresh drink, lean back in your armchair, and get ready to talk nerdy with us.
First Impressions: Make mine Marvel Heroes!
Sometimes it's best to meet a game at its level instead of trying to project wishes and dreams on it. That's the attitude I tried to take while giving Marvel Heroes a test drive. Instead of thinking of it as a superhero MMO in the vein of, say, DC Universe Online (blasphemy for them Marvel chumps, I know), I recognized what it was trying to be almost instantly: a superhero-flavored Diablo. And you know what? That's what it is. Whether that's a horrible, shirt-rending event or something that sounds like a cool mix is up to you. Personally, I like the idea of dealing with the massive Marvel cast directly instead of creating lame clones, especially since there are added layers of costume and build varieties on top of that. And I especially liked the notion of just jumping into a game without all of the typical MMO complexity and just pew-pewing with Iron Man. So for better or worse, here are my thoughts as I spent a couple of nights with Marvel Heroes taking a few characters through the prologue and chapter one.
Digital collections make comics on your iPad easy and cheap
Our friend Macenstein has a nice tip running over on his blog about how to get more comics on your iPad. The iPad is a device that seems made for comic book reading -- that display is colorful and bright, and the touchscreen lets you examine comic art from any size or angle. The problem, however, is price -- while there are some good official apps out there, and some great free comics in them, purchased comics still aren't too cheap, even compared to the real thing. Enter Amazon, which is selling things like this DVD of Archie Comics for super cheap. For four bucks, you can get 120 digital comics. That's an amazing deal, and while there aren't a lot of those to go around, there are definitely other digital collections you can purchase for much cheaper than actually buying them piecemeal. Turning those comics into PDFs (or just finding them on the disc) is usually not a problem, and then just dragging the PDFs into iTunes and cracking them open in iBooks is even simpler. And voila, you've got tons and tons of comics to read on your iPad. Excellent tip, and a great way to pick up a lot more comic books to read on your next plane trip.
Digital Reader brings comics to the PSP this December
After trotting out a mess of new information about PlayStation Home earlier today in Germany, SCEE prez Andrew House announced Sony's upcoming digital comics initiative on the PSP, the Digital Reader. According to House, Sony has worked out plans with Marvel to launch with "hundreds available, including the Marvel Comics stable." Additionally, the service will give PSP-owning comic fans access to Archie and Image comics. Unfortunately, he didn't specify if the service will be a free firmware upgrade to the existing PSP software or pricing for the comics themselves. But alas, GamesCom has just started! We'll poke around and see if we can get some more information as soon as the Sony press conference ends.
