Tue Sep 9, 2008 — by Karl Cramer

Tech Report: E-Ink and Comic Covers

New Esquire magazine opens interesting possibilities for comics

A few months back I had heard that Esquire magazine was going to celebrate their 75 anniversary with an experimental  electronic ink technology. Basically batteries are sewn into the cover that power a flexible LCD screen. I was interested but wanted to see how it came out. Well, issues are hitting the stands now. Take a look at the video below:

The “animation” is limited. Kind of like web page banner ads, not television. (Yet.) But the first thing that sprang to my mind was how long before a comic company puts out a special edition comic featuring this? Back issues bins are overstocked with prismatic, die-cut, hologram, lenticular special editions from the 90’s. Collectors may have been burned but those suckers sold for the publishers.

What comic covers that come to my mind immediately are an Iron Man cover with lots of parts lighting up. Or the Batmobile with motion blur background. Or seeing that star field effect seen with Donna Troy, Alexander Luthor, Captain Marvel and other cosmic characters actually twinkling.

The only drawback is that the batteries only last 90 days. But hey, put an E-ink comic cover in a comic shop front window and see how fast they’d sell anyway.

Jump to comments (1)