Does the Kindle have a micro-USB port? If so, just get a $2 OTG cable, which will let you plug in a low-profile flash drive (alternatively, buy an OTG flash drive). Just buy some velcro, and that cable won't be as obnoxious

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In space, nobody can hear you ride breakfast goat

Nope, no ability to add storage or memory. You do have unlimited space in the Amazon cloud, but it's limited to photos, books and a few other items.

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"Hitler had a pretty good idea there." - Eric

It is.

Recommendations on a relatively cheap tablet for comics/Internet? Obviously not the Kindle. Recently inherited some money, so while my work situation isn't any better, I'm actually out of debt. Which is nice. For the right price, I could go for something like that.

I've been using the Asus Transformer Pad for 4 or 5 months now, and absolutely love it - especially the keyboard (which detaches, and includes an additional USB slot for a hard drive or mouse or whatever). I shoved a 128GB microSD card in there, so it won't run out of memory anytime soon. Battery lasts forever. If you want a video demo of it, or have specific questions about any function, let me know. I use it for a ton of things (work-related as well - it makes an excellent camera remote control).

The only downside I can think of, is that it might not allow for an upgrade to Android 5.0 (which a Nexus tablet, and any brand new tablets coming out this year, would have). It also doesn't have an IR sensor found on Samsung devices (which allows you to use the tablet as a TV/component remote). Neither of these missing features bother me.

Also, my wife's 2-year old Google Nexus 7 is still running perfectly, and she is glued to it 24/7. Also made by Asus, so I'm pretty sold on that brand's tablet reliability.

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In space, nobody can hear you ride breakfast goat

Hey Shoe. Have you read Archer and Armstrong? A friend turned me onto it a few days ago and I'm loving it!

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"Watch my stuff." - Monterey Jack

Why obviously not Kindle? You can get a Fire for $100. You're not likely to get a better price for a tablet, and if all you want it for is reading comics and basic web browsing it's perfect for that.

My complaints about storage space above are really pushing it. I dropped hundreds of comics onto this thing all at once. I'm complaining that I can't do thousands. It's kind of a bullshit complaint, really. It's not actually a huge deal to plug it in and swap out the read comics for new comics, I'm just lazy and entitled.

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"Hitler had a pretty good idea there." - Eric

I've heard good things, but no, haven't read it.

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"Hitler had a pretty good idea there." - Eric

Because the wife has one and it's somewhat limited. There've been a couple times she wanted to download an app that's available for Android, but not through the Amazon store. That's not a problem if I'm just doing web browsing and such, but I suspect that what I'd do would expand to what the device does, and the OB&C has already run up against something it wouldn't let her do (though I can't recall, right now, what it was).

The impression I get, from browsing hers, is that they tried to split the difference between an e-reader and a tablet. I like my 2nd generation Kindle, and I'll replace that with a Paperwhite (or whatever the current equivalent is) when it finally dies, but I like e-readers to be nothing else, and if I buy a tablet (I'm going back and forth on whether I want to), I'm thinking I should buy one that's just a tablet.

Ahhh, gotcha. Fair enough.

I don't use my Fire as a reader. I still have a first gen Kindle for that and vastly prefer it for reading. The Fire has mostly been for reading comics, puzzle games, and Youtube/Netflix. I don't really mess much with apps.

You CAN sideload them with little trouble -- it's no harder than dragging and dropping them onto the device -- but half the point is that the process is supposed to be point n' click easy, so there's that.

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"Hitler had a pretty good idea there." - Eric

Y'know, that never occurred to me. If I can remember what it is she wanted that we couldn't get to work, I'll try that.

And given that, are Fires cheaper for comparable memory and display size than other tablets? Shoe? Video? That's not really a major complaint, for me, if it saves me a decent amount of money. Perhaps a Fire is back in the running.

The fun thing is that piracy becomes the more attractive option because you can't easily purchase a $.99 app (and I'd really prefer just buying the app)

Anybody read the comic book adaptation of The Stand? A bit less than halfway through it now. Straight adaptation so far, with nothing added, but that means it's basically a quicker way to read the book. Entertaining, anyway.

After your mention of it, I picked up the first collection. So far so good. I'd just read The Stand again about six months ago. You're right, it's pretty faithful so far and entertaining. I'm wondering about The Dark Tower comics. Have you read those?

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"Watch my stuff." - Monterey Jack

Have them on the hard drive. Haven't started.

I started reading The Amazing Spider-man over at issue #1 and so far I've made it to issue #109. It's good stuff.

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God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. - Romans 5:8

Letterboxed

The originals, right?

I've never read that deep in -- I skipped a lot of the middle of that run -- but yeah, the Ditko years (though #39) were really good, and it got good again later, too.

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"Hitler had a pretty good idea there." - Eric

Yeah the old 12 cent versions, there's a lot of good stuff there but also a lot of really bad stuff.

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God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. - Romans 5:8

Letterboxed

I've been buying the hardcover Avengers Masterworks for years, but I finally started actually reading them last year. The Roy Thomas run (which lasted up to the Kree-Skrull War) was fantastic, and now I'm starting the Steve Englehart stories (I'm somewhere around issue #110 or so). I originally started collecting in the 180s, but I never went back to read the older stuff until now.

Scribd has added some comics to their Netflix-type service. Not all publishers are on board (no DC, for example), and you won't get new content until 30 days after the initial publication date - but it seems like a cool service for hardcore comic readers. Free month to try it out.

https://www.scribd.com/comics

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In space, nobody can hear you ride breakfast goat

I wanted to preview their library, but couldn't. I don't want to sign up. Not a bad price though.

Trip report:

Selection: This is probably a thing like Netflix - there is a lot of content here to be had, and if you just want to read comics, it's probably fine. If you want to read things you're interested in, the selection is crap.

Quality: More clunky to browse books that Comixology (page swipes are more awkward) and the image quality is lower - text looks blurry.

So. Eh. I will cancel.

The Walking Dead Vol. 22: A New Beginning

The Walking Dead Vol. 23: Whispers Into Screams

Covering issues #127 - 138, this stretch begins a new status quo for Kirkman's super formulaic book.

I really liked the new status quo, too, finding it a promising switch to what had become a paint-by-numbers, repetitive saga that was starting to overstay its welcome.

Liked, as in past tense.

These 12 issues begin with a lot of promise. To offer only mild spoilers, it jumps ahead in time and presents a group of survivors who have established an actual foothold for civilization. Things pick up as a new group of people from outside come across the settlement.

Kirkman quickly drops that story, coasts on some uninteresting soap opera drama, then introduces a REALLY COOL mystery that is (so far) resolved with a whimper, not a bang. That mystery will develop some more, based on how #138 ends, but jeeeez it took a long time to even get to that point.

The padding in this book is awful. It reads find when binge reading, but I don't know how monthly readers can handle it. I read all 12 issues in two nights, and they honestly had story advancement enough for maybe three issues, four at most.

With the new status quo, I do have to admit that I'm still really intrigued by the Whisperers and am eager to peer deeper in their world - but that doesn't necessarily outweigh my frustration at Kirkman squandering the boldest thing this book has done since the prison escape.

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"Hitler had a pretty good idea there." - Eric

The new Howard the Duck fucking rules for serious. Very NEXTWAVE vibe.

Like, I think it's safe to assume that everyone involved figured there was absolutely no chance anyone was going to pick the title up unironically and that gave them carte blanche to do ANYTHING THEY FUCKING WANTED.

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...fuck you, JFelix, fuck you into the ground. - Ericubus

There is a new Howard the Duck Comic? Will need to get that. My all time favorite comic.

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I'm going to wait until you're sitting next to Ericubus and then I'll ask how you're feeling. - caryc

It's super silly. Like, '80s training montages that for some reason include references to Entrapment-levels of silly. Also Spider-Man being ridiculous:



"It's my face! My face is on your body!" sold me on it.

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...fuck you, JFelix, fuck you into the ground. - Ericubus

I guess my hope for a return to the satirical take on modern society of the original wasn't in the cards. Could still be interesting, though.

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I'm going to wait until you're sitting next to Ericubus and then I'll ask how you're feeling. - caryc

Well, I guess my wife's cousin is writing the X-Men these days. E for Extinction. News to me.

Fables is done as of today. Somewhat anti-climactically, at least with regard to the plot; the last issue was more about saying goodbye to the characters (and squeezing in a reference to Benghazi, for fuck's sake; never read anything written by a Republican). As we discussed last time it came up, the series flailed around looking for a focus at several points in its run, but there's decidedly an endpoint now, with 150 issues and several related miniseries and/or graphic novels. And it was fun.

I had a gift card for Amazon from work, and figured I'd treat myself to a new tablet for comics. The Lenovo Tab 2.

The Kindle Fire was too awkward for comic usage - the 8GB storage and lack of expandable storage made it reliant on things like Dropbox - fine enough if you have a fast internet connection, but so damn clunky if you don't. And 8GB fills up quickly factoring in the OS and other standard apps. The 7" screen, while usable, was also a bit of a pain.

So the Lenovo Tab 2 - I've got a 128GB microsd card on the way. I've been also loading my spare 64GB card up in anticipation (I've got a few hundred gigs in scans to be read, along with quite a few comics purchased through Comixology). I'm pretty excited to be reading comics on a 10.1" screen. It should be here tomorrow.

And while I love some good modern storytelling in the graphic novel format, I admit it's a guilty pleasure reading through some of the incredibly hokey 1950s and 1960s DC Comics, as well as all of the public domain horror-themed comics.

My Fire has been fine for comic reading, but yeah, storage is a real ass fuck. Mine is only 8GB, too, and half that is system stuff.

While it's not too difficult to just swap out stuff as you want to read it, half the point of having it all digital and on a mobile device is that you can just fill it up with tons of shit and be done with it for the next year.

Instead, I can only read in relatively small chunks of 30 or so issues at a time. (I have a lot of games on my Fire.)

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"Hitler had a pretty good idea there." - Eric

I'm still using a Nook Tablet. It's got the SD card expansion so I've plenty of space but not as much as the Lenovo. Once this dies I'll probably go that route.

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"Watch my stuff." - Monterey Jack

That looked like a good option - I saw there was a 1080P model for under 100.

Even if the Nook says it only takes up to 32gb/whatever, in many instances, it will take more - give it a shot if you have a card lying around.

Yeah. I'd probably make do if it wasn't for the space. Locke and Key was kind of a pain in the ass to read on a 7" screen though. 10.1" looks like a good comic size.

While picking up my kid from school, I've fallen into the habit of talking to the grandfather of his best friend in class, who's usually there to do the same thing. Guy's a retired English teacher, and he loaned me this full-text comic-book version of King Lear. Art's pretty crazy.







This one spoilered for size:


So that's a comic book. Sorta.

Just to follow up on this, the Lenovo Tab 2 did not accept the 128gb microsd card out of the box. It had no issues with the 64GB card.

I did some reading and the card needed to be formatted into Fat32 format. Nerd talk - that's kind of dumb needing to format anything in fat32 format these days. Windows won't even format a drive that's bigger than 32GB with Fat32. Regardless, there are 3rd party apps out there to help format the card. Unfortunately that means I won't be able to store any files larger than 4.7gb (or whatever the limit is, it's been ages since I've needed to care about this)