Comixology: Library and Annotations | Fan Made Commercials

 

Recording my guest appearance on Superhero Cinephiles was a fun, wonderful experience. The host was incredible, and the conversation was excellent. Preparing for it, balancing the comic, a notebook, and a pen was a lot more frustrating than expected. What's worse is that it was completely unnecessary. I remembered not just all regular features using a Kindle affords, but I also remembered manually drawing underlines and highlights, and putting notes in the margins of unformatted PDFs that professors occasionally send us. It wasn't perfect, but it was still all on a single tablet and required one hand. 

This is impossible with large comics because trying to convert one into a PDF crashes PDF readers. So Amazon really should step in and do something. They clearly have the capabilities, with everything the Kindle and ComiXology apps already can do, but they are more concerned with slashing what ComiXology can do in the interest of cost-saving. Nerdsync and other YouTubers have covered that really well. 

So, this became my new project. The additional commercial focused on the library was my way of learning Figma. It was simpler to make and it throws around some more useful ideas that ComiXology is lacking. And the commercial framing was the best way to give these things some additional life and not just make it a slideshow. It just also meant I needed some additional help.

A ton of people contributed to this, and I highly encourage people to check out their work. For example, Julia Yorks is a professional screenwriter. Before I went to the VA, Kiyana, with my script, I wanted to make sure dialogue flowed from feature-to-feature just right, and she was able to help me do that and make the whole thing less wordy.

I don't know if this will actually show up on Amazon's radar, but with all the ComiXology criticism they've been facing lately, at least they might find a potential way out...if they even care or it starts to actually affect the bottom line.

Finally, while note-taking was frustrating, I'd consider the library video a strong endorsement of getting your books from your local comic shop. Once they're home, it's just so much easier to enjoy them. Please support your local comic book shops, and enjoy the non-hassle of not having to re-download a large trade or omnibus. Just grab-and-go.

Credits
Voice Acting
Kiyana Morgan

Music
Christophe Beck's Ant-Man Theme
Owned by Marvel/Disney

Photos
Adobe Stock & Shutterstock

Script Consulting
Julia Yorks – The Baby Writers Podcast

Software
Figma for UI & Final Cut Pro for editing
Play with the Figma files however you’d like
Annotation & Library

Keyboard
Denis Rojčyk

Icons by Iconduck

It's a plug-in in Figma

Inspiration
Superhero Cinephiles & Nerdsync

ComiXology & Kindle by Amazon
Comics owned by their respective creators or publishers
Purchased through ComiXology or, more likely, Humble Bundle
I’m affiliated with neither

Special Thanks
SUNY New Paltz Comic Books United! 
My school’s comic club showed me the wide world of comics outside of the movies