iPad-ness

Welcome to a very special, April Fool's Edition of Exfanding Your Horizons, wherein I make no further mention of the holiday. But I do warn you all to not trust anything you read in this post. Except that.

And that.

And that.

Right. (Bonus points to anyone who knows where I stole that from.)

Today's post is going to be one of those "placeholder" dealies. As in, I need to post something today because Nathaniel is busily readying his three-part PAX East recap, which will begin here tomorrow.

And it'll be epic. And hilarious. And thought-provoking. And if it doesn't manage to make our year-end, Best of Exfanding list, then Nathaniel will have failed. Miserably. And please do tell him all about it.

His abject failure, I mean.

Right. Well. I'm sure it'll be great fun, and none of us will have to ridicule Nathaniel for not living up to expectations.

So, in the meantime, let's talk about something else. (I promise there will be plenty of time to ridicule Nathaniel tomorrow.)

The timing of this placeholder post is pretty fortuitous, actually, since this coming Saturday sees the launch of a product that could very well change the shape of comics distribution forever.

But ya know what? It may actually change the shape of comics forever, and not just the distribution methodology.

Apple's iPad is set to go on sale Saturday morning, and I'm sure there are hobbit villages peppered across the country, with people standing (or sleeping) in line outside Apple stores right now, anxiously awaiting the advent of the next messiah.

Uh...I mean, next cool, tech-y toy. You know, so as to bridge the gap between now and the next cool, tech-y toy to come along.

Still, the iPad seems like it'll be a big hit with the comics-reading crowd, and many sites are telling us all exactly why that is.

As with all new technology, though, at the moment there are many more questions than answers. Like, how will the iPad affect brick-and-mortar comics shops? And, will the back issue/vintage market (which has absolutely exploded in recent years) see significant changes?

And, most importantly, when will Alex get to something April Fools-ish?

While we're on the subject of iPads and the death (but also possibly re-birth) of the comics industry as a whole, check out this link to Cult of Mac. It's a story about iVerse digital comics, complete with a pretty cool demo of what the iPad will mean for us geeks.

But before you do, please remember to save your ridicule for Nathaniel for tomorrow.