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Sherm Cohen is a cartoonist, writer and storyboard artist. He got his start in animation at Nickelodeon on The Ren and Stimpy Show as a character layout artist, followed by a three-year stint on Hey Arnold as storyboard artist and director. In early 1998, Sherm Cohen was invited by SpongeBob's creator Steve Hillenburg to be part of the original SpongeBob SquarePants crew. Sherm spent the first season on the show as a writer, storyboard artist and director, then moved up to Storyboard Supervisor for the next three seasons of SpongeBob SquarePants. Sherm was also lead storyboard artist and character designer on The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie. After SpongeBob's fourth season, Sherm left Nickelodeon to write and illustrate a book on how to draw cartoons, "Cartooning: Character Design," which was recently released from Walter Foster Publications. After spending two seasons writing and drawing boards at Cartoon Network, Sherm went across town to be a writer and storyboard artist on the TV series, Phineas and Ferb at Walt Disney Studios.

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ComicZeal Releases a Nice New Iphone Comic Book Reader App

September 9th, 2008 • Related • Filed Under

iPhone Comic App Dept: I just downloaded the new ComicZeal app for iPhone, and it is a winner! (Thanks to Maddux for the tip!) With ComicZeal you can download a fantastic assortment of public-domain comic book files and read them in their very simple-to-use reader.ComicZeal iPhone Comic Book Reader AppComicZeal Iphone Comic Book ReaderThe comic book files download fast, and they stay on your iPhone so you can read them off-line anytime you want. They are a very good resolution. The images open quickly and they pinch and zoom very fast, with a very smooth response.

The comics can be read in portrait and/or landscape mode, too!

I have emailed the developers at bitolithic.com to find out how comic book creators and publishers can create their own iPhone comics to work with their ComicZeal application. I’ll post a real review and more details as soon as I get a chance. Check out ComicZeal at: http://www.bitolithic.com/ComicZeal/comiczeal.htm and http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=288016881&mt=8

UPDATE: The ComicZeal developers replied to my email and told me that they’ll be releasing a beta version of their iPhone-comic generator software which will allow creators and publishers to post their own comics that work with the ComicZeal app. from Emiliano’s email to me:

I’m specially glad to hear that you have some comics you would like to put up on your website. The creator is being designed for people such as yourself, I’d love to see a library of comics hosted at other websites. We’re working hard to get the creator up for beta test.
ComicZeal has posted more detail HERE about the ComicZeal Creator software. I really appreciate the level of information they’re offering here. I know a lot of people want a native .cbr reader for the iPhone and iPod Touch, but their article helps to explain why converting to their .cbi format will make a better iPhone comics reading experience.

6 Comments

  • At 2008.09.09 15:36, Free Iphone 2 U » Blog Archive » ComicZeal Releases a Nice New Iphone Comic Book Reader App said:

    [...] Nicholas Carlson wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptiPhone Comic App Dept: I just downloaded the new ComicZeal app for iPhone, and it is a winner! (Thanks to Maddux for the tip!) With ComicZeal you can download a fantastic assortment of public-domain comic book files and read them in … [...]

    [Reply]
    • At 2008.09.09 23:47, Erik said:

      They say in their app’s description that if you email them about it, they’ll ad you to the Generator beta. I’ve just done so I really hope that beta is starting soon although I don’t understand how we could install a beta that was restricted unless the Gwnerator is only on the PC side. This is so exciting. I told the pessimists this was coming sooner rather than later!

      [Reply]
      • At 2008.09.10 00:18, Sherm said:

        @Erik: Hi Erik…yeah… Ive got myself on their beta notificatioin list, too. I love the way this app works, so I’m pretty excited about it too!

        [Reply]
        • At 2008.09.10 22:36, Maddux said:

          This is HUGE! Finally a true comic reader! I can’t wait for the comic creator to come out so I can start uploading the comics I’ve already got. Where did you guys email to get on the beta list?

          Until that happens, though, I’ve got a tip. I’ve been using Datacase to view the images in folders after decompressing the cbr/cbz files. Just today I downloaded an app called Air Sharing (free right now on the app store) and I’m liking it much better. Seems quicker with the images and I like how it automatically scrolls down a little in the list after viewing each image so you know which page is next. Give it a try.

          [Reply]
          • At 2008.09.16 22:44, Danny said:

            Fantastic news!

            I’ve been using dbelement’s Stripr app the last 6 months and I’ve loved it. I hope this app can add to that.

            By the way, for those that have never used Stripr, check it out, it’s really fantastic. There’s a huge community, and you’ll get to discover new comics through the rating system. Here’s a quick link to dBelement Stripr Comic site: http://dbelement.com/apps/stripr.php

            or http://stripr.dbelement.com on your iPhone.

            [Reply]
            • At 2008.09.20 01:10, Jeff said:

              I’m happy to see a dedicated comicbook reader come to the AppStore. I bought it this evening and overall pleased with it. The converter/server app is easy to use and works well. It was here I discovered the app does indeed have landscape mode – crucial for iPhone comic reading.
              In future updates I hope the developer will add the option to get rid of the status bar at the top and the navigation bar at the bottom of the screen. Real estate is too precious on the iPhone screen to take up needlessly!
              I hope too that .cbr and .cbz support will be added. I don’t buy the battery/processing power argument. Leave it up to the user to convert to .cbi or not. The digital noise/ pixelated look when zoomed in on a small panel is absent with uncompressed – i.e. .cbr or .cbz compared to .cbi – comics. .

              [Reply]
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