Ones And / Or Zeroes: Nook Comics, Part 1

EDITOR’S NOTE: The first draft of this was written on Christmas Day while my parents were at church. They came back before I could finish, so I put it aside hastily, because I would rather have them believing that I was viewing pornography than running a comics Web site. So please forgive the dated references.

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Merry Christmas from deepest, darkest Florida! Being the holiday season, familial obligations have forced us to leave the Crisis In Infinite Midlives Home Office, with it’s convenient bars, restaurants, bars, liquor stores, bars, movie theaters, bars, comic store and bars. I am writing this from an area of Florida that, if you’re familiar with the adventures of Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs, well… they’re familiar with those adventures here too, because they also watched them on TV when they were younger and had less ear hair.

This is what they call a “snowbird community,” because to call it a “retirement community” brings uncomfortable connotations of Blade Runner, which their Generation X children forced them to watch repeatedly on grainy VHS tapes. Or at least my parents were forced, so we’ll stick with the snowbird thing. It’s a nice little town where you can get anything you need, provided it helps in maintaining regular bowel movements.

But one thing they don’t have is a comic store. If you ask a local where you can get a comic book, they think you’re asking for something by Andy Rooney, and then they remember that he’s dead, then they get quiet, and then they call you an ungrateful hippie.

So it seemed that my visit here would remain comicless, since I certainly didn’t pack any comics for my trip down here. Packing anything more subversive than an iPhone with a fart generator app is a non-starter when facing an interaction with a TSA “agent”, since the last comics-related story they’ve probably heard was that Superman renounced his American citizenship, and if they see a picture of Batman boning Catwoman, you will become intimately familiar with the second knuckle of the middle finger of a strange man making minimum wage. It’s a Christmas Miracle OH GOD WHY I’LL ADMIT ANYTHING YOU WANT I’M SORRY BATMAN IS A BIGGER PIMP THAN YOU YES THOSE ARE MAGNIFICENT DREADLOCKS FOR A FEDERAL AGENT NO NOT THE THIRD KNUCKLE

But I digress. I thought I was going to be comicless, but a couple of weeks ago, Barnes & Noble released an operating system update for their Nook Color e-reader that prominently touted the availability of digital comics, particularly Marvel Comics. So I thought I would give the new functionality a shot.

You Said Wood: Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer: Of Wood And Blood Free Downloads

At last year’s SDCC, Amanda picked up the first two books of Van Jensen’s and Dusty Higgins’s Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer from the Slave Labor Graphics booth, partially because the title was cool, and partially because we needed something to read in the hotel bathroom while suffering through either travel-related constipiation or, eventually, crippling beer shits.

Turns out it was well worth the speculative purchase (Neither of us had heard of the book before buying it); it was a smart, funny story about a bad-assed Pinocchio who killed vampires by lying (Along the lines of, “I am going to take no joy in stabbing you in the Goddamned chest.”), breaking off his nose and staking vampires in the heart with it. It’s a hell of a clever conceit, and a damnsight less disturbing an idea than, say, Ron Jeremy, Vampire Slayer.

The second book ended on a cliffhanger – Pinocchio turned into a real boy, which is like taking The Punisher’s gun and replacing it with a My Little Pony plushie – and we have been patiently waiting for book three, Of Wood And Blood. Well, the wait is over: Slave Labor Graphics has released the complete first issue to Comic Book Resources’ Robot 6 for free, and the first and second issues will be available for download via the Slave Labor Graphics Web site and comiXology later this week.