Well, there’s apparently a new system in the works, an iTunes-style system for reading and downloading digital comics coming called Longbox. The panel that goes into discussing it is located here.

It looks pretty ambitious, but some of the devices they’re proposing to use this thing for in the future have got me scratching my head. While I’m perfectly happy to read comics on my computer screen, where there’s space, why would anyone want to read a comic on their Nintendo DS or an iPhone? Basically that means you can’t see the entire page unless you zoom out, in which case you can’t read the text.

Furthermore I have to roll my eyes when they call iTunes better than winamp, since I find iTunes to be a piece of crap that I refuse to install on my computer and much prefer the simple interface of winamp.

Also I still have to sigh that they’re this worried about piracy when the piracy’s still going to happen. Just buy the license for the CDisplay comic reader that everyone’s using already and distribute comics for it – the CBR and CBZ format is already out there and people aren’t going to necessarily stop using it, though I like the idea that Longbox could have creator commentary on comics.

We’ll see how this goes, though it should be noted that only two companies seem to have signed on for this thing right now. We’ll know it’s bigger when we see DC and Marvel on the table.