Will electronic readers be able to revive the glory of comic books?

I don't have any statistics to back me up, but I have a feeling that comic book companies make a lot more money licensing their characters for movies than they do with comic books. That doesn't mean that comic books are dead, but they are certainly a niche medium, at least in North America.

That might change with the advent of the e-book. While comic books might not look so great on a mobile phone, some are betting that the mythical Apple tablet would revive comic books to their former glory thanks to the larger screen that this imagined device would have.

E-books certainly have the power to disrupt the publishing business as we know it. Margins are thin enough that even a small erosion of sales caused by the early adoption of electronic book readers that the disruption could come sooner rather than later.

One company which is working toward the new digital future is Harlequin. I've written earlier about their plans to create an electronic-only imprint that would publish across many genres, but the SFWA has oposed the move, saying that it is nothing more than a vanity press.

While you're waiting for the Apple Tablet's arrival on which to read your favourite science fiction comic books, study this list of the top 10 science fiction graphic novels that you'll want to load up on yours after you buy one. If you want something even older, consider the Science Fiction Classics comic book anthologies.

When you are reading everything electronically, you can get rid of your old comic books by turning them into nifty wallets like this one.