The International Herald Tribune has an article about comics being released onto the cell phone. Some points I found interesting:

“It opens up a market that wouldn’t necessarily be seen as a traditional comic market,” writer Sean Demory said of the book’s launch last month.

[…]

But it touches on two strengthening trends: Comic book creators looking to leap to the digital arena, where production and distribution are cheap, and wireless providers looking for data-rich applications to drive future revenues.”Obviously comics have a pretty large following,” said David Oberholzer, associate director of content programming for Verizon Wireless, which offers GoComics along with competitors AT&T Inc. and Sprint Nextel Corp. “You want to mimic what’s out there already and have that on your deck.”

[…]
The GoComics reader displays each comic book a panel at a time, reformatted from the printed versions with larger typeface in word balloons, although some comics are harder to read than others. The phone’s buttons advance each frame, allowing the reader to scroll across larger pictures.

[…]Mobile comics have been a cellular mainstay for years in manga-crazy Japan, where some titles already begin life on cell phones before going to print.

[…]

“There are plenty of niches,” he said. “My sense is that in the long term, as displays get better and networks get better and there’s a better experience for all sorts of content, I think the comic book stuff makes a little bit more sense to me.”

Who would have thought, right? The first comic released is Thunder Road.