The hero of the game, the little green candy muncher Om Nom is getting his own digital comic. The comics will be designed by Ape Entertainment and are set to hit the Apple App Store in late August. The comics will be delivered via a standalone app only. Considering the iPhone isn’t the only platform the game is on, I bet the comics come to Android as well.

Cut the Rope is a highly successful game that makes players try to feed candy to a hungry, greenish creature by sequentially cutting ropes that suspend candy above the creature.

When I Grow Up

Over on the Three Men in a Tub blog, he’s posted some of the art that didn’t make it into the app. You can see some of the pieces that did over on the online store.

Steve Breen, the Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonist for The San Diego Union-Tribune, has released an iPhone app for little kids. The app is called Hungry Monster and is played by feeding a yellow monster various types of food which evoke a different reaction from the monster.

From the iTunes description:

Feed Sydney a banana and he shrieks like a monkey. Pop a chili pepper in his mouth and he breathes fire. Give him a popsicle and he turns blue. Watch a real sugar buzz after he eats candy. Poke his belly and make him burp. Throw gross items into the hole and you’re rewarded with a “disco cupcake”.

Steve says he was approached by an app development company a year ago to do an editorial cartooning app, but the additional work on Steve’s part (they wouldn’t use his syndicated stuff) and so he declined but left the door open to other app ideas. After his children discovered an app called Talking Carl that is geared for the 2-7 year olds. He thought up the game of Hungry Monster and ran with it. Steve did all the writing, art and voice work.

The app is $.99

In November, I finally joined the cult of the smartphone. I’m not the type of guy who’s usually on the bleeding edge of technology, nor am I one to become an early adopter of anything (other than comics, of course), but when Verizon’s release of the Droid X coincided with my contract expiration, I decided to take the plunge.

I decided to go with an Android phone over an iPhone for a few reasons. Part of this is my loyalty to Google over Apple, but moreso it was because everyone I know who has an iPhone complains about AT&T dropping calls. Verizon, it seems common knowledge, has the better network. I also was turned off by Apple’s ideological stand against Adobe Flash, and the Droid seemed to support more multi-tasking and other features.

At any rate, in the three months since I got my phone, I’ve come to love it. I’ve also found that it’s pretty good for reading comics, though it has its limitations.

There are essentially four apps that I use to read comics, depending on what I’m doing, and each has its pros and cons.

Last week King Features Syndicate released an iPhone, iPod Touch app for their DailyINK subscription service. Today, they’ve released the iPad version of the same app.

The app, technically is a single app that runs in both small screens (iPhone) and larger screens (iPad) – so if you have an iPad and downloaded it last week, you only need to update the app to get the full experience.

What I like:
Adding, removing comics to my subscription is very simple. Simply touch the “+” button next to the ones I want to add and the “-” I want to remove and done. My options are renewed instantly.

When browsing through all the feature’s samples, description, etc., the app knows which ones I’ve already subscribed to (or not). If I want to add one to my list, a button is available without having to go back out to my subscriptions page.

If I want to read an earlier strip, I simply tap and drag to the right and the current strip slides off the page and the next one downloads. You can also jump to a calendar date and move forward in time the same way.

Like the iPhone version, if you want to see zoom into the comic to see a large version, just double tap the comic and it zooms up (when in portrait mode) and automatically moves to the beginning of the strip. In landscape mode, the comic spans the full width of the device’s screen.

Just one thing that I hope they’ll improve in a future release. When reading my subscriptions, each comic is placed in a white background that has a fixed height – sufficient for horizontal strips – but when taller features (panels and editorial cartoons) are displayed, they are shrunk to the height of the comic strips. At this height they’re illegible. I can touch the comic and a larger version is brought up, but that’s one more action that shouldn’t be necessary if the height of the comic wasn’t set so small. I found myself removing most of the editorial cartoons and panels from my subscription because it was like hitting a speed bump on an otherwise smooth ride.

Okay – one more thing. If I find comic that I love, I want to be able to share it on Twitter or Facebook – not necessary post the comic – just a link to it so others can see it. Such a feature helps comics go viral, but I’m sure to offer that, King would have to open their comics up a bit – something they’ve been reticent to do.

The app is a free download. If you have a DailyINK subscription and an iPod, it’s the preferred way to go. Like I mentioned last week, the iPhone/iPod Touch version is really good too.

Here’s a quick rundown of my experience playing with the app.

The four featured strips when I tried it out: Baby Blues, Bizarro, Dustin, and Hagar the Horrible. Zits showed up at the top of the screen (the other four are featured links). Across the bottom are four options: Daily Comic (the featured strips), My DailyINK (access for subscribers to get their strips), Browse and Help. In the browse feature, you see the titles of all the comics in the King Features portfolio. Each feature includes a short description, seven day samples, information on the artist, feature and characters and the ability to add the feature to your subscription (for subscribers).

One of the difficult things about comics on such small screens – especially for multi panel strips is that they either render so small as unreadable or the zooming feature is clunky. The comic loads in the middle of the screen (landscape or portrait). In landscape, I can read the print (I still have good vision). In portrait view the comic is illegible. But King did an excellent job with the zooming. Double tap on screen and the comic zooms larger and automagically pans to the left to the beginning of the strip to start you out at the beginning panel. This was great for the Arctic Circle strip I was viewing. Mother Goose and Grimm is often a horizontal one panel so when I zoomed it moved to the left when the punchline was in the middle of the strip. With comics, there is no perfect solution and King deserves credit for doing it in a very polished manner.

The app is a free download. Subscriptions run $1.99 a month or $19.99 for a year.

While I cherish my iPhone, the iPad is a much better experience for consuming media. Yes, I drink (guzzle) the Apple Kool-Aid heartily so I can’t wait for the iPad version which will be released “shortly.”

Check it out.

Here’s how the two clauses are written:

14.1 Any app that is defamatory, offensive, mean-spirited, or likely to place the targeted individual or group in harms way will be rejected

14.2 Professional political satirists and humorists are exempt from the ban on offensive or mean-spirited commentary

Obviously the first question is what do they interpret as professional?

I’m afraid at this point Daryl, you’re only hope is to win a Pulitzer.

Joe Martin, the creator of Mister Boffo doesn’t say much on his website, but does link to the animation, I believe readers will see in their mobile device.