{"id":1130,"date":"2015-06-01T13:05:07","date_gmt":"2015-06-01T18:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/?p=1130"},"modified":"2015-06-01T13:23:01","modified_gmt":"2015-06-01T18:23:01","slug":"retro-scan-of-the-week-sega-interactive-comics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/archives\/1130\/retro-scan-of-the-week-sega-interactive-comics","title":{"rendered":"<span id=\"retro_color\">[ Retro Scan of the Week ]<\/span> Sega Interactive Comics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"\/wp-content\/images\/retroscan\/sega_interactive_comics_large.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/wp-content\/images\/retroscan\/sega_interactive_comics_small.jpg\" alt=\"Sega Interactive Comics Sega Electronic Comics Batman Popular Science What's New - April 1995\" class=\"retroscan\"\/><\/a><span class=\"freecaption\"><em>WHAM! POW! ZAP!<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been intrigued by this Sega Electronic Comics System prototype since I first saw it in Popular Science&#8217;s What&#8217;s New section back in April 1995.  Here is an excerpt from that very magazine.<\/p>\n<p>As far as I know, this device never made it into production &#8212; in fact, the only mention I can find of it on the Internet as of this writing is <a href=\"http:\/\/boards.collectors-society.com\/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&#038;Number=8129803\" target=\"_blank\">this post<\/a> on the Collectors Society forums.<\/p>\n<p>Apparently, the Sega Electronic Comics device worked in conjunction with a tailor-made paper comic book that one would place onto the device.  A series of pressure-sensitive buttons beneath the comic book could be pressed to somehow direct the narrative of the book. (Perhaps like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/archives\/448\/retro-scan-of-the-week-choose-your-own-adventure\" target=\"_blank\">Choose Your Own Adventure<\/a> &#8212; i.e. <em>if you do this, turn to page 3<\/em>.)<\/p>\n<p>This reminds me of the comic book device Tom Hanks&#8217; character <a href=\"http:\/\/moviesblog.mtv.com\/2010\/04\/02\/ipad-was-tom-hanks-idea\/\" target=\"_blank\">outlines in the film <em>Big<\/em> (1988)<\/a>, albeit without any type of electronic screen.  The crazy thing is that 15 years after this Sega Prototype, you could buy an iPad that could store and display thousands of entirely digital comics in a much thinner form factor.<\/p>\n<p><center><em>[ From Popular Science, April 1995, p.11]<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n<p><strong>Discussion Topic of the Week:<\/strong> Do you use an electronic device to read comic books?  Tell us about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WHAM! POW! ZAP! I&#8217;ve been intrigued by this Sega Electronic Comics System prototype since I first saw it in Popular Science&#8217;s What&#8217;s New section back in April 1995. Here is an excerpt from that very magazine. As far as I know, this device never made it into production &#8212; in fact, the only mention I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,43,13,27,26,9,10],"tags":[151,722,1114,1110,895,1111,135,1116,1112,60,198,1113,1115],"class_list":["post-1130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computer-info-and-history","category-electronic-toys","category-video-game-info-and-history","category-regular_features","category-retro-scan-of-the-week","category-retrogaming","category-computers","tag-151","tag-batman","tag-big","tag-comic-books","tag-electronic-toys","tag-interactive-comics","tag-ipad","tag-popular-science","tag-prototype","tag-retro-scan","tag-sega","tag-tom-hanks","tag-whats-new"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}