I’m excited to have the opportunity to write a guest comic for The Obscure Gentlemen. Although I don’t read comic books, I laugh at almost every comic they’ve done. It was difficult, at first, to think of something that would measure up to what they’ve done in the past, but after some thought, it was easy to write something from my own personal experiences.

When I was younger, I loved Batman. Although I don’t remember doing so, my family says I watched the live-action TV series all the time when I was 3-4 years old. So, it’s no accident I chose to use Batman as the character in my guest comic. I also love new media and my iPhone. But, I don’t always love the apps. While Apple (and Droid, somewhat) insists “there’s an app for that” about, well everything, there just isn’t. In fact, in most cases, there is not an app for that. There’s an app for things you can already do online. A GPS to get directions? A dictionary? A video game? Yes, there’re apps for those things. But for some things, apps shouldn’t be made.

I was editing an article about paddle-ball (the game with the ball attached by a rubber string to a paddle) and thought “hey, I’ll download a paddle-ball app for work.” I did. There actually is an app (more than one, actually) for that. However, it isn’t fun. It works fine. Move your wrist as you would playing real paddle-ball and the virtual ball will move so you can hit it again. Nope, not fun. Real paddle-ball isfun.

Basically, what Batman learns in this comic is that, for most things, the app just isn’t as good as the real deal.

Kirsten Alvarez