There is bubbling speculation that could be the herald of the next great age of comics.

The Chicago Sun-Time's tech columnist, Andy Ihnatko (who's a fellow comic book geek), pieces together clues that suggest the seemingly mythical Apple tablet computer may be on the horizon, and will have support for digital comics downloads. Revolutionizing digital comics the same way that Apple did for digital music.

From Andy's Sun-Times column:

Apple’s upcoming tablet computer (whoops, “rumored” upcoming tablet) just got a little more interesting: there are signs that the company is getting into the digital comic book market.

Which is tantamount to saying “Apple is helping to create a digital comic book market.”

The key to this is an existing digital comics outfit, LongBox, who may have a relationship with Apple much like how Audible.com does with them, providing audiobooks for the iTunes media store.

There has been the Golden Age, the Silver Age, theres various names for periods in recent comics history. The starting and ending dates of all of them are subject to some debate.

But if this comes to pass, there will be no question about the dawn of the Silicon Age of comics, when Apple releases a device that will become the iTunes/iPod of comics.

This article is must reading for comics fans. Read it now.

As an aside, the goal here for Apple is much like what they have done with other technologies. They arrive late to the party, but they take whats been done before and blow it completely out of the water.

This would be the "Kindle Killer". Apple will trump all other book reading devices by having superior resolution and color. Comics will be merely the way Apple proves that their device would be superior. Existing devices are greyscale and low resolution, and aren't suited to comics, which demand greater resolution and color depth.

I wouldn't be surprised if Apple isn't also lining up publishers of magazines that use lots of photography and graphics.

I dismissed most Apple tablet rumors in the past as Apple fanboys spinning fantastic tales. Most such rumors are. But Andy's better than the rumor mongers, and clearly divides facts from speculation, but uses facts to support his suppositions. I trust him as a journalist.

So now I'm caught up in this Tablet speculation too. I used to think that any such