Appletell reviews Comics for iPhone, iPod touch

Category: Comic book e-reader
Developer: Comixology
Minimum Requirements: iPhone OS 3.0
Compatibility: iPhone and iPod touch
File Size: 3.3 MB
Price: $0.99
Availability: Now
Version Reviewed: 1.1

It’s been a while since I made my weekly (er… daily) trek down to the local comic shop to get my regular dose of X-Men, Sandman, and Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew.

What? You got a problem with Captain Carrot? Funny animal books? To heck with you, I freaking love Captain Carrot. If they came out with Absolute Captain Carrot I would buy it in a second. But I digress.

While the digital revolution has been widely accused of speeding along the death of print, Comics by Comixology is a neat application that’s designed to supplement rather than replace the traditional comic book.

Beyond being a simple e-book reader, Comics lets you download comics from independent publishers (no Marvel or DC titles) to your iPhone after you create a free account. Some of the titles are free—usually the first issue of a series, to give you a taste—and most of the rest are priced around $0.99.

The great thing about Comics is the way you read it: panel-by-panel, with each one dramatically sliding into the next. The panels can be flipped to view in portrait or landscape, or by using the pinch-and-zoom function. You can also set the program to automatically rotate the image for the best effect. What’s really fun about this is that whomever is working on these panels is obviously paying a lot of attention to how it should be done: it’s not just a crop-and-plop job: text boxes that establish a mood are set off by themselves before a splash panel, and large panels are broken up into “shots” that help enhance the flow of the page. It’s like having a camera to add energy to an already dynamic medium.

There’s a nice mix of titles available: a lot of super hero stuff, but also offbeat things like Action Philosophers (#1 Ayn Rand is, strangely enough, free of charge), horror titles, and Matt Wagner’s classic series Mage: The Hero Discovered. Since I’ve been out of the comic scene for so long I didn’t recognize most of the title, but the series descriptions and free first issues (along with reader ratings) gave me a better idea of which ones to start with.

If, after reading the comic on your iPod, you’d like to actually own the physical thing, Comics offers links to Amazon or your local comic shop, which I thought was a nice touch: supporting your local store. The problem with that is, while Comics uses the iPhone location feature to find a store near you, its database is out of date: my fav store, Dreamhaven moved across town some time ago.

But that’s a minor gripe: if you’re looking for a way to discover new comics from indie publishers in a format that convenient, mobile, and fun to read, Comics by Comixology is a unique e-reader that deserves your attention.

Buy Comics