BAM! POW! What are the Best iPad Comic Apps? Discussion

**Daniel Dern** · 04-13-2012, 09:25 AM

Every week, an average of 100-or-so new comic books from DC, Marvel, and other publishers hit the racks of the 2,700-plus independent comic book stores across the United States. But ZAP! BAM! BOOM! Whether you're into Spiderman or Archie, apps are now out there that will let you read the same comics on a digital device like an iPad or a PC. Although the iPad apps all leave something to be desired, you can find some big advantages as well to downloading your favorite comics on to your fave tablet. In this roundup, we'll take a close look at the four major comic book apps for the Apple iPad, to help you figure out whether you want to give them a spin.

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**Daniel Dern** · 04-13-2012, 02:07 PM

Two update notes -- news that came in after the article went into production: 1) comiXology has added HD support (for the new iPad), and 2) Graphic.Ly has discontinued distribution of their mobile apps. Here's more details:

1) Version 3.1 of comiXology's iOS Comics app adds an additional high-def digital comic format, CMX-HD, which is optimized for the iPad's Retina display. I haven't looked at comics yet this way -- I've got an iPad 2 -- but the results are supposed to be very impressive.

Not surprisingly, CMX-HD files will be two to three times the size of the
previous format -- according to one reviewer, for example, a comic that was
slightly under 22MB was nearly 42MB in CMX-HD format.

So far, only a few digital comics are available in CMX-HD format. According
to the company, "ComiXology is upgrading is entire library into CMX-HD, and the majority of its new releases will support the format. Customers who previously purchased a comic in the older format will be prompted to download it in high definition free of charge."

2) As of March 2012, Graphic.Ly is getting out of the comic app game, taking their apps out of the storefronts. If you've already downloaded and installed these apps, you can't buy any more titles through them, but you'll still be able to use them to read any comics you've purchased from Graphic.Ly -- or you can view them through Graphic.Ly's web site (Graphicly) or their Facebook Application (Graphicly on Facebook | Facebook.

'Nuff posted! :-)

**thatcomicsguy** · 04-13-2012, 03:00 PM

This interests me a lot.

Right now, I'm in the process of breaking down my comics project, Stardrop into single panels which can re-organize themselves depending on the screen size available. (Via basic ePub formatting.) I deliberately set a creative boundary for myself when I began drawing/writing Stardrop requiring of myself that all the panels be square and optimized for viewing on e-readers. -Full pages on a large reader, or single panels on a phone, for instance. The prototypes work really well.

But I've held off for a loooong time in releasing digitally because the distribution and the devices and payment structures, the market as a whole, hadn't crystalized. Now, however, that's all rapidly changing. . .

At the moment, I'm just wading into the research on the rights side of the issue. I'm not talking about DRM. Rather, the thing I'm curious about is revenue sharing, (it's all over the map!), and perhaps even more importantly, the issue of exclusivity. Apple, for instance, if you want to distribute through their iTunes store, will only apparently allow you to do so if you agree not to also sell through your own website. I don't much like the sound of that.

I remember the distributor wars in the 90's, and the battles before that for creator rights, and it seems that stew pot is heating up once again.

It's going to be an interesting journey over the next few years.

And this is an experiment. I've also got a bunch of new Jenny Mysterious material starting to pile up in my Out Box, and T&K is in the process of being colored, so depending on how all this plays out. . .