There’s a certain element about the iPhone that makes you want to do everything on it. We cram on Twitter clients, RSS readers, document managers, and a ton of games. Well it so happens that there’s a certain group of people who still like to read comics. We got a couple of requests for a comic reader roundup, and I was assigned to go App Store hunting.
While there are a bunch of readers on the App Store, two of them stood out with a good set of features and pleasant user interfaces, suited for reading something colourful as a comic book. myComics and ComicZeal are the two apps in question.
So what exactly are we looking for in a comic book reader? Let me first state that I’m not comic book addict so I might judge wrong. Apart from reading CBR and CBZ file formats, I was looking for a good system of managing comics. You would want all those issues of Spiderman to be in one basket right? Second, an easy way to transfer comics to your iPhone. And third, perhaps a way to download comics on the fly, directly on your iPhone. So let’s see how these two perform then!
myComics
The application features a warm ‘woody’ interface, where your comics are placed on shelves. It’s not just comics, but comic collections as well. There’s a list view as well, which is just as elegant while giving you a little more info about the book. Tapping a book brings up the info, tapping again loads it up in the reader window.
The reading interface is one of the most important parts of a comic book reader, considering that’s the most amount of time you’ll spend on the app. The interface is a standard iPhone dark HUD, which allows you to zoom, pan, and flip pages. You can use the scrubber to rapidly skim through pages. You won’t really need that since the app remembers where you left off last. To advance to the next page, you can either swipe across, tap on the buttons, or tap on either side of the page.
I found that the ‘HUD’ doesn’t disappear when you’re reading a comic, unless it’s in the auto-read mode. That again is only available on certain comics (ZAVE format), so it can get quite annoying. The ZAVE comic books could also split the comic into slices, so you could view each block at a time without getting lost panning a whole page. This mode also has an auto read mode, where you can adjust the timer to quicken the reading pace. The format of course is not widespread so as of now you won’t come across it that often.
That HUD stays there, unless it’s a ZAVE format book
Transferring comics was dead easy. You can use the quick and dirty browser upload method, or use a dedicated tool to transfer comics. In my experience both worked flawlessly.
myComics is also tied up to an online comic book seller Ave-Comics. However, you cannot purchase these comics within the app itself, instead it works pretty much like how Amazon’s Kindle app works. You buy the comics, and they sync over to your app. These downloaded books are mere proxies on your device, after which you can tap to download one of them.
ComicZeal
Featuring a similar wooden ‘look’ as myComics, ComicZeal has a more straightforward user interface. The main window features a similar shelf system for your books, but it’s one book or collection at a time. This makes the items look bigger, but means you have to scroll down a lot more to see the same number of books.
Tapping on a book loads it up into the main window (if it’s a collection it will show you the books inside). The viewer is very simple, and that’s the best part. You can bring up the HUD controls, but for most part your comic takes up the entire screen. Swipe, pinch, or skim through pages. You can lock the view in portrait or landscape while reading itself.
Transferring comics to the device requires you to download a special app, available for Mac or Windows. There’s no way to upload from a browser. If you want to upload a PDF, you have to download an extra addon (32MB) which I didn’t download. The app converts any of the supported formats (CBR, CBZ, RAR, PDF) into its own format which you then sync over to your iPhone. The process is smooth and well presented.
That large UI disappears when you’re reading
When it comes to downloading a book on the fly, ComicZeal is tied with some Golden Age comics, which allows you to download books on the fly, without any thing other than a few taps.
A Preference for one of them
Both applications are brilliant in their own right. myComics is much better at managing your comics, has native support for PDF, and has the ability to transfer over the web browser. ComicZeal on the other hand is better when it comes to the very act of reading through a book. The full screen view, the smooth accelerated panning of pages, locking your device orientation, and that the buttons are better suited for single handed navigation. If I were a comic book maniac, I’d choose myComics, but since I hardly read anything more than Asterix, Tintin, and the odd ball, I’d settle for the better readability of ComicZeal.
Understand that this doesn’t mean that myComics is bad at reading or that ComicZeal is bad at management. It’s just that the other one is better. I’d without much effort be able to adjust to either one of these.
myComics costs $3.99 while ComicZeal is a dollar cheaper at $2.99. The cost of the app shouldn’t come into consideration, because if you read a lot of comics, you’re going to spend a whole lot of time with the app. Besides, they’re just a dollar apart. Choose one that best suits your needs. There’s also some other readers like comiXology ($1.99), iComic ($0.99), and others I might have missed out on.
Reading Comics on the iPhone
I prefer reading a paperback book to reading a comic. No I’m not prejudiced or old school, I prefer audiobooks and ebooks, but Comics need to be redesigned for the iPhone. The very act of panning around the large pages of a comic seems unnatural and is hurtful for your thumb. I’ve so far read some Asterix and Tintin comics on either device, and while it’s tolerable I’d say the book experience is much better.
That said, the iPhone way is much more convenient, especially since the book is always available with you, you can read in low light, and you can have a much larger collection than you normally would. There is also some headway being made to solve the issue of readability, with the ZAVE format supported by myComics. Like I said, it breaks each page into slides you can thumb through. However, ZAVE is not widespread at the moment, but it’s an open format pushed by Ave comics.
Have you been reading comics on your iPhone? Do you even read comics otherwise?
