While ebooks on the iPhone have found some footing with the Kindle app, Stanza, and others, Comic books have so far been neglected. I had taken a look at some of the Comic book readers on the iPhone, and wasn’t all that impressed. Panelfly has so far shown some expertise in understanding the iPhone, App Store, and Comic books.
The most striking thing about Panelfly is its vibrant orange-red UI that grabs your vision. It’s one of those non standard UIs done right. Everything from tabs to buttons, it’s all red, white and black. That’s of course just cosmetic, for the thing that sets apart Panelfly from others, is Panelfly depends solely on the built-in Panelfly store, which stocks free as well as paid content. There’s no converting, syncing, or shoplifting, just over the air tap-to-download. I grabbed a couple of comics; it’s completely seamless, quick, and done right. Once you have downloaded some comics, they show up in your library. To note, the main screen shows you cover images now instead of the plain red blackground.
The reading screen loads up the pages, all of which are as crisp and sharp as can be. Unfortunately, reading them still involves scrubbing across the little boxes. Nothing like the ZAVE comic format of myComics. That little bit of complaining aside, reading comics on Panelfly is pretty good. It’s got bookmarking, a brilliant pages view, and the library is efficient at sorting your comics. Design has been paid a lot of attention. For instance, when you’re done reading the book, the extras page loads, from where you can share the link on twitter or facebook, buy the next issue or related comics, or trot back to the Library.
The main aspect of Comic book readers of course, is content. While the others let you download issues from here and there, as well as load them via your computer, there’s no joy in that. Besides, there’s a lot of piracy involved. Well Panelfly is so far the only one who has procured rights to some mainstream comics, including only recently, Marvel. Issues of Amazing Spiderman, Ironman, X-men, and more have been added to the store. They also have a bunch of other paid comics I haven’t heard of, with samples and quick jumps to the all of the issues. They’re available for in-app purchase from $0.99 and above, and might just be the new way to read these comics.
Should Panelfly also have a way to upload your own CBR or PDF files to the app? Ideally, yes, but for now I think it’s fine the way it is. It would simply add complexity to the app, and take away the essence of the store (the content of which I assume must have been quite difficult to get licensing of). If you’re interested in carrying around your own comics, myComics and ComicZeal are both capable apps (and I’m sure there are even more by now).
At the end of the day, I say the best Comic book reader on the iPhone is indeed Panelfly. They’ve shown their talents not only in design—just look at the graphics on their website, newsletters, and the app itself—but also in dealing with major Comic book publishers. They’re also introducing a place for indie artists to publish their content on Panelfly, something I hope will take off soon. If there’s one dominant Comic book platform that will exist on the App Store, it’s Panelfly. Best of all, Panelfly is a free download, and you can try out a bunch of free issues just to see if you’re comfortable with the UI.
Update: I was mistaken in believing that Panelfly was the only one with a Marvel licensing deal. As pointed out by Dr. Doom in the comments, Comics by comiXology also has Marvel comics—an app I haven’t checked out yet, but you can so for free. Note that the Comics apps are generally US only.
Note: While the app is good, I still hold my belief that the iPhone’s small screen is still a hindrance for reading comics in general, so a lot of you would be better off picking up something at the local bookstore
