#graphic.ly

Graphic.ly is a hot new platform. Their motto is "Upload Once. Distribute Everywhere".

Comixology, Graphicly, Panelfly

http://comixology.com

http://graphicly.com

http://panelfly.com

Definitely a topic close to my heart. I grew up collecting marvel comic cards, especially love the Jim Lee X-men series 1. But though I collected the cards, saving up enough money to get the comics was a totally different matter. Even back in the 80's comics would run $2-3 per issue, with special editions running $5. It wasn't until mail-order catalogs that I was able to fill in the gaps and get the Fatal Attraction series in whole, the Gambit miniseries, the Scott & Jean wedding edition. And then, with the marvels of eBay, I was then tempted to buy large bulk comics in cheap. Booyah!

Enough about myself, we're here about the next step in comics. As most of you probably know, the western comics and graphic novels have been losing some ground to the manga invasion. The manga sections at Barnes and other bookstores are often more comprehensive than the graphic novel section, since comics don't really fit well in discount bookstores. You tend to only find anthologies or true graphic novels like the Watchmen, Walking Dead, Y The Last Man, etc. And the cost of comics now are getting even crazier, it's not uncommon for comics of a dozen pages to cost $4-5. Small wonder sales might be suffering despite the surge of comic-based movies, like the upcoming Avengers film.

In the past I always wished there were free internet comic book sharing sites, especially since I tend to read fan-translated manga freely across various websites. Could these mentioned sites be the coming of that dream? Unfortunately, of course it won't be free, but how's the price?

Panelfly is too new to even discuss in much detail. The sample images they offer make the app look really clean and appealing, but they are still in their infancy and thus I cannot speak to what exactly they offer or how they plan to go about it.

It comes down the comparing Graphicly, with over $4.2M in funding with Comixology. Comixology started in 2007 more as a fan services to enable discussions, connecting with brick-and-mortar stores to purchase physical comics. With the launch of its app and store in mid 2009, Comixology has then entered the selling of digital copies of comics. Graphic.ly entered the market in 2009 just as Comixology did, and thus the services have been competing since their inception.

VS!

Key points when it comes to this face off are partnerships, quality, and UI.

Comixology takes the lead with content. They have relationships with all of the major comic companies (Marvel, DC, Image, Dark Horse, etc.) They are thus positioned to offer many of the #1 issues for free to the users and lure readers into paying for the subsequent issues.

Quality is tough to say, since I have not expanded the image to larger sizes. Let's shelf that topic for now.

UI. Comixology wins this also. The redesign of their site makes it feel more like Netflix and very easy to use. The comic viewing software is simple and elegant. Graphic.ly's comic viewing software feels clunky in comparison.

Pricing is a moot point since they are restricted by the publishers. This is the crux of the problems with the business model. Most of the pricing is at full price of what one pays for the physical copy of the comic. And for someone like me, who looks at comics as collectors items and a piece of art, owning the physical copy is worth 3-4 times a digital version. Unless they lower the pricing, there is no point for users to purchase the digital copy other than convenience.

Format. Comixology restricts comics that you have purchased to be read on their proprietary software. There is no basic epub or pdf copy for you to save for keeping. This makes the high price even more ridiculous as you have no true ownership rights as they keep the copies of the comics for you. It would be akin to paying to use Google Music or Grooveshark even though they store all the songs on their servers.

Graphic.ly has the lead when it comes to social media integration, linking to Facebook and Google Plus.

However, that integration isn't too helpful without more fan functionality. Since Comixology started as a fan service for reviews, discussions, pull lists, and links to retailers, it still has more functionality on its older site found at http://pulllist.comixology.com. Not as intuitive or easy to get to from the main site anymore.

Basically, Comixology wins this hands down. The big problem is getting comic fans to pay full price for digital copies that they can't even save onto their disks.

Also, since I can get a ridiculous amount of manga for free, there isn't much incentive for me to return to comics and graphic novels at such high prices.

The advent of the iPad and other tablets finally make digital comics an appealing option. The iPhone had started the trend, but the tablets' bigger screen, close to the size of actual comics, are the perfect support for reading your comics on the go. They also provide a great opportunity for comics publishers, an industry that has not been known to be particularly healthy in the past.

Indeed, you'd expect the publishers to embrace the digital revolution with both arms and legs. It would give them an opportunity to reach international markets without going through the headache of actual physical distribution overseas. It would provide a legal alternative to pirated scans that flood the net every Wednesday. It would give comics a new cool factor and attract new customers. Yes, you would expect publishers to work hard to provide potential readers with the best experience possible.

Alas, as was the case with the music majors 10 years ago, or the books publishing industry today, the reality is not quite as rosy, and the digital comics experience is not quite as polished as it should be and comes with some pretty heavy caveats.

Dozens of iOS and Android app can be used to purchase digital comics, but three apps currently have the lead: Comics from Comixology, Comics+ from iVerse, and Graphic.ly. Strangely, none of the big publishers have their in house app: Marvel and DC’s apps are special editions of the Comixology app, and IDW’s a special edition of iVerse’s Comics+. There are no differences in functionality between the dedicated apps and their originals, so you might as well go for the original. All three apps are free, are available on iOS and Android and will let you purchase comics and read them. Their interfaces are fairly similar, so I'll only point out the important differences.

The stores

The opening screen brings you right to the digital stores. These are colourful and attractive, which makes sense considering this is an industry that strongly believes that great covers attract the customers. All three stores look nice and sophisticated, but you had better have a good Internet connexion to enjoy them, as downloading all those covers can take a while. The interfaces also tend to be a bit too heavy for my iPad (first generation), and I have found browsing to be slow and clunky at times.

When it comes to searching and browsing the store, Graphic.ly and iVerse only allow you to browse by publisher. This is not enough for me: I don’t automatically remember which publisher publishes that or that series. Comixology goes much further: you can search by publisher, by series, by artist, by genre or by story arc. If you know the name of the comic you are looking for, all three stores have a handy search option.

The number of comics available varies a lot from one store to the next. Comixology has a big edge, not only in sheer number of comics available, but also because it has distribution rights for the biggest three publishers (DC, Marvel and Image). But iVerse also has Image, while Graphic.ly also has Marvel, and all three have interesting selections of smaller but excellent publishers, so you might want to have a look at all grew of them.

Purchasing is both easy and a real pain. To purchase a comic, just tap it, select purchase, and you will prompted for your iTunes password. That’s it. However, none of the stores have any facility to purchase comics in bulk. So if you want to purchase all 100 issues of 100 bullets, you're going to be spending a lot of time taping around.

After you have purchased a comic, it appears in your “my comics” section. However, it is not yet available for reading, you must download it first. iVerse is the smarter app of the bunch here: downloads start automatically, and there is a rudimentary download manager that will download your comics one by one and tell you when there is a problem. Comixology and Graphic.ly are trickier: you must tap on the download button of each comic you want to download. Yes, if you just purchased a 100 comics, that’s another 100 taps. Worst, there is no download management whatsoever: all comics are downloaded simultaneously, so you might want to be careful not to launch too many at the same time. And if there is a problem, you are out of luck: there is no error message, and no way to cancel or restart a download.

Reading

All three apps allow you to read the comics within the app. Actually, you can ONLY read them within the app, so the reading experience is tied to which store you used to buy the comic. There are essentially two ways to read comics with these apps: by page and by panel.

All three apps allow you to read comics page by page, and the interfaces are very similar. The full page is displayed, and you can zoom using the usual pinching gesture. Flipping pages is done by swiping. It’s straightforward, but for me also slightly unsatisfying: a comic is just, just too small to be displayed in full on an iPad. Much better to display the full width of the comic, and use a little scrolling up and down. Alas, while you can zoom on all three apps to fit the comic to your liking, flipping a page cancels a zoom, so you have to pinch and zoom at every page.

Comixology and Graphic.ly also let you read panel by panel. Comixology implementation of this feature is very basic: each panel is zoomed until it fits the size of the iPad’s screen, so when the panels are really small, the result is highly pixellated and fairly unattractive. You can also select to see the whole page before or after flipping, so you still get a good idea of the general art. Graphic.ly follows the same principle, but groups several panels together when necessary to avoid the “small panel becomes huge” problem. Generally, Graphic.ly is a lot smarter in the way the camera focuses, and panel by panel has become my favourite way to read comics with that app, while I avoid it completely with Comixology.

When it comes to managing the comics you have downloaded, all three apps are fairly poor. Only Graphic.ly allows you to create your own folders. However, you have to drag the comics one by one to move them, yes, all 100 of them… Comixology and iVerse avoid the difficulty by giving you no options whatsoever, although you can sort your comics in Comixology using the same criteria available for the store (by series, story arc, etc). And only Graphic.ly offers any visual clue that a comic has been opened, but none of e apps tell you which comics you have finished reading.

If you want to a look at an example of a reading and file managing interface done right, have a look at Comiczeal. Comiczeal primary purpose is not as a digital comics store (although you can use it to buy a few golden age titles), so it is not really competition to the apps we are reviewing here, but it is used to read .cbz and .cbr format comics. Comic zeal is extremely popular, thank to a simple but robust reading interface, and the app lets you move comics around in batches and create folders. It can display your comic collection by name or by cover, and will even tell you which comics have been read and which are unopened.

DRMs

Publishers going digital the first time, no matter the media, believe strong digital rights management is the only way to fight piracy. Comics publishers have opted for some of the strongest limitations of any media ever:

Comics are tied to one account and can be used on one mobile device only. There is no system to lend a comic, apart from lending your iPad. Comics are saved on the iPad, within the app. There is no possibility to make a backup on a computer. On the other hand, there is no limit on the number of downloads of any comic, so you can erase them from your mobile device and redownload them later if you run out of space. You can’t move comics from one app to the other. So if you like the reading interface of one app but found a comic cheaper on another, you're up for a hard choice.

While this affords excellent protection from piracy to the publishers, it is a pretty poor deal for the consumers. As the publishing rights between the publishers and the providers are kept secret, there is definitely some worries as to how long the comics will be available for. What if Comixology, for example, loses the rights to a comic you purchased through their services? Will it still be available for download after that? Will you need to keep a copy on you iPad for ever, hoping you will never have to reinstall the device?

The terms of use of the various providers are clear: you do not own the comic or even a digital copy of it. You only purchase the right to read it, but there is certainly no guarantee this is for ever. This is similar to the agreement you sign when you purchase ebooks on Amazon, but surprisingly, it has generated much less heated discussions for comics.

Pricing and availability

Pricing of the digital version of any media is a thorny subject. I am going to go out on a leg here, and say that consumers want it to be dirt cheap, and publishers want to maximise their revenue. There are no rules, except perhaps that the digital edition should be cheaper than the “solid” one, although some ebook publishers are getting away doing just the opposite.

Most comics are sold 1.99$ for older issues or 2.99$ for the newest ones, when their dead tree counterparts cost 2.99$ or 3.99$. That’s 25% to 50% cheaper, depending on the comic, and that’s not bad at all when compared to any other media. You can also find special offers for 99c, and even some recent series with issues at that price. Finally, there are a lot a free issues available, especially first issues of a series, which is nice way to try before you buy. All in all, there are some great deals to be had digitally.

However, the price should be balanced against the many restrictions induced by the DRM schemes. I, for one, am still unsure wether I really want to pay that much for a potentially very transient product. Or one I cannot simply lend to a friend. And remember, digital comics have no resale value whatsoever.

The second issue, availability, has improved considerably in the past year. Just like the music majors in their time, comics publishers have worried that making issues available digitally too early would hurt their sales in brick and mortar shops. Nowadays, recent issues are available on the various online stores. Not consistently, and some heavy weights are still missing, but you will find the latest issues of Brightest Day (DC currently ongoing big event) or Invincible (one of Image number one titles). Back issues are also being made available on a weekly basis, although a lot of collections are still incomplete.

Alas, still missing are the trade paperbacks, or any special “buy the whole set” discounts, so you will have to purchase all the issue of a series individually. There are a very few exception (for instance, Invincible trade paperbacks are available digitally, and are a great way to complete your collection for a small price), but it would be great if publishers could at the very least propose some discounted bundles, especially for those comics released 10 or more years ago.

No iTunes, no Amazon

For better of for worst, there is no equivalent in digital comics to what Apple is to the music majors or Amazon to the book publishers. As a result, you do not get the highly polished experience these big players can bring, and the currently existing software can really be improved. It is also worrisome to see the current restrictions that exist on digital comics. After all, with so many pirated scans available on the web, is it really necessary to be such a pain for the actual customers?

Comics!

Amplify’d from www.fastcompany.com

Graphic.ly, the Boulder, Colorado-based online comics community, just raised $3 million in Series A funding, in a round led by DFJ Mercury. According to a press release, Graphic.ly intends to use the cash to further develop its online platform, adding features like audio commentary, video, music, and interactive components.

"Our focus is really on expanding the comic book experience," CEO Micah Baldwin tells Fast Company. "Imagine today people go to a comic store and have no idea where to start. Even downloading an iPad app full of comics provides no direction of where to begin. First and foremost, our plan is to bring comics to everyone, and in a way that allows them a starting point."

One of the main things that's neat about Graphic.ly is its social component. Comics, long a bastion of fanboys, have always been social, in a way. "People are really enjoying the social features, and we are looking to expand on them," Baldwin says. "The discussions have been great, and whats even more interesting is that creators are joining in and helping to lead discussion where appropriate. When you log onto Graphic.ly, you're presented with a dashboard where you can see the activity of your friends--who's signed up, who's reading what. Open up the book, and you can comment and share with friends as you read. "We're like the couch in the center of the comic book store," Baldwin says on a video on his site. "People love to sit down on the couch and talk about comics, and that's what they can do."

Baldwin also hopes the digital platform will inspire comic book writers to think of their medium in a new way. "I want creators to stop thinking of the comic book as a book. They don't have to do 13 spreads and panels. Maybe it's a story one day where you click on a door, and it opens, and that's the next part of the story," he says in the video. "Their imagination should drive the technology, and the technology should drive their imagination." (We argued recently that web design could enable a generation of scrollable web comics--something between an animation and a comic strip.)

See more at www.fastcompany.com