Nerd Up!

Comics on my iPhone, Excelsior!

ComicZeal is a great little app for comic fans. Developed by Bitolithic, ComicZeal is a digital Comic Book reader for your iPhone or iPod Touch. While other applications offer the ability to purchase and view comics on your iPhone, ComicZeal provides something rather different: the ability to turn your iPhone or iPod touch into a storage device allowing you to enjoy your existing collection (i.e. Scanned Comics).

Features
The application benefits from apple’s native “Pinch/Swipe” interface. Pages can be pinched, expanded and advanced with the user’s fingers. Just like Safari, double tapping on a certain panel zooms you into a panel; another double tap takes you back to full page. Another great feature, you can view comics in either portrait or landscape, whatever suits page or panel you’re reading.

In addition to its function as a reader for users’ existing collections, ComicZeal also offers a huge number of public domain Golden Age comics for free. Titles include “Forbidden Worlds”, “Police Comics” and my personal favourite, “Romantic Adventures”. Unfortunately, public domain means you won’t find the latest issue of “Old Man Logan”, but it does offer you a great way to show off the application.

F#ck Ups
Syncing the device is a bit of a lengthy process. First the application uses its own proprietary format (CBI), so any documents need to be converted. Thankfully, the developers have provided an desktop application that will do most of the heavy lifting. Then, you need to sync those new files with your device, this is where things can get tricky, you have a variety of options, most of which require a comp-sci degree. The one positive is, this application is constantly being updated, I’m sure the syncing issues will be worked out over time.

Conclusion
Available on iTunes for $1.99, this application does offer a lot of great features for a great price. While it will never replace the feel of holding a real comic or the excitement of visiting your favourite comic store, its worth checking out. I’ll see you in the aisles next Wednesday.