Okay Geek Farm
Graphic.ly Comic Book Reader - Chrome Web App Review
Tyler Maroudas
If you’re a fan of comic books then you might be interested in digital comics. What’s that? Well, they’re a digital format of those physical paper comics you like reading so much, only they can’t get damaged since they’re stored nice and safe as data. Graphic.ly is an online web app that allows you to read those comics anywhere you have acces to the internet.
Comic reading and selection
Graphic.ly has a three main modes of viewing; the first of which is inside the app which allows you to drag the comic around from panel to panel — which I find a bit cumbersome and time wasting due to the fact that sometimes when you drag the comic around there is very noticeable lag. The second option is to view it in fullscreen mode with a zoom option, which a great way to view the comic if your screen is large enough, and it also suitable for those who are using netbooks with their itsy-bitsy little screens. The final viewing mode called “Flow mode” is my personal favorite, since it zooms into each panel set at a range that doesn’t cut off text, but still allows easy reading. Each time you click to go to the next panel it literally “flows” into place with a nice visual effect that is easy on the eyes.
This app was tested on everything from gaming rigs with broadband to laptops with dial-up, and the qauilty of the images never went down. Even when the internet speed was severely slow the comics were still able to load at a blinding speed, never making me wait for more than a few more seconds for an entire comic book to load. The app also includes a handy feature that allows the comic to be downloaded for offline viewing, which doesn’t start until your comic is finished loading, and has no effect on speed.
Graphic.ly has over one thousand different comics to offer, including big names like the entire Archie collection. And while most of the comics you have to pay for, there are still quite a number of free ones that are highly enjoyable; such has Harbor Moon, and the Google Chrome comic. Graphic.ly also has comics from quite a few different indie publishers, the likes of which include Paper Street Comics, Goodbum Studios, and Jackalope Pictures to name a few. The inclusion of these small time indie publishers is something is a nice addition. Doing something like this allows them to have some of the best comics out there, since indie publishers are known to put everything they have into what they do, which is a must in the comic world where rivalry is so fierce.
Payment and bugs
The app itself is free for download, and inside of which are loads of free comics. The timeless old saying “nothing is ever free” does however apply very strongly here. Most of the freebies you can read are the first 1-3 issues of comics, but then you have to pay for the rest afterwards. The payment options are the standard major credit cards, but for whatever reason, PayPal — the norm for buying things online — is nowhere to be found! In this day and age, not being bale to pay for something via Paypal can really affect people who only have a credit card for emergencies, which until a few months ago, was a group I was apart of.
I do realize that the app is only at version 0.0.0.3, so it has some major issues. The two that plagued me in my otherwise blissful experience was timeouts and the red zone. Time outs are exactly that; the app takes too long to fetch information from the internet while you are browsing the store and crashes, then you have to back out to the previous page and reclick the link. This would only be a mere annoyance if it didn’t happen every 5 pages or so. The other major problem is, for one reason or another, a huge red bar appears onscreen if you try to drag to comic around from the middle or lower.
Overall
Grapich.ly is wonder in a can if the can were made out of the internet. For an app that is still technically in the pre-alpha stages of its development, for it to be workings has well as it does is nothing short of crazy. If you’re a fan of digital comics this is a must have; it allows for you to keep all of your comics from physical damange and they’re accessible from anywhere you go.
Graphic.ly is a Google chrome app, but can still operate in other browsers and is also available in a Desktop application as well as an iOS app.
Click here to download Graphic.ly
w/ options for the iOS app, desktop client, and Chrome app
