The digital comic book reading landscape is beginning to make nerdy pants very tight. Longbox, which has long been billed as the iTunes of Comic Books, released their public beta recently. Unfortunately, the overall interface of their Mac beta has a very Windows 95ish feel to it. When compared to the Graphic.ly beta I was able to install last week, Longbox would need to go back into the oven for a few more hours. This is, however, a public beta.
Conversely, Graphic.ly, which runs on Adobe Air, is a beautifully designed digital reader that runs seamlessly inside of OS X. The design of their app is very reminiscent of the popular Twitter app, Tweetie for Mac. Simply put, it’s gorgeous.
The reading experience takes many cues from ComiXology’s ‘guided view’ process. They also seem to want to incorporate a social experience while reading your books inside of their app. You can update your status, rate books, and unlock achievements while you peruse your library/collection.
With that said, it’s questionable how often I’d want to read comic books on my desktop/laptop. I’d much rather read them on my iPhone and in the near future, my iPad. The mobile platform of the aforementioned apps is a bit murky. Longbox has been coy about their future in mobile reading, while Graphic.ly not only has an iPhone and Android app in the words, but also a Windows Phone 7 Series app.
ComiXology is running away with that market, and PanelFly and iVerse are right behind them. It may not be a bad idea to shore up the desktopOS market of digital reading while they can.
