Digital comics have become more popular than comic books because of a few reasons. The reason number 1 is the size. Digital Comics can be of a few megabytes size. Once you save it on your phone, everyone in your house who is a fan of fictional superheroes, visual novels, mangas, etc can go through the title without redownloading it again. As smartphones launched these days have 20 to 256GB of storage memory, you can save 100s of comics on your smartphone. If you purchase the hard copies of comics, you’ll have to dedicate a large area of the furniture for storing the comics. As digital comics consume lower mobile or WiFi data than videos, they are good alternatives to anime streaming apps.
You’ll find several comics applications on iTunes and Play Store. The 6 applications I’ve shared below are the best apps to read comics for free online on Android or iOS devices. The applications also allow users to buy comics.
Best comic and comic reader apps for Android and iPhone, iPad
Marvel Comics
Marvel has created many fictional superheroes such as Spider-Man, Hulk, Black Panther, etc. These superheroes are popular among kids as well as adults. The Marvel Comics application lets you read comics featuring your favorite superheroes such as Spider-Man, Black Panther, Hulk, Thor, etc. The artwork that you’ll find in the comics is of superb quality, and the stories are fascinating. Marvel Comics app has a free section where you’ll find previews of upcoming projects of Marvel and short comics. You can download & read the comics only after logging in to the application. Before downloading, you can read the comic’s short summary, see its ratings, etc.
Marvel Comics app for Android and iOS lets users choose the location on the phone where it should save the downloaded title. In addition to free comics, you can explore premium titles, see the list of top-rated, most popular, newest titles, etc. You can also search for titles by name. Most of the premium titles are priced between $2 to $4. You can add the titles to your wishlist. The comic reader tool of MC has its own settings interface where you’ll find an option to specify the transition animations, configure the application to show the page number, keep the screen awake when you’re reading a title, etc.
DC Comics
Like Marvel, DC has introduced several superheroes. For example, the DC Universe heroes list includes Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, Aquaman, etc. DC Comics is a great application to read comics featuring your favorite DC heroes. As in Marvel Comics, you can explore comics for free, but you must log in to the DC Comics application with either your Amazon or ComiXology account to read or download the free ones. The interface of the DC Comics application is similar to that of Marvel Comics. You’ll find the following tabs on the main interface- Featured, New, Popular, Top Rated, and Free.
The free section features free comics. A rating accompanies each comic. If you tap on the comic picture, DC Comics will show the number of pages the comic has, author name, a summary of the title, and an option to download, rate, or add a title to the wishlist. Each title features high-quality artwork. The DC Comics app for iOS and Android lets users share the titles with friends on social media sites. It also enables you to purchase digital comics. The price of the same starts at $1. The application allows you to find titles by name, genre, creator, etc.
Dark Horse Comics
DHC is the dark horse of comic reader apps. It has a good collection of various genres of free and paid digital comics. DHC enables you to download the sample version of the premium comics. The premium titles cost $1 to $20 on the DHC application. DHC has a bookshelf section where you’ll find all the titles that you have downloaded.
The application shows the storage memory used by the digital comics you’ve saved. It can sync titles automatically. The quality of the artwork is of FHD/HD type. DHC lets users choose the location where it should keep the user downloaded files. It enables users to navigate across the pages of the comics with the help of a slider.
WebComics – Daily Webtoon
WebComics asks users to choose their gender and their favorite genres. Some genres are – horror, action, romance, comedy, fantasy, comedy, novel, etc. Once you choose your favorite genres and gender, the application will show titles on its main interface. WebComics has freemium comics. Half of the chapters of the title will be unlocked. To unlock the remaining chapters/pages, you’ll have to spend gems. The application’s comic reader interface lets users comment on the comic. It also allows users to bookmark, like, or dislike the title.
Comixology
Comixology gives its users access to over 100k comics, mangas, novels, etc. It features comics launched by Marvel, DC, etc. Amazon owns Comixology. Most of the digital comics you’ll find in Comixology are paid. Around 700 are free. The comic reader is powered by the Guided View reader, which makes reading graphic novels, comics, etc a great experience.
Comixology enables you to discover titles by publishers and genres. It also allows you to explore series – comics that are linked to each other. Comixology enables you to save the titles to the phone’s storage memory or the SD card. To use Comixology, you should log in to the application with either your Amazon or Comixology account.
Use the above applications to read comics online on your Android or iOS device. If you’ve downloaded/saved comics on your mobile device, use one of the following applications to open/read them:
Astonishing Comic Reader
If you’ve saved CBR, CBZ, etc format comics on your phone and you’re looking for an app to read them, install Astonishing Comic Reader. This 26 MB application lets users create a collection. While creating a collection, you’ll be prompted to enter some tags. The application finds all comics you’ve saved on the phone and displays them in its Library interface. If you’ve saved 100s of digital comics on your phone, you should use the tags feature.
Another interesting feature of Astonishing Comic Reader is the Snapshot feature that allows you to save your favorite part of a comic as an image. The application also has an option to import/export the collections. It can sync your comics to these cloud storage service providers – Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, OneDrive, etc. Astonishing Comic Reader has a settings interface through which you can activate the Manga Mode, keep screen awake feature, turn on night mode, etc.
Other popular comic reader apps:
| Perfect Viewer | Android | iOS [Alternative] |
| ComiCat | Android | iOS [Similar] |
| CDisplayEx | Android | iOS [Alternative] |
