I may have said this before, but I am something of a comic book junkie.  Oh heck, I am like the comic book version of an alcoholic.  I walk past the comic book store, and the smell of the slightly oxidized paper and cheap ink just drags me off to a different place.  Before I know it, I have slipped into old habits and my wallet is $200 lighter.  So, in order to avoid any slips, I make sure to cross the street before I go anywhere near a comic book shop.

Despite this weakness, I have managed to remain current with some of my favorite comic book characters via the Internet, which is nice, but a bit less than mobile.  Heck, even paper and ink comics are easy to read on the train.  Computers on the other hand…so, wouldn’t it be nice if you could make comics more mobile. 

I mean, sure, some other folks have tried, but it never seemed to work out well on Windows Mobile and other platforms.  The strip always just faded into nothing in order to be viewable on the screen, or just required so much scrolling that it was impossible to read.  No one figured out a reasonable solution until now, so let’s go ahead and see if Comixology has found the better way.

In Comics, Comixology presents their comic books one panel at a time, using the entire screen to present all of the art work. 

What I really liked here was the ease with which you could switch between vertical and horizontal panels, simply by rotating the screen. 

The rest of the navigation is based on dividing the screen into thirds.  Tap the right portion to move ahead to the next panel, tap the left to go back, and tap the center for the settings and other options.  You can even use the iPhone pinch and grab gesture to zoom in or out on a panel.  Don’t worry if you cannot remember all of that, there is a great tutorial to help you out if you need a reminder.

Once I got the hang of the motions (which were really not all that complicated), I found this was a pretty good system.  It still did not come close to the experience of reading real paper and ink comics, but it was a close enough approximation that you can enjoy the storyline without sacrificing too much of the experience. 

Of course, nothing in this program is going to amount to a hill of beans without a good collection of titles to read.  I was disappointed not to find any of the mainstream titles or comic book publishers in the library of offerings.  Still, I was impressed by the growing list of titles available through this app.  Sure, some of them were duds, but there were also quite a few hidden gems in there, just waiting to be explored.

Comixology’s other claim to fame with this one, was offering one of the first apps to test the waters of apple’s new in-app purchasing model.  From within the Comics app, you can purchase and download individual comic titles.  Don’t worry, though, many titles offer at least one comic for free, so you can test them out.  And you will want to take advantage of this.  Like I said, there are some great comics in here, but there are also plenty of duds, and you will want to be able to tell the two apart before you start spending any money on things.

I found the purchasing experience to be pretty good.  It worked about as well as any purchase from the iTunes app store.  Just tap purchase, and away you go.  I did find, however, that downloads were a bit slow, often taking multiple attempts to get an entire file from the Internet.

Once you have downloaded comics, you can find them in the My Comics screen, ready to read.  You can organize them by:

• Just Downloaded
• Previously Views
• Downloading
• Title
• Creator
• Publisher
• Genre

This makes it extremely easy to draw connections between books.  If you find one you like, it is easy to find another in your library by the same creator or series.  And if you are like me and still crave that paper and ink copy, well, your iPhone can even point you in the direction of your nearest comic book shop.

I may never find anything which will compare to the experience of reading real paper and ink comics.  But the truth is that this is about as close as any program has come to approximating that experience.  I thought the controls were fantastic, and the app did a great job of making the comics accessible and readable.  I also liked the fact that it was easy to purchase comics (especially the myriad of free titles) although downloading was a bit of a chore.  Still, I think this app could be wildly successful with that cross genre uber-geek: the iPhone-using comic book fan, if only they could line up some of the mainstream titles or comic book publishers.  Give me a good superhero title, like Superman or X-Men.  Even better, use this as a platform to bring back some of the long dead titles of the 40’s and 50’s, before the book Seduction of the Innocent  changes things forever.  Now, that would be a real trick.