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Top 5 apps to read comics and manga

1. Tapas

You can find heart-wrenching romance, and the scariest horror comics imaginable on Tapas. Read and share comics that you love and explore the top charts to see what’s popular. The comics feed is a constant stream of new content that is updated daily. Subscribe to the ones that you like to save to your favorites or you might miss them.

There are in-app purchases in the form of “ink,” which you use to buy more episodes of a comic. If you spend ink on a comic, it turns into money to support comic creators. Ink ranges from $1.99 for 1,600 units to $50 for 60,000. You can also earn ink by watching in-app ads, or downloading other related gaming apps and playing to a certain level.

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2. Webtoon

Webtoon, or Line Webtoon, is a Korean app that uploads daily comics that have millions of subscribers per comic in a ton of different languages. The app calls itself the largest digital comics publisher in the world. By looking at the exhaustive collection of genres and comics per genre, we’re inclined to believe that.

Featured webtoons are updated weekly, and by purchasing coins, you’re able to access the ‘fast pass’ function and read them early. Post comments and get recommendations from other readers, and check out the staff picks of the week for new additions to your subscription list.

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3. WebComics

To stand out from the rest, WebComics offers all of their comics completely free for the first three days. After that, you can purchase coins to keep reading.

There are a lot of ways to earn more coins instead of purchasing them: checking in daily, inviting friends, watching ads, favoriting comics, and just reading on the app gives you 10 coins every four minutes. WebComics is heavy on the manga style, but there’s something on the app for everyone.

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4. comiXology

One thing that’s different about comiXology is that you can read comics on any device or on the web. The service is less manga and more comic books and graphic novels – you’ll find Marvel and DC here.

You can sign up with a comiXology account or through Amazon. If you buy compatible comics on Amazon you can view them on the comiXology app. The app does have a section for free comics, but in order to read others, you’ll have to purchase them on Amazon. You have a free month of unlimited membership which allows you to read all of comiXology’s catalog. After 30 days, the membership is only $5.99 a month.

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5. VIZ Manga

Viz Manga has every single title that has been released under the Viz name. Anything you can think of, you can find. Classic Pokémon volumes have all been uploaded and newer manga, like the insanely popular Food Wars! is up to date. Preview the manga or purchase it at market value, and it’s saved to your library forever. If you’re a fan on Shonen Jump, unlock the digital vault with a membership and read more than 10,000 chapters for only $1.99 a month.

9 websites for free book downloads (Kindle, ePub, PDF …)

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Wrapping up

We’re pretty sure that if you’ve got all of these apps in your arsenal, you’re set on comics, graphic novels, and manga for life. Time to get reading!

Want to get into comics? Here’s where to start

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Marvel’s last chance to save the Fantastic Four

Can Marvel’s original superteam survive a third reboot?

Marvel shared a ton of news with us at Comic-Con last week: A handful of new TV series, some of the upcoming movies in Phase 4, and a bunch more. One promise that raised some eyebrows was the announcement of another Fantastic Four reboot.

Yes, another one.

We’ve had three movies with these guys in the past 15 years, and they were all pretty … well, they weren’t fantastic.

Guide to Marvel Phase 4: Everything you need to know

Get caught up!

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been ridiculously successful of late, even toppling long-standing box office giant “Avatar“.

One of their more remarkable feats is time and again bringing long-forgotten characters into the glorious spotlight. Who could have foreseen the popularity of Iron Man over a decade ago? The same can even be said of the Avengers. How many people had even heard of the Guardians of the Galaxy before 2014 (seriously, comment below if you had; kudos to you)?

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If you told a Marvel fan back in 2005 that the Guardians of the Galaxy would rake in more cash than the Fantastic Four, he’d laugh in your face through his vintage issue of Alpha Flight. That’s because the Fantastic Four weren’t a long-lost offshoot in the overlooked annals of comic book history – they were at the epicenter of the Marvel universe, and had tie-ins to virtually everything involved inside it.

Why the Fantastic Four are so important

Fantastic Four Jack Kirby — These guys have been on more adventures than anyone else in the Marvel Universe!

Historically the Fantastic Four were the group that propelled the Superhero genre into the modern era. It did so by capitalizing on what were, at the time, very atypical angles of narrative: Though they got their start in space, the problems they shared were very down-to-earth.

The four teammates did not get along like the members of the original Justice League; The Thing despised his monstrous appearance and wished he’d never gotten his super powers; and Reed Richards struggled with decidedly non-super problems – overspent budgets, stock market crashes, failures in his personal projects, and struggles to lead his team. Instead of an unapproachable hero figure, Lee and Kirby created a relatable family of misfits:

It was at this point (in 1961) that Stan Lee convinced Martin Goodman to rename the company Marvel, and the team really started finding their own voice. It’s sad to see such a flagship of comic book history fail to meet the mark again and again with a modern audience, and it would be a welcome change if Marvel were to redeem their golden four.

The Fantastic Four might be the most important team in the original Marvel comics

The Fantasic Four are also hugely important to several story arcs and characters that the MCU could tackle soon, most notably Galactus, Silver Surfer, Kang the Conqueror, the Negative Zone, Annihilus, and of course the infamous Doctor Doom. So it’s not just about Marvel’s fab four looking shiny on-screen, it’s about what it could mean for the direction of the cinematic universe on a macro level.

Marvel Galactus — Question: How do you go bigger than Thanos? Answer: Galactus.

Where does the MCU go after Endgame?

What might we get in Phase 4?

Can Feige can finally fix the Fantastic Four?

That brings us to the big question: The Fantastic Four have been done before and it’s bombed every time. How can they be done better? When asked why the latest Fantastic Four did poorly at the box office, Stan Lee’s response was pretty legendary: “It was probably because I didn’t have a cameo in it,” he joked.

Unfortunately the MCU can’t rely on the same selling point that pushed the Fantastic Four comics to stardom, this notion that superheroes weren’t too dissimilar from us, or that they dealt with everyday problems; the MCU has already covered that in spades, and it wouldn’t make them stand out from characters like Hawkeye, Spider-Man, or Hulk.

How Stan Lee created Marvel’s complex characters

Tips from the man himself

So what can make this story work? First off, we’re all dying to see Doctor Doom, but maybe it’s best that we don’t – at least not right away. Spider-Man’s biggest villains are the Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus, and the MCU wisely chose to veer away from them in favor of the less famous, less scary Vulture and Mysterio (both of whom they did really well). Instead they might be better off focusing on the Skrull, Terrax, or Annihilus, the latter two being characters we’ve never seen on film before.

Fantastic Four Marvel Annihilus — Introduce the Negative Zone early, and bring in Annihilus as their first big villain!

Besides picking the right villain, it’s also important that the film tell the right story. We don’t need another origin story. Please. We didn’t need one for Spider-Man, we didn’t need one for Black Panther, and we don’t need one here.

Instead, focus on the family dynamic that made the team likable to begin with, and then pick a conflict for them to face together. The Negative Zone is an especially powerful plot thread that could have a huge impact on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and a Fantastic Four reboot is the best chance to introduce it in a big way.

We’re anxious to see how Marvel and Feige plan to handle the Fantastic Four, but tbh we’re still biting our nails; we’ve been burned three times. Let us know in the comments below if you agree with our points, and what you’d like to see the company do with the Fantastic Four!

Want to get into comics? Here’s where to start

It should come as no surprise to anyone that superhero movies are the hottest thing in pop culture today. They routinely crush the box office and characters like Iron Man and Thanos have become modern icons. Many fans understandably have wanted to get into the comics that spawned these characters, but don’t exactly know where to start. This guide will show you what to do based on which comics you want to read and how you want to read them.

First, we’ll start with how you want to read them.

Where to start with print comics

If you prefer flipping through the pages of a comic to swiping on a screen, you have a few options. Your first option is to read trade paperbacks.

A trade paperback is a collection of comics that usually make up a single story arc. If you’re looking to read a specific story (e.g. “The Infinity Gauntlet” or “The Dark Knight Returns”), buying these trade paperbacks is often significantly easier and cheaper than hunting down individual issues of the story.

Trade paperbacks also often include issues of multiple series to fill out a story (for example, the “Civil War” trade includes issues of Avengers and Amazing Spider-Man, among others). For newer comic fans, buying trades is the easiest way to read famous stories without worrying about buying individual issues or reading them in a specific order. You can buy these either at book/comic stores or online, but in our experience, it’s usually cheaper to buy these at comic stores.

The other most common option is to subscribe to your favorite series at your local comic book store. Most stores offer some sort of discount if you subscribe to a monthly/weekly comic, and you can generally pick up new issues on Wednesdays. This is the best way to continuously keep up on a specific series, as you’ll get new issues right when they come out. Plus, it’s always important to support your local comic book store!

How Stan Lee created Marvel’s complex characters

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Where and how to read digital comics

The upside to reading comics digitally is convenience. You can read them on your phone, tablet, or computer, making it easy to bring them on the go without hauling a stack of books.

If you’re looking to read mainstream superhero comics, both DC and Marvel have digital comics subscriptions that are well worth the money. For $10 a month, Marvel Unlimited gives you access to nearly every Marvel comic released since the 1960s.

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The app is very well organized by different stories, writers, and characters, allowing you to browse the massive catalog with ease. Unfortunately, you can’t read newer issues of current series when they come out (though you can buy the issue separately), but all comics are uploaded to the service a few months after they release. The service is basically everything you could want as a Marvel comic fan.

If you’re looking more broadly, the ComiXology app offers basically any modern comic you could possibly want. The service has both Marvel and DC comics, in addition to thousands of non-superhero comics from other publishers, and you can buy new issues as soon as they come out. They also have a paid subscription service called ComiXology Unlimited that gives you access to thousands of comics from a wide variety of publishers. If you’re more focused on keeping up with current series as opposed to diving into the backlog, you should use ComiXology over Marvel Unlimited.

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Which comics are easy to get into?

Decades of continuity can make diving into comic books a confusing and daunting task. Fortunately, with the popularity of their movies Marvel and DC have made efforts to streamline their titles and give new readers a clean starting point. Here are some titles to check out from each publisher.

Marvel

Last year, Marvel launched its Fresh Start line. Fresh Start renumbered a bunch of Marvel’s most popular comics at #1, giving new readers a clear jumping on point. If you’re a movie fan looking to start reading, WE recommend choosing from these comic lines. Some of the comics that were renumbered include:

Avengers
Black Panther
Captain America
Captain Marvel
Deadpool
Guardians of the Galaxy
Immortal Hulk
Miles Morales: Spider-Man
Thor
Tony Stark: Iron Man
Uncanny X-Men
Venom

Most of the confusing or convoluted storylines that were present in these comics have been reworked to bring in the casual crowd, so don’t worry about jumping into some massive story that’s partway through. With Marvel Unlimited, you should be able to read most of these comics up until their current issues.

DC

DC is known for its massive universal reboots every so often, and they had arguably their most successful one in 2016’s DC Rebirth. The relaunch combined the modern sensibilities of the controversial New 52 relaunch with DC’s storied legacy to get the best of both worlds. For new readers, we recommend choosing from your favorite character’s Rebirth comic. Popular characters that got a new series in Rebirth include:

Aquaman
Batman
Cyborg
Doom Patrol
Flash
Green Arrow
Green Lantern
Harley Quinn
Justice League
Shazam
Suicide Squad
Superman
Wonder Woman

DC has done a nice job of balancing keeping their heroes familiar and introducing fresh elements to their stories. Rebirth is a great place to start for both new and returning readers.

Did this guide answer your questions? What comics are you most interested in? Let us know!