And for proof, a comic that symbolizes very well the public sentiment towards the character in June 2004.
When ‘The Phantom Menace’ was released, all was jubilation among the fandom – ‘Star Wars’ was back, if it ever left! Soon after, and as much as some want to rewrite history, people were throwing pests about this prequel to the point that its actor, Jake Lloyd, had to quit acting and entered psychiatric treatment. However, it wasn’t Lloyd who received the biggest flak for the film, but a new, all-digital character created to appeal to kids and who brought despair to everyone: Jar Jar Binks.
It took Ahmed Best years to recover from the insults received by a character that the saga later treated more or less well, but that he also had no problem to throw over the cliff when he saw the general feeling. And for proof, a comic that symbolizes very well the public sentiment towards the character in June 2004. It was that month when issue 20 of ‘Star Wars Tales’ was published, a comic book that featured different stories by various authors who navigated the impassable line between canon and joke.
Legends such as Peter Bagge or James Kolchalka participated in this issue, and almost all of them focused on Jar Jar’s clumsy goody-goody. The author of ‘Hatred’, for example, created 7 pages in which he showed his power of leadership before Darth Sidious himself, and that of ‘American Elf’ another 4 about Boba Fett’s son, Melvin, trying to hunt him down (and catching a commemorative glass instead). But, undoubtedly, the one that went down in history was the one created by Tony Millionaire and that opened the magazine: ‘George R. Binks’.
In this small ten-page comic we met the story of Jar Jar’s father, a gungan named George as he tries to catch a whale, in the best ‘Moby Dick’ style. However, because of his useless son they end up stranded on a desert island. After a month of putting up with his son, he decides there is only one solution: he takes out a gun, aims it at his head and his wife’s reminder (“Think of your son!”) makes him shoot himself for good.
That’s right: he still lives long enough to remember his true love, whom he left because she was infertile. Just before he dies, he discovers that his memory was actually Jar Jar with an octopus on his face. The famous gungan’s life didn’t end much better: in the novel ‘Star Wars: Aftermath: Empire’s End’ he is seen working as a clown in the streets of Theed, being popular with the children but not with the parents (take meta-reference).
And no matter how much heroic work he did in the Clone Wars, in the end it will always be remembered more for the bad: his vital role in the growth of the Empire, which only increased the hatred of the fans towards him. How long do you think it will be before they give him a series on Disney+ doing him some justice? Misa thinks it’s about time.
We have decided to tell you what has happened at Marvel in recent months, to make it much easier to catch up. Be careful, because curves are coming (and spoilers)
Reading comics is a hobby as beautiful as it is complicated (and expensive). Hundreds of issues come out every month. If you read superheroes, manga, indie comics, some French BD and Spanish comics you could spend the whole month between issues without having time to do anything else, but, for whatever reason, you also need to eat, hydrate, work and go outside to step on the grass. That’s why we’ve decided to tell you what’s been going on at Marvel in the last few months, to make catching up a lot easier. Watch out, because curves are coming (and spoilers if you’re a little behind on the American editions, you’ve been warned).
After Ben Reilly, Peter Parker’s clone, became Spider-Man for a while while the original was in the hospital (Peter ended up dying in his battle against the Sin Eater, but he’s better now), he ended up losing his memory and becoming Abyss, a supervillain who swears revenge against Peter. Typical Parker luck. Taking advantage of the juncture and clone friendship, the new villain allied with Madelyne Pryor, Jean Grey’s clone and current Goblin Queen.
During the battle, Abyss locked Peter and his allies in a replica of New York in Limbo until our hero surrendered and decided to return his memories in exchange for losing them himself. It didn’t happen, of course: with the help of the X-men, a demon-turned-version of Spider-Man named Rek-rap and Pryor herself after losing control of Limbo, Ben Reilly was locked up in the prisons of his dimension.
On the other hand, Mary Jane is married to a certain Paul and has a son, she gets along regularly with Peter and still nobody knows what exactly could have happened, what did Spiderman do to turn everyone against him. Right now we only know that Mary Jane and Peter were trapped in an alternate dimension: she sacrificed herself so he could get out: the return trip caused a near-nuclear explosion. Upon returning to the dimension where he left MJ stranded, where time passes faster and the days are weeks, he found that she had taken a new boyfriend and had two children. Still no more is known about this temporal gibberish, which is written, all things considered, regulinchi.
Oh, yeah: and Peter Parker now works for Norman Osborn, who no longer has Green Goblin powers (apparently). Just another day at Marvel.
The Fantastic Four
The 4F, Marvel‘s oldest group, has split up. No one quite knows why, but they’ve all decided to go their separate ways – even the Human Torch has been posing as a salesman named Jonathan Fairweather! However, when the time comes to reunite they discover that the Thing and Alice have turned into a giant stone dome.
Finally, it is discovered what happened to make them separate and before the stone dome: the whole block next to the Baxter Building disappeared by Reed Richards to appear a year later without them noticing anything. Among those who disappeared were the children of Ben and Alice who, for whatever reason, did not like the invention. After Sue, Ben, Reed and Johnny settled their differences and freed themselves from the dome, they went on a journey between dimensions with which they brought a bacterium that could cause global extinction by turning the water poisonous. They could have stayed put.
Iron Man
After an explosion ripped through his house and killed his neighbors, Tony Stark went back to drinking (and how). But he couldn’t relax too much: Feilong, one of his greatest enemies, wants him dead at any cost, not only literally… but also figuratively. Maybe that’s why he’s bought Stark Unlimited, discovered its secrets and set about creating Sentinels to wipe out mutants. Put down that scotch, Tony, it’s been sitting on you pretty good. Or at least take refuge in your new love… Emma Frost!
X-Men
Just to read the adventures of the X-Patrol in Krakoa you need a master’s degree. Over the last few years they have founded their own country, they have taken over Mars, they have discovered the secret of infinite resurrection. For once since their birth in the 60s, mutants are happy. Of course it’s all going to go down the drain at the next Hellfire Gala, because apparently we can’t allow these people to live peacefully.
Hulk
Okay. Believe it or not, after a fatal accident in El Paso, Bruce Banner has turned the Hulk into a galactic ship using his body as a form, Bruce Banner piloting and the Hulk’s rage as an engine. He finally arrived on a planet crawling with Hulks who promised him a home, but instead of staying, he let out a devil that lived inside him and had to be placated by Doctor Strange. Don’t worry: Bruce Banner is still alive and under control. Sort of. Personally, I’d rather read ‘The Immortal Hulk’ again.
Daredevil
The President of the United States is dead. Well, rather, he has been assassinated. By Daredevil. Reread those last three sentences before continuing and digest them: Daredevil, now married to Elektra, has taken over the power of The Fist, the organization that fights the ninjas of The Hand (the real architects of the assassination in question). To do so, he has freed a bunch of criminals with the intention of saving them from themselves, convinced of the futility of prison. With Elektra trapped by The Avengers and Matt Murdock being enemy number one, it doesn’t look like the best future for the Little Horned One. He’s come out of worse.
Doctor Strange
Stephen Strange died. But he’s better now. He lost his love, Clea. But she found him again, transformed into the new Sorceress Supreme. And now, after her hardest moment, she is back to her sanctum sanctorum as never before. Wong, meanwhile, has founded a new group of superheroes searching for the paranormal called WAND. Of course, happiness will be short-lived for Stranger. That’s all it takes.
Captain America
Right now there are two Captain Americas: Sam Wilson and Steve Rogers, with interconnected stories. To put it simply (as simple as it can be): Ian, Steve’s son from Dimension Z, has arrived on earth 616, becoming Sam’s partner. Meanwhile, Bucky the Winter Soldier, who intends to create a revolution with the help of an organization created by Arnim Zola, has betrayed Steve and is going to take Ian back to his original dimension using the White Wolf’s portal technology. Not even the AI would make it so complicated.
So, to avoid being caught, he’s unleashed a whole bunch of monsters from Dimension Z into ours… And, in the meantime, he’s started to psychologically torture Cap’s son. Oh, yes: the Black Widow has shown up to get everything she knows out of Bucky. Well, here we all are.
If you got stuck in the Mefistazo or in one of the many crossovers with the symbiotes, as you can see, there is still a lot to scratch: following the Marvel news is not just about watching the movies… Take note before everything changes again (this time, for real) forever!
As you read it: the 42-year-old billionaire could, technically, walk through the pages of Batman at any time because it is more than stipulated that both live in the same universe.
Batman. Lord of the Night. Guardian of Gotham. Friend of Paris Hilton’s great-grandfather. Okay, no, wait a minute, what?! Just as you read it: the 42-year-old billionaire could, technically, stroll through the pages of the Batman at any time because it is more than stipulated that the two live together in the same universe. Don’t believe it? Fasten your bat-belt because this story is not to be believed.
Surely you remember some of the ridiculous ‘Batman’ covers from the 50s: Batman and Robin meet the three musketeers, fight against El Papagayo in South America, adopt the Bat-dog, become a mermaid… Every month, three absolutely bizarre adventures awaited children at a time when superhero comics were nothing more than a diversion for kids. The good thing is that the hero was not a universal icon, and these absurdities remained only in children’s playgrounds… Until 1966 came along.
A few years earlier, the arrival of ‘The Fantastic Four’ broke superhero comics in two: for the first time, Marvel showed that more or less mature stories could be made, even if they were aimed at children. Comic books crossed the borders of schools and reached universities: DC could not be left behind, and in 1964 Carmine Infantino reimagined Batman with a darker, more realistic tone and a new costume that could not show off enough. The culprit, William Dozier, an ABC producer tasked with making a series about a certain masked superhero I had never heard of.
It mattered little that Infantino and John Broome were changing the history of comics at the time: Dozier bought a dozen Batman comics, including a compilation of stories from the 1950s (the 1965 ‘Giant Batman Annual’), and assumed that the character had not evolved at all. Said and done: the 1966 series starring Adam West would be exactly that campy, absurd and unabashed. But that’s another story. For the moment let’s use it to understand the context.
Press that presses you
The TV series changed everything. Suddenly, Batman was born for many people who began to wear his logo on T-shirts, hats, cards, toys and every kind of merchandising imaginable. It was such a success that, as if it were ‘The Simpsons’ now, celebrities began to line up to have a part in the series. Bruce Lee, Otto Preminger, Jerry Lewis, Joan Collins, Zsa Zsa Gabor… Everyone who was anyone in the 60’s consciously made a fool of themselves in ‘Batman’.
The series was such a success that it managed to revive newspaper strips that had not appeared in American newspapers for a couple of decades. Only that, this time, they would be based on television episodes. Whitney Ellsworth and Joe Giella were in charge of it and, above all, of drawing the guest stars. If they were on TV, they had to be in the comics too, right?
January 1967. Batman and Robin encounter a man sitting in the Batmobile (“Strange! Who would do such a thing in Gotham City?” says our hero). His name would remain a mystery until the next day, but the more seasoned reader would get to see the realistic caricature of Conrad Hilton. Hilton was born in 1887 and at the age of twenty was already in the hotel business. In fact, the world’s first hotel chain was (and is) named after him: he was famous to everyone… even Batman!
Bat-hotel, sweet Bat-hotel
Hilton appeared in the strip to ask for help with the Batman Hotel he had designed (“Holy Taj Mahal!” says Robin) in which the waitresses wore Robin-inspired uniforms and the five-square-mile lake was designed with the Masked Crusader’s logo. It even had a golf bat-car that, as Batman notes, “It runs on BATs, surely.” This Batman, the things he has.
In reality, as you can see, it’s all a plan by Poison Ivy to rob the hotel guests, but that’s not what matters to us. What is certain is that Conrad Hilton’s appearance in the comic book caused an uproar in the hotel industry. After all, this was free publicity for his chain… And, apparently, advertising was denied in the press that brought out the daily strip. Don’t think that, after the controversy, he would say little: from January to March, Paris Hilton’s great-great-grandfather became a regular in the adventures of the Dynamic Duo.
Specifically, March 17 was the end of Conrad Hilton in the Batman strips, once Poison Ivy was caught. He never came out again and the role of guest star was taken by the comic Jack Benny. It’s clear, then: Paris Hilton and Batman could still team up in a crazy crossover – who knows? Stranger things have happened.
The merry life of sad dog Cornelius is, without a doubt, the best comic of the year
Cornelius is a country dog who works cleaning at a gym. He has a couple of friends, a couple of enemies and a crush on a girl, a normal life that keeps feeling like an absolute loser. Done in as many visual styles as possible, with a gripping river story, hilarious gags and depressing reflections, ‘La alegre vida del triste perro Cornelius’ is, without a doubt, the best comic of the year. And the best part? Its author, Marc Torices, is surprisingly young… And from our country.
‘Cornelius’ is at once absurd, precious, unsettling, thoughtful, hilarious and very, very sad. “Writer? Bah! That’s the stuff of pretending, you know? Pretending to do great thinking, faking a good story, faking depth… Copying… I’m sure you have a great future ahead of you in that, Cornelius!”, says one of the characters shortly after the beginning slapping the author himself. And this is the roller coaster moment of ascent.
Every few pages a laugh, a moment of feeling bad about yourself, the doubt about whether to feel pity or disgust for the protagonist. The best thing about a good complex story is that there are no good guys or bad guys: just gray people. And Cornelius never knows whether he acts the way he does out of foolishness, out of doubtfulness, out of a bad person, or out of that humanity one can only find in a comic book dog.
Do not believe, because of the fabulous cover that Apa-Apa has dedicated to it (where you can find it for 33 euros that, frankly, you will more than pay for it) that ‘Cornelius’ is a children’s work or, even more rancid, that because it is a comic book it is for all audiences. Without the need for shady scenes or explicit sex, this comic book is profoundly adult, a story that could only be told in cartoons. At a time when surprises are measured almost algorithmically, there is something in Marc Torices’ work that you won’t find in any other: overflowing originality and creativity.
A titanic, handcrafted work of eight years, aware that the Spanish cultural world is not capable of appreciating comics as an art on a par with cinema or painting. But it should: ‘La alegre vida del triste perro Cornelius’ is a masterpiece and a turning point in the history of modern Spanish literature, a comic to revisit again and again, to admire its stylistic exercise, its narrative capacity and its absolute freedom, as refreshing as it is emotional. In 2035 we will still be talking about ‘Cornelius’. And it will have more than deserved it.
There is a screenwriter who decided to go one step further… And he committed, based on his own comic, one of the worst crimes in Hollywood history.
In 1994, issue 54 of DC‘s Green Lantern featured an image that eventually became unfortunately iconic: Kyle Rayner’s girlfriend, who had been killed by Force Majeure, had her body stuffed in the fridge. This moment gave name to a comic book cliché coined by Gail Simone: women in refrigerators. The list of names of female characters killed, tortured or mutilated in comics is endless, ranging from Elektra herself to Gwen Stacy. However, as terrible as this topic is, there is a scriptwriter who decided to go one step further… And he committed, based on his own comic book, one of the worst crimes in the history of Hollywood.
Warning: if you are very squeamish, it is better not to read any further because the story of ‘Syndrome’ is worthy of a true crime.
The wealthy screenwriter
If there are two words that don’t usually go together in real life, it’s “screenwriter” and “rich.” Yet Blake Leibel was. Born in 1981, his family was one of the most powerful in all of Canada. His father was a construction magnate. His mother, meanwhile, was part of the Chitels, founders of one of Toronto’s most powerful plastics factories. Everything was going well, until one day they decided to separate and both siblings split up with their parents.
Blake stayed with Eleanor, while Cody went to live with his father (who, interestingly, was the first Olympic sailor to test positive for doping in 1976). Blake’s salary when he came of age in 1999 was 18,000 euros a month. Nothing, about the same as any of us. So, he wouldn’t have much of a problem moving to Los Angeles and pursuing a career as an artist, not even as a hobby.
The thing is, he had some luck: in 2008 he became the director of three episodes of the animated series of ‘The Mad History of the Galaxies’ and in 2009 he was able to direct and script ‘Bald’, a film promoted with the slogan “No money. No hair. No shame” in which a college student started an erotic website with the hottest girls on campus to earn money and give a hair transplant to his roommate. In fact, it’s described as if “the worst parts of Annie Hall met the worst parts of American Pie.” But we’re not here to judge her career, we’re here to understand how and why she became The Comic Book Killer.
Leibel had already written some comics before 2010, such as ‘When Kingdoms Collide’, ‘Operation: Redux’ or ‘United free worlds’. These were ultra-violent comics, but nothing out of the ordinary. Other authors like Mark Millar also recreate themselves in violence and in their real life they are still good people. However, Blake Leibel was no Mark Millar. When in 2010 he released ‘Syndrome’, a graphic novel created by him, scripted by Daniel Quantz and RJ Ryan and illustrated by David Marquez (who has gone through Marvel, DC and anywhere you can imagine). None of his co-workers noticed anything unusual about him despite the gruesome nature of the story.
The first page of the comic posed the question “Why should we spare the life of an unrepentant murderer?”, to which the answer was given “Because you don’t do good by doing evil”. Throughout the comic, grotesque situations (a beheaded woman, a whole family murdered, a person hanged and bled to death…) are intertwined in a story about a serial killer and the obsession of four characters.
The comic didn’t have much of a run (it didn’t matter, Leibel launched it with his own publishing house and let’s remember that he received $18,000 a month to cover any expenses). Four years after his departure, Iana Kasian, a young Ukrainian woman, emigrates to the United States to work as a model in California. There she meets Leibel, who had just broken up with his wife, Amanda Braun, after a few erratic weeks: fate, it seemed, had brought them together. Expensive gifts followed (including a Mercedes convertible), the two moved in together, and finally, on May 3, 2016, their daughter Diana was born. 23 days later, Iana would be dead.
Taken from the vignettes
“They kill. We kill. In the end we all become monsters”. Another person to meet in this story is Constance Buccafurri, Leibel’s mistress (of whom Iana, of course, knew nothing). In mid-May, with their newborn daughter, the screenwriter went to his lover’s house and sexually abused her. It all happened in a single day: he got out of jail by paying $100,000 but by the time he returned to his apartment, the Ukrainian woman had left with her daughter and her mother, who was visiting, to a nearby hotel.
Imagine for a moment the life of Blake Leibel, a person who had always had absolutely everything: money, career as a screenwriter, women… who is suddenly thrown in jail and, when he gets out, discovers that his girlfriend has refused to see him. The man feigned repentance and insisted on spending more time with her, asking her to come back to the apartment to sort out their problems. Luckily, Diana and Iana’s mother stayed at the hotel waiting for him to return. But she never ever came back.
We won’t go into details because they are too gruesome, but suffice it to say that on May 24 Leibel committed an agonizing and brutal murder that seemed inspired by those in ‘Syndrome’. He drained the blood from her body and scalped her: that was only the beginning of the horrible torture Iana Kasian suffered. When the police arrived, alerted by Iana’s mother, the screenwriter told them she was fine, just resting. On May 26, finally, a patrol car broke down the door and entered a house that instead of a floor had blood on it. Blake, who had shielded his room with closets and mattresses, sat in shock next to a mutilated, grotesque corpse.
As luck would have it, Leibel ended up in jail sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of review, despite maintaining that he was innocent. The coroner stated, in examining the facts, “I’ve never seen anything like this before. And I doubt if any coroner in this country or beyond has ever seen anything like this outside of, perhaps, wartime”. The prisoner is serving his sentence in California, thus putting an end to one of the blackest episodes in the history of comics… And, probably, of Hollywood.
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In Germany, Clever & Smart came to have not only two unpublished comics in Spain, but also three censored and redrawed pages of an adventure carried out in honor of the German country.
When we talk about the “Spain brand” we often forget one of the products that is most recognized beyond our borders. Although it may seem strange to us because it is still something very “caní”, Mortadelo and Filemón have been a huge success around the world. But maybe nowhere as much as in Germany, where Clever & Smart (the translation of those places) came to have not only two unpublished comics in Spain, but three censored and redrawn pages of an adventure made in honor of the German country. Don’t run, no, you fool, I’m going to give you censorship!
Landing in Germany
The year 1972. Ibáñez had just finished the twelfth long comic book of the TIA agents, ‘Gatolandia 76’, when his cartoons began to land in a Germany still divided by the Berlin Wall. Clever and Smart were still working for the TIA (which instead of ‘Aeronautical Investigation Technicians’ would now be ‘Trans-Internationaler Agentering’), but instead of fighting against GRANDMOTHER they were fighting against the OMA (‘Organisation Militanter Agenten’, it should be said that ‘Oma’ means ‘Grandmother’ in German). The name of the Super was changed to Mr. L.
Small changes that did not prevent Ibáñez from signing Mortadelo comics and comics in Germany. So much so that he even created a character that resembled his German publisher’s secretary, the later ignored Irma. Later, the agents would be known as Flip & Flap. Flip and Flap worked, paradoxically, for the OMA (“Organisation für Meister-Agenten”) and the Super was called “Mr. Knacks”.
The last way Mortadelo and Filemón would be known in Germany was as Fred and Jeff, the name given to the VHS edition of the short films by Estudio Vara. The thing is that Ibáñez was so grateful to Germany that between 1981 and 1982 he would serialize in Mortadelo magazine a story that would have our agents going around Bavaria or Berlin: In Germany. But the h0menage came out regular.
Apocrypha and censorship
The trip to Germany in question is in search of The Rat and The Pachyderm, two jewel thieves who have stolen Queen Elizabeth II’s jewels (“Her Majesty, the Queen, will have to attend the opening ceremony of the Parliament with a beret because of the theft of her crown and other jewels that blah… blah…”). And of course, to avoid problems between the two sides, all references to East Berlin were deleted in the German country.
In the first censored page (and translated thanks to the Unofficial Page of Mortadelo and Filemón), Filemón discovers that they have arrived in East Berlin and end up knocking out a policeman who asks them for their papers. This could not be allowed in Germany, so what they discover instead is that they have arrived in Frankfurt, where there is a demonstration around the train. Finally, a rabbit appears with the slogan “The train to the West is a pest!” and asking them for a donation. The drawing tries to imitate Ibáñez’s, but it is between a copycat and forced. It doesn’t succeed.
The second one is completely original, and it is worth reading to understand how difficult it is to make a good Mortadelo comic book. In the original, the agents try to cross the Berlin Wall from underneath but end up unblocking a pipe: the bad smell makes them pass through, leaving everyone disgusted. However, in the German version they doubt whether they are in Frankfurt or New York because there are “too many vandals on the loose” and end up arriving in Berlin in the trunk of the soccer coach’s car, which was leaking oil (justifying that they were muddy to continue the story).
The third and most flagrant replaces a gigantic and hilarious cartoon in which the agents sneak into East Germany and everybody shoots at them (“Headquarters? Yes, send six fighter-bombers! And prepare the surface-to-surface missiles!”) with six in which Mortadelo acknowledged having pawned the crown jewels and turned around to get them back (“Well… matter settled!”). A masterpiece of absent-mindedness and the most profound ridicule.
Unpublished comics
In the 80’s, Ibáñez’s fame was such in Germany that 280 new strips of 13 Rue del Percebe were created, long comics by Botones Sacarino with stellar appearances by Mortadelo and Filemón (in one of which they get to meet Ronald Reagan while they prevent Tete Cohete from blowing up the Statue of Liberty and in another, for example, they use Professor Bacterio’s inventions in the writing of El aullido vespertino (The Evening Howl).
And, of course, there were also two completely unpublished Mortadelo and Filemón stories: ‘Nur kein Gehetze, wir haben Arbeitsplätze’ (translated by the TIA forum as ‘¡Que no cunda el pánico! Tenemos trabajo!’) came out at a time of very high unemployment in Germany, and shows the two agents testing methods to reduce it. In fact, its cover announced “Have you also been left on the street and without a job? Mortadelo and Filemón will give you some advice”. Just the people you want to get job advice from.
The second, ‘Vom Affen gelaust und losgesaust’ (translated by the TIA forum as ‘Monos con garrapatas… y huidas por patas!’) has a more Spanish line but is clearly not drawn by Ibáñez. In the story, both agents were fighting a poacher. These are mere curiosities that deserve to go down in the history of Spanish comics. Or German. European in any case! Don’t run, no, I’m going to give you apocryphal!
These services can help you read your favorite comics and manga at a low cost!
If you don’t feel like running out to your nearest bookstore to browse the comic book aisles, webcomic apps are the next best thing. For some, they’re even better than a physical book.
With both free and paid comics, you can view them immediately and save them for later. You also don’t have to worry about the pages getting worn out.
What are the best apps for comics, you ask? Let’s find out!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 …)
