Android Apps and News

Android comic book readers can now look to Graphic.ly, an app and service designed to find and display comic books or graphic novels on your Android device. Graphicly announced today that its 2,000-plus library of comic books are available for anyone with a jones for super-hero action and a device operating on Android 2.1 or higher.

Graphicly Comics has titles from more than 150 publishers, including familiar names like Marvel and IDW. It has a store that can be browsed by publisher, title, or paid and free comics. Once a user has a collection, he or she can then view the digital copies formatted for the device. When testing on an EVO, Atomic Robo #1 loaded after a few seconds and I was able to turn pages by swiping left or right. Each page turn featured a delay of about 1 second or less, but pinch-zoom was fairly quick and allowed me to focus on certain panels.

A strong web connection is ideal because Graphic.ly browses comic books that are stored in the cloud. However, users have the option of download a list of books if they want to read their collection offline or store it locally. The Android app also features an Activity Stream that shows comments and recommendations from friends or other Graphic.ly members (I can’t say much about it because my phone force closes every time I open the tab).

Previous users of Graphic.ly on the web or other mobile platforms will find that their entire library can be synched with their accounts. So in addition to reading on your Droid X, you can also browse through a Chrome web app. Graphic.ly CEO Micah Baldwin says “This application is only the beginning of the expansion of our relationship with Google,” which leads me to believe that an even better version of the app – perhaps Honeycomb optimized? – may be on the way. Download the Android 2.1+ app and enjoy reading your graphic novels in the meantime.

App: Graphicly Comics

Price: Free

Website: http://www.graphic.ly