Jan 19, 2018 The Best Comic Book Readers for Windows, Mac, and Linux click subscribe button. The best free comic book reader on iOS! - Duration: 4:18. 5min Apps 15,883 views. Jun 08, 2020  The most popular comic book reader. Astonishing Comic Reader. Astonishing Comic Reader, the next-gen App to read your comicbooks! ComiCat (Comic Reader/Viewer) Meanlabs Software. ComiCat is the top rated comic reader and catalog manager for Android. Readler: great reader (PDF, DJVU, CBR, CBZ).

Comics are more popular than ever before, thanks to the MCU and now, the DCEU making headway in Hollywood. This has exposed some of the best and complex characters of the last century into the mainstream. Think Punisher, Batman, and the clown prince of Gotham.

Read: Best Manga Reader Apps for Android

Comic Book Reader Apps

I prefer tablets over smartphones when it comes to reading comic books. It gives me more screen estate to read and view art without having to zoom in and out too much.

With that thought in mind, here are some of the best comic book app for Android, in no particular order.

1. ComiCat

ComiCat is an offline comic book reader that will scan your device for comic books. It supports a huge array of file formats like CBZ, CBR, PDF, CB7, CBT, Zip, Rar, 7z, and PDF. Apart from this, it is a feature-rich app with search, catalog options, password protection. Coming to the actual comic viewing experience, you get different orientations and different view modes like Fit Visible, Fit Width, etc.

ComiCat is quite slick while loading the comic books due to the local caching of the files. This enables it to quickly render books in the highest resolution. For manga fans who like to read left to right and vice versa, the app supports both reading ways. Other options include parental controls, cloud sync, bookmarks, and gestures.

Watch out for the virtual shelf. It’s beautiful. It will cost you $2.99 though. There is support for SD card and cloud storage services with sync enabled.

What’s good?

• Beautiful UI,
• A number of modes and file formats,
• Cloud storage, and parental control.

What’s bad?

• I couldn’t find any!

Verdict: ComiCat is one of the best comic book apps with a host of features and options to choose from. Overall, it has a good UI and a nice visual representation.

Download ComiCat

2. Challenger

Unlike ComiCat, Challenger is a free app with no ads that firmly challenge other comic book reader apps. Challenger supports PDF along with the following comic book format like CBZ/ZIP, CBR/RAR, CBT/TAR, CB7/7Z, DjVu, and ePUB. It comes with an internal comic book downloader as well.

While not being feature-rich, Challenger comes with certain nifty tricks. You get both single and double-page viewing modes, infinite scroll with pinch to zoom, multiple orientation support. If there is a viewing mode that exists, Challenger supports it. The only downside is the traditional UI which just gets the job done. The good thing is that it comes with cloud storage so you can access your catalog on the fly.

What’s good?

• No ads
• Supports a lot of file formats, viewing modes
• Cloud storage and FTP support

What’s not?

• UI is not up to the mark but will do.

Verdict: The Challenger dev team focused on functions and features instead of bells and whistles which is not bad for a free app.

Download Challenger

3. Comics (comiXology)

Comics is so good that the eCommerce giant, Amazon, decided to buy it for an undisclosed amount. It is a Freemium app that will open your doors to more than 100,000 comics books. Unfortunately, the subscription model is US only ($5.99). The premium model offers a catalog of 10,000 comics including from the likes of Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, and Image.

You can also offline download comics and novels to your phone’s SD. It also supports multiple devices. The most notable feature has to be the Guided View. It helps you read your favorite comics and view the artwork. Even on smartphones, Comics offers a cinematic experience. If you do log in with your Amazon account, all the comics and novels from Kindle are synced within the app.

What’s good?

• Guided View feature is cool
• access to Marvel, DC, and other comic brands.

What’s bad?

• It cannot import the local library, only available for US residents.

Verdict: If you can afford the subscription, Comics by Comixology is the ideal app to get. You get access to a large catalog from Marvel, DC comics and some other big comic houses. The only downside I feel is the lack of local comic collection.

Download Comics (comiXology)

4. Astonishing Comic Reader

Quite a popular app, Astonishing Comic Reader runs on the freemium model. The app comes with minimal material design. It has some advanced features like collecting comic books, automatic start of the next issue when you are done with the previous one, intelligent suggestions based on your reading habits, automatic sync, etc.

The cloud storage feature will set you back $2.49 which is called the heroic account. It also comes with few add-ons like user statistics and a favorites option. This is the only app on this list that allows casting your comic books on any screen remotely.

My most favorite feature is the ability to create custom wallpapers from my favorite pages using the Muzei app. It supports DRM-free content in CBR, CBZ, and PDF file formats. It comes with different orientation and navigation options including support for adding tags.

What’s good?

• Beautiful UI & wallpapers with no ads
• cloud support
• searchable tags, and the ability to collect comics

What’s not?

• A limited number of file formats; doesn’t support zips.
• Requires another app for wallpaper

Verdict: Astonishing Comic Reader is a good looking comic book reader app with a lot of features in the free version and cloud and sync support in the pro version.

Download Astonishing Comic Reader

5. Perfect Viewer

Perfect Viewer, though in Beta, is one of the best comic book reader apps on the Play Store right now. It is completely free with no ads. It supports the following file formats: CBZ/ZIP, CBR/RAR, 7Z/CB7, LZH, CBT/TAR, PDF, HTML, TXT, and EPUB. There are different orientation and navigation options with 5 viewing modes. Upon installing a plugin, you will get cloud storage and FTP.

Unlike the Astonishing comic reader, you don’t need a separate app to set custom wallpapers. It also has a bookshelf but it is not as good as ComiCat. You also get the usual features like add to favorites, bookmarks, and gesture support. There is also cast to screens support for Google Chromecast.

What’s good?

• Supports numerous viewing modes and file formats.
• Supports Chromecast & cloud storage platform

What’s bad?

• UI is less than stellar but can’t really complain about an app that is free.

Verdict: Perfect Viewer is a serious competition for any paid app that allows you to manage your own collection of comic books.

Download Perfect Viewer

6. CDisplayEx Free Comic Reader

CDisplayEx Free Comic Reader is another free comic reader app. While the name might not be the greatest aspect of the app, the UI certainly is. CDisplayEx only lets you read comic books stored offline and on remote servers. However, the free version only lets you set up FTP, SFTP, and Samba. For cloud services like Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, etc you need to purchase the paid variant which costs around $6.

Apart from the basic features such as different viewing modes and reading directions, CDisplayEx also provides custom gesture controls. You can even customize the scroll distance, duration, image size, etc. My favorite feature is the automatic sorting of comics in reading, read, unread, series state.

What’s good?

• Sorts comics as reading, read, and unread state
• Customizable gestures and tap controls
• Download comics offline
• FTP, Samba support to import comics in the free version
• Paid variant includes cloud services support

What’s not?

• UI still looks traditional and less intuitive

Verdict: CDisplayEx Free Comic Reader is a great offline comic book reader. It is an ideal choice for people who have huge offline collection of comics.

Download CDisplayEx Free Comic Reader

7. ComicRack

ComicRack is also available on the Windows platform which means you can easily sync libraries between your PC and Android. This is its greatest strength. The sync will happen via USB (free version) or WiFi (pro version at $6.49). Apart from Wi-Fi sync, the pro version only removes ads.

The app can create live wallpapers automatically from your comic book covers. Apart from the conventional file formats, it also supports webcomics. All the usual features like gesture, orientation, color, and comic book management that you would expect from any good reader are present. One particularly useful feature is the ability to sort books by viewing states as completed, unread, and reading.

What’s good?

• Live wallpapers and good UI
• Tight integration with Windows and remote sync option

What’s not?

• Pro version is expensive for what it offers

Verdict: The free version is good enough and there is not really a need for the pro version unless you need the WiFi sync. The ads, I found, were not affecting the experience negatively.

Download ComicRack

Wrapping Up

These were some of the best comic reader apps for Android. If you are looking for a free comic book app, Perfect Viewer or CDisplayEx is a cool app. In case you want something beautiful and care to upgrade, ComiCat is an awesome looking app with all the features you could ask for.

If you want to go all-in with a subscription, Comics by ComiXology is the ideal option. You also get access to some of the biggest names in the comics world.

Also Read:

Since the popularity of tablets, and subsequently large-screen smartphones, digital book reading has gone mobile. But, reading on a computer is still a popular past time, and for some, it's the best way to digest the classics, bestsellers, and undiscovered gems. If you have a folder full of eBooks and want to know which reader is perfect for your needs, you'll find what you're looking for right now.

I'd like to take a moment to clarify that this list is for apps that you can download onto your Mac. There are some great e-readers that are web-based, but I've decided not to include them on this list. If you have a favorite web browser e-reader, please feel free to add it to the comments section so others can find out about it.

iBooks

Every Mac comes with iBooks installed. It is perfectly designed to work, not only on your computer but also across all of your mobile devices. So, you can read a chapter or two on your Mac, and pick up on your iPad or iPhone without missing a beat. There is a quick-access button that lets you browse the iBooks Store, where you can download content to iCloud and access on all your supported Apple devices. You can also drag-and-drop PDFs to iTunes from your Mac, so if you've got a great book that isn't in ePub form, you can still read it in iBooks.

As for the features, iBooks on the Mac has most of the same tools and themes as iBooks on iPhone and iPad, like color options, text size and style customizations, highlighting tools, dictionary lookup, notes, sharing, illustration rendering, voice over, and more.

If you are knee-deep in the Apple ecosystem, iBooks is the best e-reader on your Mac. You'll love the ability to sync your eBooks and audiobooks across all of your devices.

Kindle

The Kindle reader on Mac is ideal for people that purchase, rent or borrow books from Amazon, which supplies the largest digital book collection. When you sign in to your Amazon account, you can access all Amazon books in your library. You can't browse the Amazon books store from the Kindle app, but when you buy a book on Amazon, it will be added to your collection, which you can access from all your devices, whether they are Apple, Android, or Windows. Amazon supports borrowing books, renting textbooks, sampling books, and more. It is especially beneficial to Prime subscribers. Prime reading offers hundreds of free ebooks, magazines, and more. Kindle Unlimited, which is a subscription-based service, lets you read about a million titles (including magazines and newspapers) for a monthly price.

Kindle on the Mac has plenty of customization features, too. You can change the theme to white, sepia, or black, and adjust the font size and style to tailor your reading experience. You can also add highlights and notes. One of my favorite features is the ability to browse through popular highlights from others that have also read the book.

If you have a collection of ebooks you've purchased from Amazon, or if you are a Prime subscriber, use Kindle for the Mac to read and sync your books across all of your devices.

• Free - Download now

OverDrive Read

OverDrive is the number one app for borrowing digital content from your local public library. All you need is an active library card and a PIN. Just like borrowing physical books, you can browse your library's entire collection of digital content and check out multiple titles at the same time. When you borrow an ebook or another item, you can download it on your Mac and access it as much as you want during your loan period. When your ebook is due, you don't have to worry about returning it to the library on time, it will automatically be removed from your Mac when your time is up.

The OverDrive Read app on Mac is actually a web browser supported software program, but it's on this list because it is the officially supported app for borrowing books from public libraries.

Although you have to access the OverDrive Read on Mac from a web browser, you can download content for offline reading, listening, or watching. You'll need to bookmark the page so you can access it without an internet connection, but if you remember to download the content while you're online, you can continue reading while offline.

OverDrive Read includes tools for changing the color, adjusting the size and style of font, adding notes, highlighting, and voice over for some titles. It also supports fixed-layout digital books (like comics and magazines) so your favorite illustrated content doesn't look weird on your Mac.

If you want to read digital books, but prefer borrowing from your local library, OverDrive Read is your go-to app for accessing your loans on Mac.

Free Comic Book Reader App

• Free - Download now

Adobe Digital Editions

Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) is an ePub reader that makes it super easy to read digital books on your Mac without having to drag them into an app or upload them to a cloud server. Once ADE is on your Mac, you can select it as the reader for any ePub file, so you can get started reading right away. I use ADE for ebooks that I get from HumbleBundle. I occasionally use it for ebooks I download from my public library, too. It supports all ePub formats and PDF files.

You can add a bookmark and highlight text. You can also add notes to pages and passages. Searching a book for a specific word or phrase is as easy as using the Find feature on your Mac.

If you download and store a lot of ePub files, and don't want to upload them to iCloud for reading in iBooks, ADE is the next best thing.

• Free - Download now

BookReader

BookReader is the e-reader for all files. It supports EPUB, MOBI, PRC, AZW, FB2, Microsoft DOC, RTF, RTFd, xHTML, Webarchive and TXT. No matter what type of ebook you have on file, you can read it on BookReader. It only supports DRM-free files, though, so make sure your digital books don't have digital rights protections before you try to use it.

You can store all of your books in one bookshelf for easy access. It also has a few features that make book reading on the Mac a pleasant experience, like realistic page flipping, hypertext support, Text to Speech, and a fully customizable color option. You can make the font, background, and book border any color available on the spectrum.

If you tend to download a lot of different types of eBook files, you'll be happy with the level of support BookReader has. You can download a free, seven-day trial version to decide whether you want to invest further.

• $9.99 - Download now

Your favorites?

Do you use a specific e-reader as your go-to app on Mac? Let us know what it is in the comments and tell us why it's your favorite.

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Comic Reader For Mac

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