IK Comics has started promoting across the internet and I thought I’d take a crack at what they have to offer. I downloaded the demo from their site and overall I feel lukewarm about the whole thing.

First off, the viewer:

It is a fixed size comic viewer and is fairly simple to learn to use. Just from the demo if I had to scale the viewer I’d give it a 5 - fairly average. It is better than Marvel’s own viewer but lacks some things that I consider to be basic and essential to a good digital comic book viewer. First, the scrolling is jerky. I practically never use the down button or scroll bars, I’m spoiled and use my mouse’s scroll button. The scroll button makes IK Comics’ viewer scroll in an erratic or slow manner. If I scroll hard and fast it sort of jerks along, otherwise it takes forever. Second, there aren’t next or previous buttons! I have to either click a pane on the right or press a page button to go to a next screen. That makes the reading process break and sort of ruins it. Third, the preview section only updates when I click the down button. Why not load all pages and let me scroll through the panes? I hate waiting, especially since I don’t have to with CDisplay - why should I have to with a CDisplay alternative? Finally, why can’t I full screen the viewer? I have a HUGE monitor, I want to be able to see my comics from one side to the next.

The IK Comics blog says that each comic has a specially tailored viewer for it, and that feels a bit roundabout to me. Why not make the specialized version an option? As a user I like control over what I’m buying. Maybe it sounds like I’m dumping all over it, I’m not. I think it is great that there is an alternative to Zuda Comics and Marvel’s digital comics service already. Their comic selection is fairly interesting also, but the price ($1.99 per comic) makes me think twice about a purchase.

Overall, I hope things go well for IK Comics, I will check them out again in the future, but right now I feel they suffer from the same thing Marvel does: a bloaty viewer. Fix the viewer, let me be able to customize it, and I think it would be a great service for indie comics to release online.