Sometimes success can trip you up a bit, though. In addition to its own Comics reader, comiXology developed iPad apps for a number of comics publishers, including Marvel and DC, and this led to complaints from smaller companies that they were having trouble getting a spot on comiXology’s digital shelf. At NYCC last month, I talked to comiXology CEO David Steinberger, and he told me that they were going to make their toolbox available to independent publishers so they can prep their own work for the app, which will hopefully speed up the process. Now they have made it official.

ComiXology began by reaching out to a few publishers for a private “alpha” phase of the program; Tokyopop, Devil’s Due, Arcana Comics and Scott Admunson, creator of Barbarian, signed on, and perhaps the most visible of the comics was Tokyopop’s Hetalia: Axis Powers, a manga with strong advance buzz that appeared on comiXology the same day it was released in print (but after its digital release via Zinio). Now they will be inviting more publishers to participate. The ultimate goal will be to make the tools available to everybody, and this sounds pretty visionary:

The final product will be part of a comprehensive online system, allowing seamless submission for digital publishing for all comic book creators and publishers in an iTunes-like model.

That’s an amazing vision for a small company but comiXology has done a good job so far of getting in front of the trends. However, I wonder if their product isn’t blinding them a bit. Now that I have an iPad, I’m leaving Guided View comics far, far behind—you just can’t beat reading the comics a full page at a time on that lovely screen. At the ICv2 conference before NYCC this year, Alex DeCampi pointed out that reading comics on an iPhone is like tunneling through the comic—you just see a panel at a time, rather than what surrounds it. I know there are some advantages to Guided View—one educator reported that kids find it easier to read comics a panel at a time—but with other options available (you don’t need an iPad—comiXology has a web version as well) I’m not convinced it’s the way of the future. Still, if the tools allow publishers to do the rest of the prep as well, and get their comics up on comiXology’s many platforms that much sooner, it’s all to the good.

The Japanese publisher Square Enix, whose properties include the best-selling series Black Butler and Fullmetal Alchemist, revealed its online manga plans at the Tokyo Game Show yesterday.

Square Enix already has a website through which fans can purchase games, and they set up an online manga site for North America in July, with some sample chapters and an announcement that its digital media store would launch in Fall 2010. According to the information released at the Game Show, that date has been pushed back to winter. Square Enix already allows users to buy games through their website, and they will use the same system for manga, so existing users will not have to create new accounts.

Several Square Enix properties, including Black Butler, Soul Eater, and Pandora Hearts, are licensed by Yen Press but are not available on Yen’s online Yen Plus magazine. It looks like those series will be running on the Square Enix website.

As far as other platforms are concerned, Square Enix seems to be moving cautiously. In November, it will launch Gangan Online, an iPad and iPhone/iPod Touch app, but that will only be available in Japan, and foreign-language versions are not in the cards for the immediate future.

iVerse's comics store

Even with the small screen, though, my iPod is evolving. Back in the Stone Age (six months ago), each comic or section of a comic was a single app, which led to a lot of little icons cluttering up the screen. Now a reader can use a single app such as comiXology’s Comics app, iVerse, or Panelfly, to buy, download, and organize comics, which is a more elegant solution. ComiXology has just released a free version of its app, which allows readers access to all the free comics in its app store, and it also has a Lite version that is 12+, as opposed to 17+, presumably for younger readers.

I assume the hidden hand of Apple has something to do with the fact that these apps have similar design and functionality: You pick your function from a navigation strip across the bottom, with icons for the store, featured items, etc., and you move from a list of comics to catalog listings by tapping and swiping, just as with other apps.

These apps solve a glaring problem, which is that there is no obvious way to find comics in the iTunes store. (Of course, there is no obvious way to find these apps, either—that’s why you need columns like this.) Comics are classed as books, and books are a genre within the App Store, which is the sort of tortured logic that only a software engineer could love. The book section is dominated by other types of books, and comics are not necessarily marked as such, so trolling through the iTunes store in search of something interesting to read is pretty much out. You have to know what you want before you go there, which makes it uncomfortably like the direct market, i.e., uncomfortably lacking in serendipity.

Panelfly's comics store

The individual comics apps make it easier to find comics, although each has its limitations. Once you get the app, you can browse the in-app store for interesting titles. If you’re more comfortable navigating on the big screen, both comiXology and iVerse have regular updates on their websites and offer e-mail updates as well. Panelfly lists available comics on the website but doesn’t seem to have any sort of notification. In addition, all three use social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

As for content, comiXology and iVerse are definitely shooting for the Wednesday crowd, with lots of of individual comics issues priced at 99 cents each. Panelfly is more artsy, with a handsome, deep-red interface and a list that includes NBM, SLG and Picturebox. In addition to single issues, Panelfly offers full-length graphic novels such as Faith Erin Hicks’s The War at Ellsmere or Yuichi Yokoyama’s Travel. There is some overlap between the three; both comiXology and iVerse carry comics from Antarctic, Bluewater, and Image, for instance, and SLG titles are available via both comiXology and Panelfly. If you want Top Cow, though, comiXology is the place to be, and iVerse seems to be the only place to get comics from Archie or Boom! Studios.

The comics readers are different, though. Panelfly and comiXology have different readers, but they work in more or less the same way: Both zip you around from panel to panel on the page, following the same path your eye would. This takes a bit of getting used to. The comiXology reader has an optional page view feature as well, which shows the entire page before going from panel to panel; this is useful for orientation but is generally too small to be readable. Panelfly has the same thing but it doesn’t seem to be optional. The iVerse app gives the reader the option of viewing the entire page in the vertical mode or single panels in the landscape mode. Of the three, I find iVerse to be the clearest; their full-page view is actually readable, and their single-panel views are exceptionally sharp and clear. The downside is that they have to chop the comic up into horizontal strips; you can’t use the iPod’s zoom feature on the full-page view, and you have to rotate the device to landscape mode to read the single panels.

For those who are curious, but not ready to make a commitment, comiXology’s free app is probably a good place to start. I e-mailed CEO David Steinberger yesterday with some questions, and he confirmed that the app is a way for iPhone users who don’t want to pay 99 cents can see how the paid app works; the free app is the same except it only offers the free comics. As expected, the free version is being downloaded more than the paid app, and in fact, it’s number 18 on today’s Top Free Apps list, while iVerse and comiXology’s paid app rank a bit higher on the paid apps chart.

Free comics up on comiXology at the moment include a preview of FCHS, a new high school drama from AdHouse books, and all of issue 1 of The Darkness/Pitt, from Top Cow. “Top Cow didn’t want to do a second print of #1, so this is an ideal way for them to get more people exposed to the series and hopefully go out to their local comic store to buy #2,” Steinberger explained.

At 99 cents each, none of these apps is going to break the bank. Be aware, though, that the much-touted “free comics” include a lot of previews and issue #1’s, so they are very much a marketing tool. For those who appreciate the portability of the iPod and are comfortable reading comics on a small screen, though, these apps are a good way to sample new comics and buy individual issues at a considerable discount from the dead-tree price.

But Comics isn’t just a comic or a comics reader, it’s a portal that offers a possible way out of the death spiral that independent pamphlet comics seem to be locked into.

Consider the problem: Most comics are only available in comics stores, not on the mass market; prospective readers must often pre-order comics sight unseen; and Diamond won’t carry comics that don’t meet certain minimums. The barrier for new comics is getting higher, and readers have fewer opportunities to discover new comics.

ComiXology provides a digital solution to that impasse that keeps the retailer in the loop: It allows readers to sample comics for free and buy them for their iPhone or iPod Touch, but it also helps them find the print comic in a brick-and-mortar store. ComiXology CEO David Steinberger says he hopes to allow readers to preview and pre-order comics before their official release, helping marginal comics to reach Diamond’s threshold.

The iPhone application is an extension of the comiXology website, which features a complete listing of the comics available in Diamond Previews each month and allows readers to create a digital pull list.

Here’s what Steinberger had to say about the new application, which was announced at San Diego Comic-Con:

Brigid Alverson: How is the comiXology app different from all the other comics apps for the iPhone?

David Steinberger: You can browse a comic store in the iPhone application and purchase it right there, unlike the current comic applications where, say, you buy Atomic Robo number 1, it’s an application itself, then you buy Atomic Robo number 2—you can buy them and it’s all the same application.

The second thing is the reading experience. One thing we thought was missing in iTunes comics was the sense of the page. We keep the page intact and use what we call guided view, which in essence covers up the panels on the left and right. If you buy from UCLICK or iVerse, which have blazed the trail, they have gone into Photoshop and taken out a 480 x 320 pixel image to frame the panel, and you scroll through that to read the comic.

We thought we could show the entire page if we wanted to yet still frame it to 480 x 320 by zooming into panels and framing it in a certain way. Instead of using Photoshop to pre-drop-out the other panels, we do it on the fly.

Brigid: So you can take any comic and put it into your reader, without having to chop it up first?

David: Yes. We launched with over 100 comics, we have 40 in the queue, and we are going to add comics at a fast pace because we don’t have to cut out backgrounds and get Photoshop artists to move text boxes around or whatever the processes are.

The third thing we bring to the table, because we have been around a long time and we sell tools for retailers and we have these pull list services, is that it was a no-brainer to connect this to retail stores. You can use the location awareness of the iPhone to find a location to buy the comic from.

We sell a service to retailers to have customers make their pull lists through comiXology. We have 60-80 previews [on the website] every week. By the 15th of the month we will have everything in Diamond Previews up. People can pull them on comiXology or the iPhone application and stores will get that.

Our stores also have an affiliate program: If someone is connected with Isotope Comics [a San Francisco retailer], I’m tracking the purchases you make and I’m sharing the revenue with the retailer. [The store will] they receive a portion of our revenue for every single comic purchased by their customers. We haven’t finished the legalese of the affiliate agreement, but will be back-paying from the very launch of the app.

You are going to see some experimentation from us of doing a pre-release of a comic to stimulate ordering by the retailers from Diamond. This is going to be a really interesting six months.

We told retailers we will get into digital comics, it is inevitable, but we can do this in a way that supports you guys. We will experiment with coupons in comics that get you a free comic in the application, or a coupon in the application that gets you free comics, that will tie these things together in a try-before-you-buy architecture.

The advantage is, as Star Trek Countdown on the iPhone showed, IDW said they had sold as many on iPhone as in print. They met their projections and reached a huge audience in the iPhone that wouldn’t stop into a comic book store or don’t know what one is. That’s good for comics, period.

We all know there is a distribution problem. One of the comics we have is Warlord of Io, by James Turner. Diamond dropped it. This is the guy that does Rex Libris, he’s a celebrated cartoonist, and this is an opportunity for that to still have life and have exposure and still get money. We are really excited to put it in the store and say hey, this is a good work, it deserves an audience.

We have 30 comics that come free with the application, and we will continue to add free ones. A lot of our number ones are free. That 99 cent purchase is a barrier for people, but if I put Walking Dead number 1 in for free, I will get way more downloads of that.

Brigid: Is there a backup outside the iPod?

David: We’re hoping people are going to buy a ton of stuff, so we have to be mindful of how much space we take up on your iPhone. There are actually disk usage settings in our application, so you can delete comics or make sure they are saved, or it will auto-delete the older ones. However, you never have to buy them again. That’s the reason we make a login, so we can track your purchases. If you want Walking Dead 2 after deleting it, you can download it again. It’s a thing you own.

Brigid: It seems like your store leans toward single issue comics.

David: As we get more sophisticated with the product, if you download Walking Dead number 1, then you bought number 2, you will be able to buy the next 10 for 8 bucks, for $2 off, like a virtual trade. We’d like to do that, but figuring that out with Apple is complicated.

Brigid: Does Apple tell you what to do?

David: Yes. Apple has managed to get a huge audience, tons of devices, and they make it easy to find these things and easy to buy them. We are the number one selling book application, and we are featured in the iTunes store. Having to work with someone like Apple is a positive and a negative. They are so focused on their device and the applications for their device being so excellent, they let just about any application in there but there’s a quality and a stability in each application and they check every single one of them. They make applications easy to find, and they can do things like put you on the front page. Nobody else in the mobile market has that now. That’s why we did the iPhone first. Of course, that also means I have 40 comics waiting to be approved by Apple.

Brigid: Do they approve each one?

David: No, but they approve each listing. So we have the application out, but we have to hold off on putting more comics in until Apple approves them. We will add a ton of them every week, but there will be a gap before we get on a weekly schedule because that’s how long it takes to get approved. Apple is terrific, and I know they are working on improving the process so we can get stuff out faster. If we get people excited and buying, that benefits Apple. In the meantime, I’m looking at putting out a few more free ones out that Apple doesn’t have to approve.

Brigid: Do you plan any straight-to-iPhone comics?

David: At San Diego we announced a couple of original series. We have David Gallaher and Steve Ellis, they are starting a new series, Box 13, that will start in September and will run weekly for free in the applications. We have the print rights, the media rights, so I will be shopping for publishers for it. It’s made for print with the iPhone in mind: He is going to take all the tricks that we use and work on things that will not only have impact in the device but also read well in print. There is another one, X the Unknown, inspired by the software itself, by Tim Smith 3 and Id Ego that will start sometime this fall. I will have another announcement in a few weeks—another creator saw the application and said “You know what? I’m going to do that.”

Brigid: Do you work with publishers or creators?

David: We do both. I think you are going to see the creator-owned category expand a lot. Smoke is in there, by Alex deCampi. She published that through IDW, but the rights reverted to her so we were able to deal directly with her.

We just took out a license for Spike’s Templar, Arizona.

Brigid: But that’s available online for free.

David: You can’t get to Spike’s stuff on the subway. It’s more convenient, and people are willing to pay a premium for that.

Brigid: There are rumors that Apple is working on a larger version of the iPod that would be ideal for comics reading. What will you do if that comes out?

David: If it comes out, we will be on it. Our licenses cover it. Our method is future-proof. We have to consider what are the things that are going to happen with screens and devices and build in a process and work flow that keeps that in mind.

Comics by comiXology

Iconology this morning launched its Comics by comiXology application, a digital-comics store, library and reader for iPhone and iPod featuring titles from 20 publishers. It’s available on Apple’s App Store.

Participating companies include AdHouse Books, Arcana, Bluewater Productions, Com.X, Digital Webbing, eigoMANGA, Image Comics, Moonstone, Red 5 and SLG Publishing.

In addition, Robert Kirkman has signed on to deliver his comics, most notably The Walking Dead and Invincible, exclusively through the app.

IDW Publishing

IDW Publishing announced at Comic-Con that it’s expanding its digital-comics initiative to include the G.I. JOE: The Rise of Cobra prequels, as well as Transformers and CSI titles.

Over the coming weeks the company will add more G.I. Joe and Transformers comics, plus Danger Girl, Astro Boy, Groom Lake, John Sable Freelance and GrimJack.

The IDW catalog can be found on iTunes, where users can download an eight-page preview of Danger Girl #0 for free.

At the moment, most of the comics available for the iPod are print comics that have been adapted to the new format, which has its advantages and disadvantages. Overall, it’s a different type of reading experience, and with the right comic and good formatting, it can be as good as or even better than reading the print version.

The chief difference is that almost all comics are viewed one panel at a time, which means the reader gets in closer to the art and experiences it as a series of single panels that scroll by horizontally. (Here’s a handy demo from Uclick.) Obviously, a comic that was originally drawn as self-contained panels will do better on the iPod than one that relies on splash pages and interplay between panels. Consistency is also important: With its fixed height and width, the iPod screen can’t accommodate a wide horizontal or tall vertical panel very well. Those panels have to be shrunk down, which can be distracting. One quickly becomes accustomed to the figures and text being a certain size, so when they suddenly get smaller, it interrupts the smooth reading experience.

One thing that doesn’t seem to have been standardized yet is whether the comic is viewed vertically or horizontally. Of the apps I looked at, the ones from Uclick were all intended to be viewed with the iPod held in the vertical position; rotating it didn’t make the art any bigger. The iVerse apps I checked all displayed the comic in the horizontal mode only, which made for a bigger, more readable panel. The one outlier is Yoshitoshi ABe, who managed to fit an entire page of Pochiyama onto the iPod screen in the vertical mode. This worked surprisingly well and allowed for the interplay between panels that was missing from all the other comics.

Generally, graphic novels with a panel-by-panel storytelling style and straightforward art fared the best on the small screen. Jeff Smith’s Bone, for instance, works pretty well, because the story is told in small, fairly simple panels. I went back and looked at the print version when I was done, and I saw a few places where I had lost a bit of context, but overall, the story was easy to follow and looked good on the small screen.

Ninjatown, based on the Nintendo DS game, was even better. The simple shapes and bright colors of this comic really lend themselves to the iPod. The creators tell their story in a series of single panels and the movement in each panel is easy to follow—there is detail, but no clutter, although variations in panel shape made for some distracting zooming in and out.

One comic that I actually liked better on the iPod was Archie: Freshman Year. The panels fit the horizontal format nicely, with little wasted space and easily readable word balloons. The most heinous misstep was chopping the opening splash page in two (and beheading Veronica) to fit it onto the small screen. The other splash pages were divided up more gracefully, though, and I noticed the designers took the trouble to remove the edges of word balloons that would have impinged on the sides of the panel. What’s more, this is a dialogue-heavy comic and the pages of the print version seem crowded; the iPod version has more breathing room and is actually easier to read.

Adult comics with full-page layouts present more of a challenge, because designers have to chop the page up the way a widescreen movie is reformatted to fit on a TV screen, panning and shifting the center to capture as much of the action as possible. The iVerse Smashout adaptation of The Man Called A-X is a good example of a comic that doesn’t work well on the small screen. The original story is told in large, often full-page panels, and the designers had to shoehorn it onto the iPod by showing pieces of a scene, then pulling back and showing a longer view, often with illegible text. In addition, because the art often breaks the edges of the panels, the designer often had to leave in a bit of another panel in order to display a complete image.

Yoshitoshi ABe can put full pages of Pochiyama onto the iPod because his pages aren’t terribly complex—five or six panels per page—and his art is crisp and clean, so it comes across very well even when shrunk down to iPod size. What doesn’t work as well is the text, which is typeset very clumsily within the word balloons. (Also, either the translation or the writing is bad—it’s hard to say which—either way, the comic is well-nigh incomprehensible, although lovely to look at.)

All this formatting tsouris will eventually go away once people start designing comics specifically for the iPod platform. The screen is a decent size for reading individual panels, the colors are nice and bright, and options such as scrolling, animation, and sound could enhance the comics if used judiciously. Hopefully, artists will start to think of exploiting it as a medium in its own right, but in the meantime, it’s a decent substitute for bulky books for those of us who never want to be caught without something to read.

Update: Corrected the publisher of The Man Called A-X.