13 Best Platforms for Comic Nerds to Read Comics Online

My favorite platforms to read comics online…

Gone are the days of spending midnight🌃 hours missing reading our favorite comic heroes, and fantasizing about them in our dreams. Don’t miss them anymore! There are some really enticing platforms for comic lovers like you and me where we can re-live the moments online.

Comic books always had special space on our bookshelves. Irrespective of the novels📖 like Sydney Sheldon, Mark Twain, or Sherlock Holmes; comic characters like Superman, Arthur Brown, Tintin, etc. have been a choice of expression for the masses.

Many such people’s role models have found their voice in Hollywood Superhero movies. The themes of Batman, Marvels, and many others have been credibly presented.

But the real charm of reading between the lines, and snapping the strips of comical expressions in our memories is still missing somewhere. Considering the craze of comic nerds, many online platforms have come up with comic book series to take readers back to memory lane.

Being a fellow comic nerd myself I’ve curated a list of my favorite platforms to read comics online, and if you are too impatient to get to them, here’s a handy table listing a few features of each!

Importance of Comics for Generations

Comics are first-hand entertainment solution for book lovers. Their visual appeal with retro color graphics makes you feel the scene into your nerves. And the superhero posing on the cover with a thrilling title enhances the zeal to reach the climax.

The creativity displayed in comic books is of utmost challenge. It is not just about storytelling with words, but also a bunch of expressions with cartoon images. It is always fascinating to watch a series of pictorial conversations, with or without captions of dialogues.

Comics📚 have stayed as part of life for generations. Not just the kids and teenagers, but even the adults are seen curious about collecting them. Bookstores have witnessed the times when readers used to inquire about the latest editions. Thus, it is no surprise that Manga reading apps are available for Android and iOS.

Some of the classic characters have lived and ruled the comic world from our grandparents times. Thus, comics are indeed a source of bonding between different age groups.

Evolution of Comics from Print Media to Online

Comic books got famous in the mid-twentieth century after decades of getting published as strips on newspapers. Superman, Batman, and a few other American Superheroes were born as the leaders of Action Comics. They achieved a towering image in the hearts of millions.

Marvel and DC comics soon became brand and well-established the series of the X-men, Fantastic Four, Green Lantern, etc. Alan Moore’s Watchmen and many other creators have also contributed with their commendable work in high-quality content.

A few decades before the beginning of the digital era, comic books were supposed to be the best friends of every household. But our recent past has seen the overlap of gadgets📱 that delivered our fantasy world with social media, blogging sites, digital games, etc.

Now using the same technology, many creators have come up with a setup that promises to provide a similar experience of the comic world on our Smartphones, Tabs, and PCs.

Benefits of Reading Comics Online

For a few years, it was perceived that comic books would vanish from the market, and we would be bound to read only the old collections. But the internet has literally rejuvenated the craze of story themes with online book clubs and platforms.

While reading these comic books online, you can almost delve into the character’s emotions. You can imagine the scene, whether it is fight, investigation, adventure, or romance.

While it fulfills the thirst of going through these visual pages, there are several benefits as well of reading comic books online.

• One of the major benefits is that you can review a vast collection of books on different portals, which is otherwise difficult to gather at one physical library/bookstore but is possible through such platforms and PDF search engines.
• Since the books are available online, you do not have to carry them along. Just access all of them comfortably on your digital device.
• Now, because the publisher saves the printing cost💵, most of them are ready to offer these comics editions for free or on a minimal charge.
• You do not have to go around for a specific title in stores. Just search the name on these platforms, and get them instantly.
• Many online platforms create a communicable environment with graphics in the background and chat space. The readers don’t get bored while reading.
• You can also opt for subscriptions to get notified about latest editions.
• You can also enlarge the fonts, or take screenshots of a strip, and share it as memes with your friends on Facebook, Insta, WhatsApp, and other channels.

One can also claim these online reading habits to be eco-friendly, since no trees are cut as readers get to read sans paper.

Marvel

The Timely Comics launched by Martin Goodman got popularized as Marvel after a huge response received for the famous Fantastic Four series. It is now owned by The Walt Disney Company, and is World’s most famous brand for character-based comics.

Marvel Entertainment has created famous characters like Captain America, Black Panther, Thor, Doctor Strange, Spiderman, and many others, which are featured in TV shows and Movies.

Benefits🤩:

• You can check-out the website to read more about your favorite characters like 3-D Man, Ace, Acrobat, and more than 8000 others featured in the comics.
• The Membership plan is available as seven days free trial to let the users connect with the latest launches.
• The Marvel Unlimited plan offers to read more than 30,000 comics from the selected series like Captain Marvel, Loki, and Rocket Raccoon.

The platform covers the entire list of Marvel Universe comics series, and you can sign-up to read some of its best collections as free downloads through mobile app or web-browser.

DC Universe

DC Universe popularly known as DC Comics, is a well-established name in American history for comic book publication. Some of the prominent comic series such as Batman, Wonder Woman, Cyborg, Justice League, etc. still have a large fan following.

Benefits🤩:

• The website has a vast collection of comic books, and you may also find the oldest title in their regime.
• You can easily find your choice of book based on Eras, Character, Writers, and other classifications.
• Most of the collection is free of cost, while you have to pay for the new series.

The platform is made available to a few selected countries. Therefore, many DC fans need to wait for a few more months or years to enjoy their favorite superheroes in comic strips.

ComiXology

ComiXology has a huge collection of comic books, graphic novels, and Manga, which have Japanese comic characters created in Japan. Amazon offers this online platform with more than a hundred thousand listed issues, and has recorded above 200 million comic downloads in the last decade.

Benefits🤩:

• Amazon is a popular platform that provides quick and easy access to the long list of books.
• You can also read these comics on Kindle devices along with iOS and Androids.
• The comics are available in HD format that supports 3^rd generation iPad for it Retina Display technology.

It is quite beneficial to search the comic section on the Amazon platform as it lists multiple publishers, which includes DC Comics and Marvel.

Read Comic Online

Read Comic Online is a full-fledged web portal that caters a large variety of comic books. The sectional view of designer covers will easily fetch your attention, and comic lovers would be grateful to witness the unknown creativity.

Alternatively, you can watch the TV shows, drama, and cartoons on the website or official YouTube Channel to learn more about the characters of the new comic strips.

Benefits🤩:

• Readers can quickly find their comic books from the alphabetically listed sections.
• The website also segregates the book list on the basis of genres, popularity, latest updates, and new launches.

However, readers often get irritated due to the pop-up ads on each click, or random advertisements flashing in between the pages.

Get Comics

Get Comics is an entirely free platform for comics lovers. The website focuses huge cover pages of famous comic editions by Marvel and DC Universe in separate sections. However, many more publishers are listed with hundreds of articles like Europe Comics, 200AD, Antartic Press, Dynamite, IDW, etc.

You can connect with the official page on Pinterest and other channels where they regularly update their new launches. While they are open for suggestions from the viewers through comment sections.

Benefits🤩:

• You do not have to pay a penny🪙 on this platform.
• You can review the screenshots of comics before downloading them.

You may feel distracted due to the large-screen ads. So, it is better to first close them off before reading the textual information on each page as you enter.

Global Comix

Global Comix is not just a distribution platform for online comics downloads, but here you can also sign-up to create your own personal comics series as a publisher.

They offer comics in multiple categories for free to all the readers, while you can write your own comics series and use the panel to start earning. Self-publishers get access to multiple tools, marketing insights, and teammates to form a suitable creation.

Benefits🤩:

• A categorical list of comics, graphic novels, Manga, and other types can be searched that are published from Australia, USA, Italy, France, and many other countries.
• You can sort the books on the basis of origin, theme, art style, or audience type, which publishers, small press, and creators on the platform share.

It has a clean appearance with white background, which gives a soothing visual environment to the readers.

Hoopla

Hoopla is a high-standard digital platform, and has credibly contributed in providing entertainment solutions of all sorts like CDs, DVDs, Audiobooks, Ebooks, and shelf-ready types. They are passionate about books management, and thus, additionally provide media services for public libraries.

Their comic collection varies from Manga to Kodansha, and from Joker to Big Nate. A long list of genres makes it a suitable choice for readers to find their best match.

Benefits🤩:

• The platform is available on iOS, Androids, Amazon Fire TV, and Roku on Chromecast, where you can directly download the comics.
• They claim to provide more quantity and high-quality content, which is free for all readers.

Along with comics, Audiobooks, and eBooks, you can also scroll the website for movies, TV shows, and get access to BingePasses.

GoComics

Kids love to search on GoComics web portal to get their favorite funny character’s comic books. Some of their popular characters include Garfield, Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbes, and Ziggy.

They offer free and paid memberships, where paid members can review the entire comic strip, which is published each day as a page. Free members can only read the last thirty-day archive.

Benefits🤩:

• They also provide email posting services of comic strips to the paid members.
• It is easy to check from the list of web-comics while reading through the captions in screenshots of pages.
• You can also purchase print version of comics, calendars, and books from the shop section.

The website is free of advertisements, and the comics listed are also from publishers who tend to design simple, light-colored characters, which appear sober and low profile.

Read All Comics

Read All Comics showcases its motto of delivering complete, logical, and readable content to its viewers. As you enter the home page of the website, it displays the vertical list of popular comic covers like The Transporter, The Wrong Earth, Blade Runner, etc.

Benefits🤩:

• It is a one-page site with categorical sections listed below the top bar of the page. So, you do not have to keep clicking pages to find your comics.
• You only need to open the comics link on your iOS or Android device and read the strips, which follow the full-size cover page.

They are not selling comic books, and thus, a vast range is availed for free to the users. You may also subscribe to their YouTube Channel to get videos of these strips.

Comic Online

Comic Online provides all the comic books free of cost to its viewers. The website offers daily updates on each running comic series, while users can review the past content of each book. You can directly check the latest editions in Hot, Popular, or Daily sections.

Benefits🤩:

• It is easy to find most of the world-famous comic books on this platform, as they have listed them in alphabetical order along with defining their categories.
• They provide each set of comic books published with a suitable status of complete, ongoing, or new.

Superhero comic lovers can fascinate by reading more than eleven thousand different comic book issues under the roof.

Tapas

Tapas is a specifically designed story publishing platform for South Korean comics fans. About 61000 creators have developed comic series for this platform.

The website credibly promotes stories of love and romance, although fantasies of other genres also gather a lot of attention from the viewers. They also provide the platform for new creators to publish their comic series and earn from it.

Benefits🤩:

• You will get a new and unique flavor of visual storytelling on this platform, which is quite interesting.
• More than 80% of the content on the website is dedicated to comics, while you can also enjoy other literary works novels and mature works in a comical format.
• Tapas is also available to download on Google PlayStore and Apple Store.

Their web analytics have recorded a majority of female readers aged between 18 – 24. You can also buy other stuff like t-shirts and bags from their official Merchshop.

Webtoon

Webtoon is another prominent digital comics platform developed in South Korea. It has seemingly gained popularity at global level soon after the Manhwa fans started subscribing to the page. The credit of popularizing Manhwa or South Korean comics also goes to Webtoons.

Instead of using pages to create comic strips on the digital format, they use a vertical canvas style. In this way, the comic books appear in a long flow rather than page views.

Benefits🤩:

• The vertical strip canvas system is far more appealing than the page view, and is highly functional on smartphones and tabs.
• The canvas tool is also available for new writers, who can seamlessly create their comic books and publish on the platform.
• They provide free access to all the comics to its users.

Webtoon is popular for favoring new comic creators, and offers one of the easiest earning programs through advertisements.

Comic Book

Comic Book is the primer website to provide the traditional collection of golden and silver age comic books. Their team has worked very hard to gather a bulk of retro comic titles from multiple sources, and let the viewers relive the moments of the past.

They are deeply passionate about the classical comic books and other comical texts from the fourth, fifth, or sixth decade of the twentieth century. Apart from comic books, the website also caters your old memories with Old Time Radio, British Story papers, strips, Dime Novels, Pulp Magazines, Adult Gags, Pamphlets, etc.

Benefits🤩:

• The website also holds a brief section of non-English comic books, which sufficiently includes popular tales in Hindi, French, Spanish, Mexican, Arabic, and many others.
• If your grandmother remembers an old comic character, there is a high chance you will find the name in a huge collection of 42,634 books.

Comic Book regularly adds new comic books to their collection, and it is convenient to search and read them on the platform.

My Thoughts: Reading Comic Books Online

Years, or rather decades ago, I was tuned to visit bookstores on weekends and search for the latest comic editions. And it goes without saying that we all were mischievous enough in those days to buy one and read half-page comic strips from other magazines as well.

Soon, televisions, video games, and internet connectivity made them out-dated. The publications reduced the print formats to bear the cost of low sales.

Finally, I feel great to see companies taking interest in enabling a system where readers can find their favorite comic characters. These emerging platforms also provide tools for new writers to create their own stories in comical versions and generate enthusiasm for the readers.

Next up, if you like reading about superheroes, why not try your hand at being one with these games based on superheroes.