Along with the growing movement of people who like to read comics on tablets is an equally enthusiastic group that actually wants to make their own digital comics.

Motion comic book startup Narr8 (pronounced narrate — get it??) tells VentureBeat it’s planning to release a Narr8 motion comic Editor tool that will enable those creators to bring their stories to life.

Narr8 isn’t what most U.S. comic book fans would think of when comic books come to mind. Essentially, you’re still downloading digital comics that can be read on a weekly or monthly basis, but Narr8′s approach is much different. The service is set up a lot like mobile gaming networks in the sense that it employs gamification techniques as a main part of its business strategy.

You earn currency within its platform, called Narrs, for doing things like logging in every day, reading comic books on a consistent basis, and following through on recommendations from Narr8. Right now, most motion comics on the platform are produced in-house by the startup’s 170-employee team (including 10 studios), and some of those comic books cost about 100 Narrs to read beyond the first couple of issues. You can also buy Narrs via an in-app purchase within Narr8′s mobile apps, with 100 Narrs costing 99 cents.

“The Narr8 Editor is the next big step in our business strategy, and it will greatly diversify the kinds of stories that are available (to readers),” Narr8′s Darya Trushkina said in an interview with VentureBeat.

The Narr8 Editor tool lets authors and artists arrange their stories within layers. There’s some stock artwork for people with primarily written talent and don’t know how to draw, but artists can upload their own original work into the layers to tell the story. There’s also a library of background music and sound effects that you can incorporate within your motion comic. There’s no limit on the number of pages (aka scenes or chapters), meaning creators are free to make a bible-sized graphic novel.

The tool is web-based HTML5 and will debut via Narr8′s website in mid-May, with a mobile version for iOS and Android to follow in the near future. There is an initial approval process for all comics submitted that should only take 24 hours, tentatively. Narr8 does outline things that could cause the company to deny submissions from appearing in the platform (excessive cursing, pornography, and other unsavory acts), and it doesn’t plan to offer creators detailed explanations for why something didn’t get approved.

Trushkina tells me initially Narr8′s Editor tool is intended for people who want to do things that don’t require a ton of animation — so more book than comic. Still, the tool does provide creators with a way to push their stories out to the masses and if popular enough, even make some money.

What kind of money? Well, Trushkina isn’t disclosing the share of revenue from each book, which should cost about 100 Narrs per comic episode (aka issue). But the first 1,000 downloads of each episode are free, so you’ll have to prove that your book is popular before any money actually starts accumulating.

The revenue split, Trushkina said, is still being determined. For now, she indicated that it’ll be somewhat equal to what other publisher are splitting with creators. And since Narr8 uses its own currency rather than real money, it doesn’t have to provide Apple or Google with the standard 30 percent cut for anything sold within those apps. That means potentially, there’s more room for creators to make money.

Creators also retain full rights to all stories available on Narr8 and can remove them from the platform. (Narr8′s Editor tool is made specifically for its own motion comics platform, so there’s not a ton options to host such content elsewhere without recreating it for another platform entirely.)

Founded in 2011, the Moscow, Russia-based startup has over 700,000 users and content that’s available in four different languages. Narr8 has $4 million in funding from IMI.VC Venture Company, and faces indirect competition from Madefire, ComiXology, and Emanata.

Images via Narr8

We are working with UK Trade & Investment to showcase the United Kingdom's thriving start-up and investment scene through a series of posts and video interviews at SXSW. Check out all of the coverage here. As always, VentureBeat is adamant about maintaining editorial objectivity.

Film has borrowed a lot from comics in recent years, and now it’s returning the favor.

Marvel’s new “Project Gamma” (which, sadly, has nothing to do with the Hulk — at least not directly) aims to bring a cinematic level of music to the world of comics. Using s0-called adaptive audio, each comic will be infused with a rousing soundtrack meant to immerse readers in their stories.

(“Adaptive” is an important word here because people read at very different speeds. Slapping a rigid score on digital comics wouldn’t be particularly useful.)

It’s tough to describe the project in words, and not even Marvel’s promotional video (embedded below) does all that great of a job explaining it. Basically, the thing sounds like it will do to audio what Marvel’s motion comics did to visuals: make the reading experience more immersive and cinematic. (Although, I doubt this is something most comic readers are hankering for.)

Marvel hasn’t cleared up the big logistical questions yet, such as whether this a new platform or plugs into Marvel’s existing apps. Nor is the company saying when, exactly, the first Project Gamma comics will be available. In any case, expect to hear more from Marvel about the effort in the coming months.

We are working with UK Trade & Investment to showcase the United Kingdom's thriving start-up and investment scene through a series of posts and video interviews at SXSW. Check out all of the coverage here. As always, VentureBeat is adamant about maintaining editorial objectivity.

As part Comixology’s effort to raise awareness about the creator-owned digital comics via Comixology Submit, the startup has teamed up with indie fan favorite artist Shannon Wheeler to illustrate the insanity that is SXSW.

A former Austin, Texas, resident, Wheeler is perhaps best known for independent comic book Too Much Coffee Man, but he has also gained attention for his work as a cartoonist for The New Yorker. (Also his comics are rad.)

Comixology has shared the first three digital web comics about this week’s SXSW Interactive exclusively with VentureBeat, and I must say they are both pretty accurate. (Especially the top one, which I’m fighting with right now.)

Check back soon for a few more comics from Wheeler.

Combining peanut butter and chocolate is as powerful a match as digital comic books and the iPad  — especially when those comics are made by Marvel.

For years, early adopters of Marvel Comics’ “unlimited” digital comic book service on the web have been clamoring for the company to add support for the iPad, and today those fanboys are finally getting their wish.

The unlimited comics service first launched in 2007 with a modest 2,500 comic books that readers could access online via a Flash application. Currently, the service has over 13,000 comics available via a HTML5 web app (as well as the new iOS app) and costs consumers $10 per month, or $60 per year. But if you’re hoping to get any of the newer content that’s been published recently, you’re out of luck, as Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited (now officially called Marvel Unlimited) is primarily made up of classic stories from the company’s early days as well as a bunch of stuff that’s just worth checking out. And if you’re worried about burning through thousands of digital books, rest assured that Marvel does add new content on a regular basis.

After playing around with it for a bit on my iPad, I can definitely tell that there’s a big difference in quality when compared with Marvel’s official comic store app that’s powered by ComiXology. The Marvel Unlimited app is very bare bones and resembles much of what you’d expect to find on the web app.

There is no “guided view” feature (which zooms in one panel at a time), and because everything is streaming, pages are sometimes slower to load than what you’re probably used to on the official Marvel Store app, and sometimes I had to reselect on some books after getting an error message. Initially, pages were popping up fine, but I’m assuming everyone else is also trying to pull the same content on, which is keeping me in perpetual loading.

And while I do think Comixology’s comic image pages are higher quality, it wasn’t that big of a deal to me. I probably wouldn’t have even thought about it if I was casually reading. But honestly, this isn’t meant to be a premium product and its a bit unfair to compare it to more sophisticated applications for mobile devices.

Right now, Marvel is offering a selection of free comics through the app to give you an idea of what it can do. Those that already have a paid subscription do get access to additional features, like the ability to download comics to your device for offline viewing (which also fixes the slight delay when turning pages.) One big set back to this is that you’re restricted to saving six issues to your device at a time. I’d imagine this will increase as Marvel developers get their barrings and realize how people are using the service on a touch screen.

The new Marvel Unlimited iOS app should be available in Apple’s App Store for free across all Apple devices now. For a closer look check out some screenshots embedded below.

If you read digital comics, the chances are pretty great that you prefer to do so on a particular device. For me its the iPad, and I rarely bother with anything else, even if I want to. But with the latest update to the ComiXology platform, that may change.

The digital comic book startup is rolling out a new feature, called Continue, that will remember the place you left off when reading a comic, and allow you to pick back up in the same spot on another device. This is probably not too big of a deal for the regular 22-page comic, but it could be very useful for graphic novels.

Personally, the Continue feature would mean I’d actually start reading comics on my iPhone again, because it changes the whole process. To read a comic on my phone that I started on my iPad meant that I had to re-download the book to my device again, and sift through the pages until I found my place. And if I’m reading comics on my phone, it means I have a limited amount of time that I don’t want to spend staring at a download and re-reading pages.

It’s true that the continuous bookmarking may seem like a small feature, but its little elements like this that make ComiXology’s reading experience better than its competitors. (Seriously, reading a comic on iBooks or Kindle feels so rigid by comparison because it lacks things like the panel-by-panel Guided View feature.) Hopefully, we’ll see more little additions in the future, such as annotations, and being able to view comics without having to download them.

The Continue feature is available today across ComiXology app on all platforms (Windows 8, iOS, Android, Kindle Fire, etc.). I’m unsure if it will also be available within comic book publisher apps that are powered by ComiXology, such as Marvel, Image, DC comics, and IDW. The company has also added more social features to its apps that let you share something on Facebook and Twitter in the middle of a book.

With New York Comic-Con in full swing this weekend, undoubtedly lots of comic book fans are anxious to show off their own self-published work. But they have only a few digital publishing options in which to do so.

However, digital comic book reader Emanata yesterday rolled out a new store within its iPad app, which allows independent creators to sell their work. The move comes just as digital comics industry leader ComiXology announced its own plans to begin selling self-published work in its store.

Emanata started out as an iPad publishing platform from Churn Labs, created by two former AdMob employees, George Chen and Ehren Kret. The app’s first step was to build a solid application for reading visual storytelling, and the second was to provide a solution to the large number of independent and aspiring comic book creators who were limited to selling a small number of printed comics at local shops and conventions.

“We wanted to create something we would use ourselves,” Chen told VentureBeat. “In this case, we want Emanata to bring us all sort of unexpected new artists, and comics everyday.”

As for the app itself, it’s a free application that requires users to sign up for an account in order to make purchases. The store, which is the first thing you see after launching the app, is set up like a continuous horizontal comic book page. Each panel represents a different book, with the title appearing on top and the price in the lower right-hand corner. It’s difficult to distinguish any kind of order, and the concept of letting the cover sell the issue is completely lost.

Clicking on one of the panels in the store brings up the first three pages of the comic. When trying to scroll to the fourth page, a notification pops up with the pricing. The reader is also very smooth, but it lacks a ComiXology Guided View-like optimization that zooms in on each panel separately. But this wasn’t an issue for the comics I sampled because the panels were all pretty large.

Emanata’s strategy for profitability is different from ComiXology, which focuses on mainstream comics with a side of quality-screened, self-published work. Essentially, the two digital comics stores should be able to co-exist, assuming creators make the effort to put their work on Emanata, and comic fans then buy that work.

Founded in 2012, the San Mateo, Calif.-based startup has seed funding from AdMob founder Omar Hamoui and Sequoia Capital.

Ya know that beautifully drawn zombie comic you and your friends created that’s like, so much better than The Walking Dead, but failed to sell a single issue at the local comic book shop? How about your finished ‘steampunk Ghostbusters’ comic that never made its way to the printer? Well, ComiXology might be able to help.

Today, the digital comic book startup is launching ComiXology Submit, a submission portal for comic book creators who want to sell their self-published work in ComiXology’s digital store. If successful, the Submit portal could usher in a brand new age of renaissance for comics and graphic fiction.

ComiXology is the largest seller of single-issue digital comics across several devices (iOS, Android, and web browsers), and the only retailer that sells single-issue comics from the two largest publishers, Marvel and DC. Nearly every other notable comic publisher (IDW, Image, BOOM! Studios) also sells its books through ComiXology, which makes it the only real digital equivalent of a neighborhood comic shop. So, for self-published comics that otherwise aren’t getting any attention (let alone making money), the new Submit portal is a chance to get put on the same digital shelf as Spider-Man, Batman, and The Walking Dead.

“Every time we speak at one of the big comic conventions, the first question asked by fans is when we’ll start accepting submissions. It’s crazy,” said ComiXology CEO David Steinberger in an exclusive interview with VentureBeat. Steinberger and others within the company will be on hand to answer questions about the new submission portal at a New York Comic-Con panel later today.

And while there was plenty of interest from people wanting to submit content, it took the company a few years to figure out how to make money off of self-published submissions.

ComiXology Submit, which is launching initially as an invite-only beta, is pretty broad in terms of what creators can submit. A traditional comic has about 22-pages and retails between $3 to $4, but that doesn’t mean submissions need to adhere to those standards. Submissions can be color or black and white, and range from eight-page shorts all the way up to hundred-page graphic novels.

Steinberger said the number one thing the company is looking for is print-quality work that comic fans will buy.

“I don’t really see it as our job to police the kind of content, but it is our job to police the quality of the experience,” Steinberger said. “So, it is important that these self-published books stand up to what’s already in the store… but the policies for reviewing submissions is not at all heavy-handed.”

In other words, submissions should be both entertaining and appealing to consumers’ wallets.

Steinberger said the company has a small team of reviewers in place, each of whom are well versed in independent comics. The company plans on notifying creators about the status of their submissions soon after they’ve been reviewed. Eventually the company would like to provide some form of feedback for submissions that didn’t get approved for sale in the store, and what they might do differently in the future. I’m guessing this is closer to Apple’s App Store approval process and less like editorial oversight.

Creators that do have approved submissions can set the price of their comics, beginning at 99-cents, but cannot offer their work for free at this time. Creators can also continue selling their comics via other digital retail stores.

In terms of money, ComiXology will take a 50 percent cut of revenue on each comic purchase, after platform fees. (For instance, Apple takes 30 percent of all sales made through the App Store, leaving 35 percent each for ComiXology and the book’s creator.) ComiXology isn’t charging creators a fee to optimize their work with its Guided View technology, which automatically zooms portions of a comic page when readers tap the screen.

The first batch of self-published books should hit the ComiXology store in about eight weeks, according to Steinberger. The ComiXology Submit portal is tentatively scheduled to open up to all creators in early 2013.

Why self-published comics are the next logical step

ComiXology generated over $19 million in revenue last year, which is an estimated 76 percent of all digital comic sales in 2011, according to comic book business news site ICv2. ComiXology is also consistently among the top grossing iOS apps, due in part to the release of new comics every Wednesday. Nearly 100 million digital comics and graphic novels have been download from the ComiXology platform since launching in 2009 — 45 million of which were downloaded in the last five months alone. The company also has very few direct competitors thanks to exclusive sales agreements with Marvel and DC, not to mention that a white label version of its digital comics platform is used by many of the major publishers.

Obviously, the company has cornered the digital comic book market and proven its viability as a business. But after publishers (Marvel, Image, DC, etc.) and app platforms (Apple, Amazon, Google) get their cut of consumer sales, it leaves little room for long-term revenue growth.

The company has, however, created a few ways to boost revenue. The first is by enticing the bigger publishers to produce comic series that appear only on as digital comics through ComiXology. DC Comics, for instance, created a handful of “digital first” series, while Marvel introduced its “Infinite Comics,” which leverage the Guided View technology for storytelling. ComiXology also managed to sign a deal with Monkey Brain Comics, a strictly digital publisher that launched exclusively this summer on ComiXology. But the other bit thing the company is doing to ensure continued growth is it’s self-published comic portal.

The more comics in ComiXology’s library, the better chance it has of increasing revenue. And since all the major print publishers (excluding Star Wars and Buffy comic book publisher Dark Horse) already have partnerships with ComiXology, the next logical step for increasing content is by selling those self-published comics.

Steinberger doubts that the ComiXology Submit portal will steal creators away from its larger publishing partners. Instead, he thinks it might have the opposite effect, unearthing new creators that eventually end up working for Marvel, DC, Image, and others.

“I’m a firm believer that publishers bring a lot to the table, and it takes a very specific kind of creator to write, draw, color, and edit every comic on a consistent basis,” Steinberger said. “And now those creators have a chance to sell their books through ComiXology.”

Apparition Abolishers art via Adam Baker

Madefire, a startup focused on bringing digital comic books to a new level of storytelling, released a new iPhone app today, along with some free comics from top-notch creators.

The company, which has a slew of notable investors and advisers, produces a free software platform for comics. It allows comic book creators to tell stories that unfold through layers of art, word balloons, and captions that unfold in sequence. It’s sort of like reading a book that slowly fills a blank page with text as you read each word, but in comic book form.

Madefire’s platform also lets creators add sound effects and images that move using the device’s accelerometer. The company initially released an iPad app featuring a handful of original digital comics created exclusively from the Madefire platform, as VentureBeat previously reported. Now it’s coming to the smaller screen of the iPhone.

“You’d be stunned to find how good an experience reading (a Madefire comic) is on a smaller screen,” said Madefire co-founder Ben Wolstenholme in an interview with VentureBeat.

The difference between creating a story for a 10-inch screen and a 3.5-inch or 4-inch screen seems like it would be a challenge, especially with all the additional story elements available (sound, movement, sequential panels). Yet Wolstenholme told me that the Madefire platform allows creators to scale pages to multiple sizes, as well as re-size word balloons, captions, and fonts, to ensure that all the text remains legible. There’s also more focus on letting each panel and sequence fill the screen, which is understandable due to the reduced screen real estate.

Madefire is still offering its original digital comics, including works from Watchmen co-creator Dave Gibbons, for free, while it works on refining the storytelling technology. Eventually, the startup plans on charging for new issues at a price that’s determined by the original creator.

Founded in 2012, Madefire has raised a total of $2 million in funding to date from True Ventures and others. The startup has an all-star lineup of advisers, including Flipboard founder and CEO Mike McCue, former Apple SVP of Applications Sina Tamaddon,  Automattic CEO Toni Schneider, and others.

The new Madefire iPhone app is available for free in Apple’s app store, and aspiring creators can download the storytelling software (also free) via Madefire’s website. For a better look at the new iPhone app, check out the company’s demo video embedded below.

Photo via Madefire

Remember that Steve Jobs comic book? Welp, we got more where that came from.

Bluewater Productions, the team behind Steve Jobs: Co-founder of Apple has just sent us word about a new trio of graphic novels about tech founders. Think of it as fanfic with (probably) less S&M.

The new titles cover the thrilling coming-of-wealth-and-power stories of Bill Gates, Microsoft’s co-founder, and Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who cooked up Google in their spare time lo these many years ago. Also coming out at the end of the year is a graphic novel about Jack Dorsey and his role in Twitter’s founding and early years.

The publisher’s comic book on Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg sold out last year and is being re-released this summer as a graphic novel, as well.

While the more jaded among us might snicker at the likes of super-serious Dorsey et al. being caricatured in a comic, the biographies are actually drawn from fact and can be instructive for younger readers in particular.

In addition to its meta-nerdery on tech founders, Bluewater also works with folks like William Shatner of Star Trek fame and Vincent Price, a reference all the older goths out there should appreciate.

Bill Gates: The Co-Founder of Microsoft will run you $5.99 for a Kindle version or $7.99 for a hard copy; pricing is the same for “Google” Boys: a Biography.

Here’s a gallery of all five covers and some interior spreads.

Marvel Entertainment, the company that brings you Spider-Man, X-Men, and The Avengers, has signed a new deal to exclusively sell single issue digital comics through Comixology.

What does that mean for comic fans? Well, a great deal of people already use Comixology to buy digital comics, as VentureBeat previously pointed out in our guide to digital comics. But the new deal with Marvel means the few people who weren’t already using the service will probably start. Comixology currently has a similar deal to sell exclusive single issue comics with DC, the industry’s second largest publisher accounting for nearly half of all comic sales.

Now nyone who wants to buy a digital comic book from Marvel or DC must use either Comixology’s line of mobile apps (iOS, Android, Kindle Fire) or go through the publisher’s own digital store. The deal with Marvel is for multiple years, and does not include sales of graphic novels, which have traditionally been treated more like regular books in the digital space.

The two companies also announced that the “free digital copy” Marvel has been offering on some of its physical issue comics will now be available on Comixology. Essentially, Marvel places a code inside the physical copy that can be redeemed through Marvel’s website. You have to have either a Marvel Comics or Comixology account to activate the free digital copy, but it’s exactly the same download you’d get when paying for the digital copy alone. I noticed that this functionality was enabled about a month ago, but apparently the company is just now making an official announcement.

With this new agreement Comixology is in a pretty good spot. The company’s iOS apps are routinely topping the list of highest grossing in-app purchases, with 65 million total issues downloaded since launching. Compared to the same quarter in 2010, that’s a 450 percent increase, the startup confirmed to me. And in March, Comixology added Nerdist’s Peter Levin to its board of advisers.

Image courtesy of Marvel Entertainment

I have about 16 long boxes filled with comic books that are trapped with in plastic covered sleeves that haven’t been touched in well over five years now. Every time I move, I contemplate selling them off or donating them to an organization that wouldn’t just throw them away. I no longer even use the custom comic book boxes, nor do I protect them in shiny plastic with cardboard backings. I do, however, enjoy reading comics, which is why I’ve never been able to give them up. So, the thought of getting my comic books digitally was very appealing to me.

After talking to countless people who are unsure where to start, I’ve created a guide of sorts to help navigate through the new world of digital comics.

Devices you can read digital comics on

If you have a computer with a web browser and a working Internet connection, you can read digital comics. However, it’s not the best experience since you’re facing the screen rather than looking down like you would with a traditional printed comic.

There are plenty of options available on smartphones running iOS and Android, but be warned that you’ll likely be reading panel-by-panel due to the smaller screen size.

The best tool for enjoying a digital comic is a tablet. The larger 10-inch tablets, like the iPad (starting at $399) and Motorola Xoom ($499), offer the best possible experience because their screens are comparable with the dimensions of a regular comic book (see side-by-side comparison photo above). This option is also the most costly, but if you’re serious about trading in dozens of heavy comic boxes for a single device, it’s a good investment.

A second tablet option is the 7-inch Android-based tablet, which is less than half the cost in most cases. The two that stand out the most are Amazon’s Kindle Fire ($199) and Barnes & Noble’s Nook Tablet ($199). The downside is that you’ll have to do far more pinching and zooming to read the text within the word balloons.

Where to buy digital comics

It is a good idea to try all of the possible platforms out before unloading a lot of cash, because if you decide to switch to a new service, you typically won’t be able to take all your purchases with you.

Direct from the publisher
The most visible choice for buying digital comics is by going through the publishers, which have their own set of online stores via official websites or mobile apps for both Android and iOS. Unlike music and movies, when you buy a comic in this way, you’re often times only buying access to that media. It exists in the cloud.

To go this route, you’ll need to sign up for an account for each publisher, then pay for the product. In most cases, you’ll have access to all your purchases from a particular publisher in all of their official platforms/apps. For instance, if you buy Spider-Man issue #489 in the iPhone, you should be able to read it on the iPad later, provided you sign in with the same account.

If you want to collect all the digital comic book purchases you’ve made from multiple publishers (DC, Dark Horse, etc.) into a single location, your options are quite limited.

Comixology and other Comic Book specific platforms
One option for reading all your comics in a single place is Comixology, which has the widest selection of titles from the majority of the industry’s big publishers. It’s also the only place that offers both DC and Marvel comics in the same store. If you’re serious about making the transition to consuming comics digitally, you definitely need to check out Comixology before anything else, if only for the sheer variety of content available.

You can purchase comics from Comixology through its web store as well as its official applications for iOS and Android. Like with the official publishers apps, the books can’t be transferred off the device and will primarily exist only in officially supported Comixology platforms.

If you’ve only ever casually browsed digital comic book apps over the past year or so, chances are good that you’ve used Comixology’s store. The company is responsible for powering many of the most popular comic book publishers’ iOS digital storefronts, including DC Comics, Marvel, Top Shelf, Image Comics, Boom! Studios, Zenescope, and Dynamite Entertainment. Its technology is also used to power a handful of popular comic book “branded” apps, such as Scott Pilgrim, The Walking Dead, Bone, and the Green Hornet.

If you buy a comic through one of these specially branded app stores, or one of the Comixology-powered publisher apps, it’ll show up within the main Comixology app, and vice versa. But, not all publishers use Comixology to help sync up purchases. For instance, Dark Horse, publisher of Star Wars and Buffy the Vampire Slayer comics, makes many of its book available through Comixology, yet maintains its own independent application. If you make a purchase using Dark Horse’s digital store, you have to read it within the official Dark Horse apps. The same is true about syncing in other online third-party digital comic shops such as Panelfly and iVerse.

Apple’s iBooks
Previously, the selection of graphic fiction on Apple’s iBooks store (which works on all iOS devices but not Macs) was limited to a handful of titles that you couldn’t easily find due to the lack of a proper category. However, since Marvel’s introduction that seems to have changed. There is a now an official category featuring over 1,500 graphic novels that you can sort via a featured home screen or release date. Pricing is lower than traditional retail stores and comparable to discounted physical graphic novels on Amazon. To view the graphic novels you’ll need iBooks 1.2 and iOS 4.2 or later on your mobile device.

Amazon’s Kindle Store and Barnes & Noble’s Nook Store
Both Amazon’s Kindle store and Barnes & Noble’s Nook store have a wide variety of books from the major publishers. It’s also worth noting that you aren’t limited to reading your comics on either a Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet.  If you decided to buy an iPad, you can access both of these stores via their respective iOS apps to read whatever you’ve bought.

Diamond Distributors, iVerse, and not giving up your physical comic books
The new player in the digital comics platform front is iVerse’s new digital comic app store, which is partnering with the industry’s biggest distributor of physical comic books, Diamond. The iVerse apps for iOS and Android will work in conjunction with Diamond’s initiative to empower retailers to sell digital comics both in-store and online. Customers will be able to shop through thousands of digital comics any time of day on retailer websites, or to purchase digital codes along with their print comics when they visit their local comic shop.

Marvel is ramping up a similar physical/digital offer. When you buy one of the printed comics, you’ll received a code you can enter at Marvel’s website to obtain the digital version for free. I tested this out with Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley’s new Avengers Assemble series, and was able to view the digital version on Marvel’s official apps as well as Comixology.

Pricing and release schedule

Most publishers are finally coming around to the idea of releasing digital copies of comic books on the same day they hit retail shelves. However, if you’re looking for a deal, you may not necessarily find it. While Marvel is giving away free versions of its digital comics to those who buy the print version, it also offers those same digital copies for sale at the same exact price. DC’s digital/print combo usually costs about a dollar more, but the company does discount its digital copies a month after the book is released. Other smaller publishers vary in terms of price, but I’ve found that most offer the digital version for a bit less.

It’s also worth noting that most of the digital comic shops/apps offer generous one-day sales that slash prices to 99-cents on select books.

Converting your existing comic collection

Comic Zeal for iPad

If you’re considering converting your existing collection of printed comics into digital form, please note that this will require lots of time, effort, and energy with mixed results. For the sake of this article, I attempted to convert one of my own comics by carefully tearing out each page and then scanning them onto my computer. I found that sometimes the other side of the page would bleed through to show the other side, which was frustrating. Also, once I got the 22-page book uploaded, I had to convert it into a suitable size and format so that it could be used across all my devices.

If you’re reading on a desktop computer, you can leave the file as a PDF (I chose to use universal image app Xee for Mac OS X). If you plan to upload your comic to a tablet or smartphone, you’ll need to do a few things.

First, you’ll need to convert the digitally scanned version of the comic into a .CBR or .CBI file. Not only will this reduce the overall file size without sacrificing the image quality, but it’ll also make it compatible with most independent comic book viewer apps. And second, you’ll need a comic viewing app.

Depending on your device, there are a couple of different apps I would recommend. For iOS, I’d suggest using Comic Zeal ($4.99), which has a ton of customizable options and a companion app for your desktop that allows you to wirelessly upload files to your device. For devices running Android, I’d try Perfect Viewer (free) and anyone with a TouchPad should check out Comic Shelf HD ($1.99).

Final word

As print prices continue to rise, more and more publishers will start looking for refuge in digital publishing. The digital comic book industry is booming like never before, bringing in $25 million in sales for 2011, which is triple the amount from 2010. There are likely a few reasons for this upward trend, the biggest being the rise of the tablet computer, the desire by many long-time comic book fans to cure boredom, or the repulsiveness to enter into a modern brick-and-mortar comic shop after watching Kevin Smith’s Comic Book Men reality TV show on AMC.

Whatever the reason may be, more people are getting their comics digitally. It’s nice that the comic book industry is starting now rather than waiting until prices are so unbelievably high that people disregard their moral compass (a.k.a. pirating comics illegally). I think eventually, everyone who produces comic books via a cloud service (which is pretty much every notable publisher at this point) will need to settle on open standards that allows comic fans to take their collections with them regardless of service.

Since this has yet to happen, the best solution for now is to purchase comics through publishers’ Comixology-powered digital stores. A company like Marvel or DC isn’t going to allow the record of everything you’ve purchased to suddenly disappear, because such a move would most definitely justify acts of piracy and unadulterated rage from angry fanboys and fangirls.

The system isn’t perfect yet, but the outlook for digital comic books is bright and will only get better going forward.

While technology has certainly made it easier for people to self-publish comic books or graphic novels, the same isn’t true when it comes to digital distribution — or getting self-published “indie” comic books into multiple online stores so people can buy them.

The lack of affordable distribution options for self-published comic books makes it difficult for creators to turn their work into a business. But with over 300,000 self-published creators expected to begin selling their own comic books and graphic novels in 2012, digital comic book startup Graphicly sees a huge opportunity for growth.

In addition to Graphicly’s web and Facebook distribution channels, the company recently opened up its platform for self-published comic book creators to sell their work across several different digital bookstores, including Apple’s iBookstore, Amazon’s Kindle store, the Android Market, Barnes & Noble, and others. Creators pay an initial “conversion fee” for each comic book they want to distribute, and retain most or all of the revenue depending on the distribution channel. Sales made through Graphicly’s online store or integrated Facebook store are free, but sales through channels like the iBookstore still incur a revenue sharing fee.

Considering the extremely high costs associated with making a single self-published comic book series available across all of the aforementioned stores/platforms, Graphicly’s “distribution as a service” model makes perfect sense for most self-publishers. The company estimates that it can implement a new comic book into all the appropriate distribution channels a week after receiving a PDF file of the book itself.

Self-published comic book creators also gain access to a useful set of analytics tools, which measure things like the average length of time people read a book, number of total readers, what platform people are using, social activity, and much more. This kind of information will definitely be useful to self-publishers with limited resources for marketing and promotion. And since the analytics tools measure a customer’s behavior, it could drastically change the way stories are told, according to Graphicly CEO Micah Baldwin.

“From our initial testing with the analytics tools we discovered that most people read an average of 3 to 4 minutes for each full length comic book before putting it down,” Baldwin said in an interview with VentureBeat.

Having been a serious comic book reader for decades, I determined that this length of time is roughly about how long people need something to read while sitting on the toilet. And while Baldwin jokingly agreed, he went on to explain how future creators might want to publish a new issue after three or four pages rather than the currently industry standard of 22-pages per monthly comic book.

“The only reason 22-pages is the standard length of a comic book is because most artists can typically finish drawing one page per day… So, 22 pages spread out over the entire month, they would have enough time to finish the whole issue,” he said.

For example, if a self-published comic book creator determined that people only read five pages at a time based on Graphicly’s analytics, it might change the frequency of distribution. That in turn might improve reader engagement, which could impact sales.

Why Graphicly’s self-publishing model will disrupt the comic book industry

Previously, Graphicly concentrated on its own distribution channel for a handful of major comic book publishers like Image, Marvel and IDW, as well as a variety of smaller and creator-owned publishers. The distribution channel can be integrated within a Facebook company page or official website, which gives it an advantage over competitors like comiXology because it combines the marketing efforts of publishers with Graphicly’s own promotional efforts. Graphicly generates revenue by taking a cut from each comic book sale, much in the same way that both Apple and Amazon do with their respective digital book stores.

The inherent problem with this strategy is that people inevitably favor the platform with the most “complete” collection of media in its library, which often contains exclusive content unavailable to competitors. For example, Netflix has the largest library of streaming video content and the most streaming video subscribers. As for digital comic books, comiXology has the largest selection of content from all the major publishers and likely the highest base of customers among digital comic book distribution channels. While Graphicly has more content available by a much larger number of publishers, it still lacks inventory from DC Comics, which brings in the majority of all comic book sales (digital and print). And since digital purchases are only stored within each individual distributor’s platform, its likely that people will end up choosing the platform with the most complete selection of content available for purchase.

Rather than solely compete with comiXology or others like it, Graphicly decided to tweak its business model. The startup will continue offering popular comic books within its own distribution channel for publishers with a high volume of sales and taking a percentage of the revenue. But now, smaller publishers and self-published creators will pay a base fee for each comic book ($150 per book) they want to distribute through Graphicly and keep all the revenue.

“The beauty of this model is that we don’t need DC Comics to succeed,” Baldwin said. “Hopefully, DC and other big publishers will eventually see the value of Graphicly’s distribution and analytics,” which will bring them on board, he added.

Essentially, if you can generate at least $150 in sales from your self-published comic book, you are earning a return — excluding any other operating costs. And since the Graphicly platform makes the book available on all major digital bookstores it improves the possibility for higher sales. Compared to printing costs, the “conversion fee” is also a cheaper means of distribution — making it possible for more independent creators to publish books. (It’s worth noting that Baldwin said the $150 fee is “beta pricing” and will likely change to better fit the needs of each small publisher as the platform gains steam.)

The new publishing platform is available to current Graphicly publishers, with a full roll out coming in the next few weeks.

The Boulder, Colorado-based startup closed a $3 million funding round in January 2011 led by DFJ Mercury, with participation from 500 Startups, Dundee VC, Ludlow Ventures, and individual angel investors. The company was incubated by TechStars and previously raised $1.2 million from DFJ Mercury and others. It has 20 employees and has raised a total $4.2 million to date.

Operation Ajax is a bold retelling of the book “All the Shah’s Men,” which recounts the CIA-led Iranian coup d’etat of 1953, that deposed  Mohammad Mossadegh, the elected leader, and ushered in the regime of the brutal Mohammad Reza Shah, who was largely seen to be a puppet of the U.S.

Ajax was built from the ground up by Cognito Comics to take full advantage of the iPad as a new and exciting tool for storytelling. To mimic the experience of reading a comic book or graphic novel on the page, all panels are rendered in portrait format, and the story blends the best of print and digital publishing, with arresting visuals, in-panel animation and sound effects. The ominous, haunting images are works of art by themselves, and the iPad as a platform makes possible the inclusion of historical news reels and rare, declassified documents that further augment the story.

Having played with the app myself, it’s not an exaggeration to say that Operation  gives a glimpse of what the tablet can do to transform the reading experience. It’s akin to watching a movie, where you can pause the action at any time to gape at the scenery.

The whole process of creating Operation Ajax took about four years, Cognito Comics’ Ash Aiwase told VentureBeat. Aiwase gives due credit to Cognito’s angel investors and their long term vision, which helped Cognito to get through the many stages of the final product launch. Originally Ajax was conceived as a graphic novel in print, says Aiwase, but this was before  the iPad was announced in 2010. With the prospect of interactivity, and storytelling innovation, the idea morphed into something that fully utilizes the iPad’s bright screen and powerful image processors.

“Using the platform we used, the only thing limiting us with Ajax was time and scope,” says Aiwase. “Put it this way, we didn’t run up on our technology limits doing Ajax. There’s still a lot of ways we can put together comics stories that include elements that people just don’t see right now, and that’s very exciting.”

While the graphic novel is free for the next two weeks, it will cost $7.99 afterwards, which is very cost competitive with other forms of print media and premium digital content. Aiwase says that for the same $7.99, a comic fan gets about 40 pages of a comic book at today’s prices. DC Comics this week announced that its series Batman Beyond will be available as a download first, and in print second, indicating the comics industry is also starting to tap into the iPad as a distribution mechanism.

But Cognito’s mission isn’t just to replicate the comics industry on the iPad, the broader vision is to reinvent storytelling for the digital age. While Aiwase wouldn’t comment, Cognito is hard at work on a new story about a pint-sized monster slayer, which will take full advantage of their experience with Ajax, and continue to push the boundaries of storytelling.

“One of our missions is to tell stories in innovative ways, and this is just the first step,” says Aiwase, “This is just getting out into the marketplace.”

The major startups in digital comics, ComiXology and Graphic.ly, have focused their energies on making deals with publishers to transfer existing comics to the iPad or other devices. Operation Ajax, on the other hand, was created with the iPad in mind, avoiding some of the issues that come with transferring from print (the iPad screen is slightly smaller than a standard comic book page, for starters), and also making the supplementary material that can’t be delivered in print a natural extension of the experience.

In this case, the comic in question is based on Stephen Kinzer’s nonfiction book All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror, which recounts the 1953 coup in Iran. Cognito gives the story dramatic shape by telling it through the eyes of a fictional CIA operative, but the company says it worked with Kinzer to make sure that the underlying facts are correct.

Operation Ajax is a comic, but it features lots of animation to move readers from panel to panel and page to page. Like I said, it’s an impressive experience, but it’s not a perfect one — it can be hard to figure out exactly when each animation is over and it’s time to turn the page. Readers can also tap on drawings to see extra material like character biographies and photos of real-life locations. They can refer to all that material later on through folders that they can access from anywhere in the story.

The Operation Ajax app is free (download it here) and includes the prologue for the story. After that, each chapter (which is about the length of a normal comic book) will cost $2.99, and Cognito plans to release a new chapter each month (or slightly more frequently).

Tall Chair, meanwhile, built the underlying platform and says that it could be used to create iPad-centric content beyond the political comics that Cognito is interested in — but we’ll have to wait for an announcement sometime early next year to hear the details.

Cognito and Tall Chair are both based in San Francisco.