Adding to the options of reading digital comics, I had the chance to talk and look behind the scenes of GlobalComix.
As people are looking for ways to read and publish digital comics there are some new players to the scene.
In this case, it is GlobalComix, which has some unique selling points for both readers and publishers of digital comics.
For readers first.
Global Comix has a large selection of comics available.
The search method seems pretty robust, where you can search for age ranges (kids, teenagers & adults) and then there is the theme search, with everything from aliens to food to school. This helps you thin down what you are looking for. In addition to these, you can also search by the art style, the time/era the comic is set in, even the country of origin. So, for example, if you are a fan of French style comics, you can find them here.
As well as searching publishers and creators, you can search for paid and free comics. This takes onto how you pay for comics.
Instead of buying a comic, you pay for credits. These credits allow you to read pages of the comics. Some comics on the platform may be totally free, or the first few pages may be free (similar to a preview). Each credit is the same as one page of a comic. This may come in useful if you aren’t enjoying a comic, in other cases you would feel that you have to continue as you have paid for a whole comics, but here you can cut your losses.
On GlobalComix, there is a mix between comics that are free to read and comics that require payment to access. To access the paid comics, you need to have available page credits on your account. You are then charged one page credit per page of a paid comic that you read. This translates to a price of roughly $0.05 per page read.
Once you have used a credit on a page, you can re-read the comic as much as you want at no further cost.
I feel the cost of the credit packages is reasonable. 100 credits costs $4.99, which is 100 pages, which is one to two graphic novels. The best value is 350 credits for $15.49.
GlobalComix also offers a gold subscription which allows you:
- Unlimited access to all comics, graphic novels, and manga.
- Support creators – your fee is only split between owners of titles you read.
- Stand out with a golden frame around your account avatar sitewide.
This works out at $7.99 a month.
I think this works out as excellent value, and if you search through the titles, you can see some titles I have covered here recently including Wall Breakers and Abyssal Albion.
For publishers, the process seems incredibly simple.
The upload process allows image files (.jpg, .png), or any archive container formats such as PDF (.pdf), or ZIP (.zip, .cbz) with one or multiple pages/files.
You can add as much detail as you want, and there is the options to add suggestions to the team if you think that your comic would be better served under a different category or country.
As well as the ease of uploading, GlobalComix also has an interactive reading mode, where you can set the panels for ease of reading online.
Once you are uploaded you are good to go. You can set your pricing and what pages (if any are free) GlobalComix takes a 25% share of the monies spent, and the rest goes to the publisher.
One aspect that makes GlobalComix unique is the addition of crowdfunding. If your comic is currently being crowdfunded or has been successfully funded, you can link it to your comic on GlobalComix. You can also search for successful comics or ones that are currently live. This allows you to support the creators in different ways.
Hopefully some apps will be on their way soon for more reading options.