First cross-platform comics app gets official launch at Comic-Con

Graphic.ly, a digital comics media platform, announced on July 23 at San Diego's Comic-Con that it now offers the first comics application available on smartphones, tablets, PCs, and desktops. The development separates Graphic.ly from other distributors, such as leader comiXology, which focus their efforts on Apple devices.

Graphic.ly's online store currently carries about 600 titles, including comics from Marvel, Archaia (with which it has an exclusive relationship), Arcana, Archie, BOOM! Studios, IDW Publishing, and TopCow. The company offers exclusive bonus content, similar to the extras offered on DVDs, allowing readers to see individual art layers and comments from creators including star of TV show Heroes Milo Ventimiglia and BOOM! Studios' Mark Waid. A social media component allows users to follow other readers and to comment on pages and panels.

The Graphic.ly app is available for iPhone, iPod Touch, Mac, and Windows, including Windows 7 laptops, desktops, and portables, as well as for the iPad, in an advanced app that takes advantage of the iPad's zoom features. Android and web apps are also planned for launch within the year, and forthcoming smartphones and tablet computers will also be supported.

Other competing digital comics distributors - including iVerse, Panelfly, and leader comiXology, which hosts more than 2000 comics from 40 publishers and has an exclusive deal with DC Comics - are available only for Apple devices and through web readers. In tailoring his platform to a wider range of devices, Graphic.ly CEO Micah Baldwin says he hopes to bring digital comics to a broader audience. He has said he hopes that DC Comics and other publishers will offer their titles through multiple digital distributors and advocates a standard format - such as the MP3 for music - that would work across all devices and applications, steering away from the Apple-focused app.

http://www.graphic.ly

Watch a short documentary on Graphic.ly:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE0Fyio0Kv4

www.comic-con.org